RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 



CHAPTER IV 



Eton Montem — Customs — Their origin — Collecting salt — Waving the 

 flag on the Mount ad Montem — Salt bearers — The Windmill Inn — • 

 Mr. Botham — The traffic on the Great Western road — Royalty — 

 The Playing Fields— Dr. Goodall — Dinton. 



In my numerous researches into old country 

 customs, I have been tempted to record many 

 stories, which tend to illustrate the habits and 

 customs of the English people in olden times 

 Naturally I have been better able to collect 

 materials from my native county of Bitcks than 

 elsewhere, but they afford types of other parts of 

 rural England. Some are of Parliamentary history, 

 others parochial, whilst amongst them are notes 

 referring to the glorious public school — I mean 

 ' Eton College.' I find that the first stone of the 

 chapel was laid on J uly 3, 1441, and writs were issued 

 for assembling together workmen for the speedy com- 

 pletion of the building. The school owed its founda- 

 tion to Henry VI., and it was evidently to instruct 

 in grammar those who were to take Holy Orders. 

 As old Fuller remarks, ' It was high time some school 

 should be founded, considering how low grammar 

 learning then ran in the land.' At times there was 



