After looking around the watermill we came up to the church and saw this large long handled hook mounted on the wall. A plaque describes it as having been used by firemen to pull burning thatch from the roofs of cottages. The contraption underneath it is a man trap used to catch poachers who were trespassing on private land, ooh nasty!
Someone liked Queen Victoria enough to paint two busts of her on the front of their cottage, 1837-1897.
When we reached the road junction we were pleased to see a small convoy of little old Austin cars out for a Sunday fun run together. When they saw us taking their photos they parped their horns at us. 
This lovely old cottage had an enormous horse-shoe hung over the porch for good luck. I’d like to have seen the size of the horse that wore that! Above it to the right was an insurance plaque with a sunshine on it. This proved that their fire insurance had been paid and if the house caught fire the firemen would see it and therefore extinguish the fire. We didn’t make it as far as the Pitstone Windmill which has stood on it’s knoll since 1672, as it was hot and we were thirsty, so we we turned back to seek out the tea rooms.
The Tea Rooms were established in 2007 in an old sixteenth century house serving tasty homemade snacks, all freshly prepared. The interior walls are magnificently decorated with interesting old enamel advertising signs. We made our way through to sit out on the terrace overlooking the pretty garden. To our surprise we could just see the windmill peeping through a gap in the shrubbery. We were glad to rest a while before returning via Cooks Wharf back down the towpath to Oakfield. A round trip of about four and a half miles, phew!
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