We now propose to turn eastwards for the last time and to follow the main London road along the northern boundary of Harewood Forest through Hurstbourne Priors ("Down Husband") and then past the wide expanse of Hurstbourne Park, in which stands the seat of the Earl of Portsmouth and which clothes the northern slopes of the Test valley for more than a mile with its beautiful woods and glades. Its eastern boundary is close to Whitchurch, seven miles from Andover. Whitchurch was another famous posting centre and, like Andover, a rotten borough. Here an important cross-country route from Oxford to Winchester tapped the Exeter road and here the modern ways of the Great Western and South Western cross each other at right angles. At the famous "White Hart" Newman wrote the opening part of the Lyra Apostolica while awaiting the Exeter coach in December, 1832. The great tower of All Hallows still stands, but little besides of the old building. While the restoration was in progress a Saxon headstone was brought to light. It bears a presentment of our Lord's head with the following inscription:
HIC CORPUS FRIDBURGAE REQUIESCAT
IN PACE SEPULTUM
The old chapel of Freefolk, little more than a mile out of the town, dates from 1265 and came into existence because the winter floods on the infant Test prevented the good folk of the vicinity getting into Whitchurch. The famous Laverstock Mill, where the paper for Bank of England notes has been made for two hundred years, is not far away by the side of the high road. The owners of the Mill, and of Laverstock Park, are a naturalized Huguenot family named de Portal, whose ancestors came to England and settled in Southampton during the persecution of the Protestants that followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. When Cobbett rode by the Mill he made the following unprophetic utterance:—"We passed the mill where the Mother-Bank paper is made! Thank God! this mill is likely soon to want employment. Hard by is a pretty park and house belonging to 'Squire' Portal, the paper-maker. The country people, who seldom want for sarcastic shrewdness, call it 'Rag Hall!'"
Nearly four miles from Whitchurch comes Overton, once a market but now a quiet village that shows signs of activity (apart from the ceaseless procession of motor traffic) only on one day in the year, July 18, when a great sheep fair takes place. For Overton is a centre of the great sheep-down country of north Hampshire. The church is unremarkable except that the nave has Norman pillars with arches of a later date above them. The fine old manor house near the railway station is called Quidhampton.
After passing Ashe we reach Deane, where a road to the right leads in a mile and a half to Steventon, at the rectory of which village Jane Austen was born in 1775, her father holding the incumbency for many years. As we rejoin the main road Church Oakley lies to the right at the source of the Test. Here stands a church built about 1525 by Archbishop Warham, whose ancestors lived at Malshanger, nearly two miles away to the north. After passing Worting, ten miles from Whitchurch and two from Basingstoke, that we are nearing a large town becomes apparent, and soon the gaunt and curious clock tower of Basingstoke Town Hall comes into view, a land-mark for many miles.
The "Stoke Bare-hills" of Thomas Hardy has changed the tenor of its way several times in history. It started by sending members to Parliament three hundred years before it became a borough in the reign of the first Stuart, when it was already famous as a manufactory of silks and woollens. A time of inanition followed until the great period of road travel set in, when it became the most important centre between London and Salisbury. Then with the iron way came another phase that at one time threatened to bring the town into line with Swindon, Crewe and other railway "wens"; but except for some miles of small red-brick villas, packed close together on the bleak wolds that surround the town, it has not greatly suffered and is still essentially agricultural. Quite lately a new industry has grown up here, the manufacture of farming implements.
Close to the railway station are the ruins of the chapel of the Holy Ghost, founded by Bishop Fox in 1525. They stand in the ancient cemetery which dates from the time of the Papal Interdict (1208) when, in consequence of King John's quarrel with the Pope, burial in churchyards was suspended. Basingstoke Church was built in the early sixteenth century and contains some of the old glass from the Holy Ghost Chapel.
The most interesting place in the vicinity of Basingstoke is Old Basing, two miles to the east, and ever memorable as the scene of the defence of Basing House. This magnificent mansion had been built by William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester, on the site of the original Norman castle of Basing. When the Civil War broke out, the fifth Marquis, John Paulet, decided to defend the house for the King, and gathering his friends and retainers about him, amply provisioning his cellars and "writing 'Aimez Loyalte' on every pane of his windows with the diamond of his ring," he calmly awaited the Roundheads, who were soon in possession of Basingstoke. Two hundred and fifty Royalist soldiers had already joined the garrison when the actual siege began in July, 1643. The attackers under Waller numbered seven thousand, but by December, after great losses, they were forced to withdraw. The following spring another determined effort was made to starve out the garrison, but the arrival of Colonel Gage with reinforcements from Oxford put fresh heart into the "nest of hornets," and the news that their fortress had been renamed "Basting House" by their admiring friends stiffened their resolve. During the next few months, however, religious differences within led to a weakening of the heroic defence and to the beginning of the end, and after two thousand lives had already been lost, Basing House fell to the redoubtable Cromwell in person on October 14, 1645, about one hundred of the defenders being killed in the final assault and some three hundred prisoners taken.
