HISTORIC OLD CLOCK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19785, 10 May 1926, Page 14

HISTORIC OLD CLOCK.

TICKING FOR 400 YEARS. RELICS OF OLDEST ENGLAND. East Hendred, in Berkshire, an easy motor run from London, where the historic old clock which has ticked away in the church tower for four centuries has stopped work for the first recorded time, has a local history which is an epitome of English history. The old clock was made in Wantage, near by, and every three hours during the 400 years it has been in place it is said to have played the Angels* Hymn from the ancient office of the English Church. The manoi of East Hendred belongs tc the Eystons, who occupy a Tudor house which is placed in a situation of peculiar intimacy with the smaller houses of the village. They were already established as landowners in Middlesex when an heirs of the De Arches family brought them the manor of East Hendred. The De Arches, in their turn, had inherited the manor through the De Tubeville familv, which interested Hardy to such a notable result. Tlie Eystons have always belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, and from this fact has arisen a position in East Hendred which interests students of ecclesiastical history. A private chanel, usually locked, is the private possession uf the Eystons, although it is part of the fabric of the parish church of St Angus tine, one of the oldest churches in Eng land. The family vaults and monuments of the Eystons are in this little chapel, known as the chapel of St Amand. and with access from the manor grounds, but after the passing of the Catholic Emanci pation Act the family built and endowed a new Roman Catholic church for the village. Aim. the top of the Downs near the village runs the ancient ridgeway, a British road, and ,in a near-hv hill, Cwichelshley of old. New Scufcbamoor Knob to the country people, a great British king lies buried who resisted the invasion of the Danes and the Saxons when Hicy swept over the countryside.