Toward the beginning of the story, the Oxford history department is almost completed with its reconstruction of the Coventry Cathedral—a task given to them by the well off American neo-aristocrat Lady Schrapnell to pay tribute to her Victorian ancestor Tocelyn Mering, who attributed a visit to the cathedral with a noteworthy defining moment in her life. Following the obliteration of the cathedral during the Second World War, a mini mall was worked in its place. The reconstruction is just missing the bishop’s bird stump, which strangely vanished the night prior to the besieging. Historian Ned Henry has been making a trip to the 1940s to scatter deals examining the vanishing of the bird stump—an errand the group is focused because as indicated by Lady Schrapnell, "God is in the details."
However, Ned has been compelled to enjoy a reprieve from his crucial he has created "time lag" in the wake of making such a large number of bounces to the 1940s and back. His vacation reaches a sudden conclusion while, being the main accessible historian, he is sent to the Victorian time to restore an object illegally brought to the future by one of his colleagues. The prerecorded information Ned is given to set him up for his mission muddled, and he lands in 1888 uncertain of what his mission precisely or where he is intended to meet his contact.
After landing in the nineteenth century, Ned rapidly gets to know young Oxford student Terrance St. Trewes and his pet bulldog, Cyril, and consents to part the expense of a rental boat to bring down the Thames for a meeting with Tocelyn Mering, with whom Terrance professes to be in loved. En route, they salvage Terrance's master, Oxford don Professor Peddick. Fortunately for Ned, when the trio lands at the arranged meeting point, he is perceived by his contact, fellow historian Verity Brown. Verity has been acting like Verity Brown, Tocelyn's distant cousin. When the gathering lands at the Mering home in Munchings End, Oxfordshire, Verity clarifies that she was sent to the Victorian period to peruse Tocelyn's diary in which she references her groundbreaking experience with the bishop’s bird stump.
As indicated by the inadequate survives from the diary they have in 2057, this occasion incited her to abscond to America with the secretive "Mr. C." During her mission, saw Tocelyn's cat, Princess Arjumand, suffocating in the river, and took her back to 2057, where cats have become terminated because of a catlike distemper pandemic. Ned and Verity return the cat, yet when Terrance and Tocelyn declare their commitment, they become worried that they are already too delay and the time continuum has been unsalvageably disturbed. On the off chance that Tocelyn does not elope with Mr. C to America and make a fortune in Hollywood, thenLady Schrapnell may never be born. Also, if Terrance does not wed Maud Peddick he will not be the grandfather of the RAF pilot who assumes a significant job in the WWII bombing of Coventry Cathedral.
Ned and Verity organize a fake seance to empower Tocelyn's mother—a fanatic of spiritualism—to take the family on a visit to the Coventry Cathedral. In any case, nothing “life-changing” appears to happen to Tocelyn during the visit. The main remarkable moment happens when Tocelyn contends with the family's butler Baine about the stylish intrigue of the bishop’s bird stump. Tocelyn and Baine thusly have a second encounter in the garden of Munchings End and the two choose to run off to the States.
It is uncovered that Baine was a pseudonym butler was doled out by the Merings to camouflage his Irish legacy—a moderately regular practice in Victorian families where British servants were viewed as progressively lofty. Baine's real name is William Patrick Callahan, and he has been enticing Tocelyn “Taming of the Shrew-style.” The course of events fixes itself. Verity uncovers to Ned that she once bounced to the Cathedral moments before the attack and the bird stump was obviously still there. They effectively recoup the bird stump without a moment to spare for the sanctification of the reconstructed cathedral. They share a first kiss while time-traveling, implying that, actually, their kiss lasts 169 years.
