houses, once termed Middle Row, and above the jumble of tiled roofs
here rises like a watch-tower a most curious and interesting medieval
house known as the "Bird Cage Inn." About this structure little is
known; it is, however, referred to in an old document as the "tenement
called the Cage, demised to James Rosse by indenture for the term of
100 years, yielding therefor by the year 8s.," and appears to have
been a farm-house. The document in question is a grant of Edward IV to
Sir John William of the Charity or Guild of St. Christopher in Thame,
founded by Richard Quartemayne, _Squier_, who died in the year 1460.
This house, though in some respects adapted during later years from
its original plan, is structurally but little altered, and should be
taken in hand and _intelligently_ restored as an object of local
attraction and interest. The choicest oaks of a small forest must have
supplied its framework, which stands firm as the day when it was
built. The fine corner-posts (now enclosed) should be exposed to view,
and the mullioned windows which jut out over a narrow passage should
be opened up. If this could be done--and not overdone--the "Bird Cage"
would hardly be surpassed as a miniature specimen of medieval timber
architecture in the county. A stone doorway of Gothic form and a kind
of almery or safe exist in its cellars.

A school was founded at Thame by Lord John Williams, whose recumbent
effigy exists in the church, and amongst the students there during the
second quarter of the seventeenth century was Anthony Wood, the Oxford
antiquary. Thame about this time was the centre of military operations
between the King's forces and the rebels, and was continually being
beaten up by one side or the other. Wood, though but a boy at the
time, has left on record in his narrative some vivid impressions of
the conflicts which he personally witnessed, and which bring the
disjointed times before us in a vision of strange and absolute