This week the RSPCA won a prosecution against the Heythrop Hunt in a case made especially high profile, as the Heythrop is local to the media-hyped ‘Chipping Norton Set’ and a hunt that British Prime Minister David Cameron has ridden with.

The conviction was for intentionally hunting a fox with dogs, a pursuit that’s been illegal in England and the UK since 2005. Not that Oxford District Judge Tim Pattinson was especially pleased, as he criticised the RSPCA for spending some £330,000 on the case, suggesting that the animal charity’s funds might be better spent elsewhere.

It’s an example of Chief Executive Gavin Grant’s policy of making the RSPCA a headline-hungry organization. Whatever you think of foxes and fox-hunting, the RSPCA is unusual for its income sources – with annual funding of around £116 million, almost half comes from legacies in people’s wills. Whether they would have approved of spending huge sums on court cases, rather than on simple animal welfare is a point for discussion.

Back to the RSPCA, it started to move beyond pet concern to wider issues decades ago, and today looks after farm and laboratory animals as well. Patrons include the Queen and Archbishop of Canterbury, with Professor Peter Singer as honorary vice president. He wrote ‘Animal Liberation’, an important early animal rights book, so the Heythrop case is hardly a step into the unknown.

According to the RSPCA, all its donors and members are against abusing animals, and general reaction has been “overwhelmingly in favour”, not forgetting that the Heythrop case was just one of thousands of convictions obtained over the past year.

Still, the RSPCA has to take care with reactions to its policies. Membership is presently just over the 26,000 mark – a decade ago, it was more than 47,000.

Heythrop village itself is little more than a hamlet, 2-3 miles from Chippy. It consists of a handsome church (above) and various houses, though one particular line of these is interesting, as they were built in the 1870s and 1880s as a ‘model’ village by local politician Albert Brassey, who lived in the classically-styled Heythrop Hall country house. At the steeple’s base are a plaque and stonework commemorating local men who died in the two World Wars (below).

Heythrop pictures: David Jefferis. Others courtesy Malene Thyssen (fox), Thowra uk (hound), George Jansoone (engraving).

A lunchtime chat with a friend had me tracking down an ancient monument called the Hawk Stone, near Dean, the hamlet where British Prime Minister David Cameron lives.

My Ordnance Survey map showed the Hawk Stone to be off an adjacent country lane, perhaps in a field or next to a public footpath, and that’s where it proved to be, standing alone, an upright chunk of limestone some 7-8 feet high.

Not much is known about this piece of ancient history, which must weigh a tonne or more, not least because there has to be a goodly amount below the ground for it to have remained upright down the years.

So why was the Hawk Stone erected? One theory reckons it formed part of a burial chamber, another that there was once an associated ring of standing stones – and do note in the pic above that someone has surrounded it with a mini-ring of rocks. My own dowsing rods indicated various alignments, perhaps even an east-west ley line, connecting to the Rollright Stones a few miles away.

My favourite origins theory is that the Hawk Stone was used to tie down captured witches, using chains hooked through a hole in the top. Mind you, one colourful idea reckons that the stone was towed to its position by such an old hag… so who knows!

As for the name, it could have been connected with the bird, or – perhaps as likely – a version of the old word ‘hoar’, meaning old. And talking of hoar, there is a Hoar Stone and burial mound not far away, which I’ll be writing about soon, so do return to the The English Eye for a look.

If you like classic cars, then the biennial Churchill Vintage and Classic Car Show is a must-see event, held on the wide sweep of Churchill’s village green. This pretty Cotswold community is just a 15-minute cycle ride from the TEE base in Chipping Norton, and is a near-neighbour of the Top Gear TV show presenter Jeremy Clarkson; Prime Minister David Cameron also lives a few minutes away.

The show was a powerful reminder of past names in the auto world, including one of the most popular world marques, Austin. A confident, chrome-plated ‘Austin of England’ logo in flowing italic script was applied to Austin cars in the early 1950s, as both decoration and product differentiator. According to some reports, parts suppliers from non-English parts of the UK were not so happy about its use, though this doesn’t ring quite true to TEE, as the terms ‘Made in England’ and ‘Made in Great Britain’ were used by many manufacturers, particularly for export markets, as they were seen as respected badges of quality in many markets.

No matter: at the time, the country – and Austin – were still recovering from World War II, during which Austin, based in Longbridge, Birmingham, still built cars but also made trucks and assembled aircraft, including the Avro Lancaster bombers of the famed ‘Dambusters’ 617 squadron. Planning for post-war production started while the war still raged, and a new car range was announced in 1944, with production getting underway the following year. The immediate post-war range was similar to Austin’s late-1930s cars, though one important technical breakthrough included a new overhead-valve engine.

The Austin of England title was promoted everywhere: on the cars, it was applied along the side, in front of the door, as shown in the splendid Mark Fosh picture of an Austin Somerset convertible shown above. The logoscript also featured in adverts and sales materials, and very good it looked too. Sadly for enthusiasts, a combination of takeovers and political meddling led eventually to Austin’s demise, and the marque is currently owned by SAIC Motor, of Shanghai, China. SAIC also owns another classic name, MG, which may well be in good hands, for in SAIC’s words, “Our job at MG Motor is to take this great brand, full of history and heritage and give it a worthy future.”

The 2012 Churchill Vintage and Classic Car Show was held in a relentlessly cool and damp summer, but the rain held off and a great day was had by all. Enjoy the Austin pictures we took there with the trusty iPhone 4S – and maybe pencil in your diary for a visit in 2014.

Click here for the Churchill and Sarsden website, which has details and more photos, and enjoy some of the other cars, shown below.