Of this historic site there remain but a few walls and the Gate-house. The area covered by the entrenchments was about fourteen acres and the garden must have been a place of beauty before the litter of the siege marred the trim walks and parterres. The country people were bidden help themselves when the victors departed with their prisoners, and the work of ruin was quickly complete.
Basing church, which was used in the attack on the House, is of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and contains many memorials of the Paulet family. Its outside is much more striking and handsome than its interior, which has a rather empty and featureless appearance. Not far from Basing is the great entrenchment of Winklebury Castle, over 3,000 feet round. From the edge of its commanding vallum Cromwell took the observations for his successful assault on Basing House.
Sherborne St. John, two miles north of Basingstoke, has an old church, with an ugly tower built in 1833. The Brocas brasses and the fine Jacobean pulpit are interesting. The Vyne, a celebrated mansion, is one mile farther along our road. The greater part of the building is four hundred years old, though certain additions and alterations are due to Inigo Jones. Its beautiful chapel has some old French glass, inserted in the windows in 1544, and other details of much interest.
Between the hills to the south, nearly four miles from Basingstoke, is the small village of Herriard and the neighbouring park named after it. Its Transitional church has been much rebuilt, but still contains several items of interest, including a fine chancel arch and some old stained glass. North-east of the park is the old and partly Saxon church of Tunworth, about four miles direct from Basingstoke. The Herriard road continues in a little over six miles to Alton, a pleasant and out-of-the-way old town, but with little left of its former picturesque streets. Alton is famous for its ale made from the hops grown in the immediate neighbourhood. The church has a door covered with bullet marks, a legacy from the Civil War, when the troops of the Parliament under Waller attacked the Royalists, who had fled to the church for sanctuary. A good deal of Norman work is visible in the base of the tower. The Jacobean pulpit and misericords in the choir call for remark and also the interesting "memoriall" on a pillar of the nave to the "Renowned Martialist "—Richard Boles—who defended the church during the attack referred to above.
From Alton the Meon Valley Railway follows the high road to distant Fareham on the shores of Portsmouth Harbour, and penetrates a lonely countryside, perhaps the least-known portion of Hampshire. For the first ten miles the railway and road traverse the uplands that are a continuation of the Sussex Downs and part of the great chalk range of southern England. In one of the nooks of this tableland, two miles from the station at Tisted and four from Petersfield, is Selborne, made for ever famous by Gilbert White, who lived at The Wakes, the picturesque rambling old house opposite the church. At West Meon the actual valley from which the railway takes its name is entered. The infant stream, here a mere trickle under the hedgerows, comes down from East Meon, three miles away, where there is a cruciform church containing a black Tournai font, and an old stone pulpit dating from the fifteenth century. Close by is a manor house, once the property of the Bishops of Winchester. Warnford, a mile below West Meon, has a church of great interest. It is a Norman building on the site of the first sanctuary erected for the converted Meonwaras by Wilfred of York. Several noteworthy features may be seen, including a Saxon sundial from the original church. At Corhampton two miles further south, a Saxon church still remains, though it has lost its early apsidal chancel.
The building has apparently been erected on a mound, possibly prehistoric. Droxford station is within a four-mile walk of Hambledon where, in 1774, modern cricket was first played. Droxford Church is another fine old building that, with those just enumerated, lends an added interest to this delightful valley, the scenic charm of which would alone be sufficient recompense for the trouble involved in exploring it. Customs and beliefs are more primitive and the forms of speech more archaic than in the region beyond the New Forest, and the natives have a goodly amount of the old Jutish blood in their veins, possibly more than their relatives of the Isle of Wight. The swelling hills of that delectable land fill the vista as we descend between Soberton and Wickham, where the valley divides the main portion of the ancient Forest of Bere from the scattered woodlands of Waltham Chase and, at the last-named village, widens into the lowlands that stretch between Tichfield and Fareham and the busy activities of Portsmouth.
We now near the end of our brief exploration of Wessex and, returning to Basingstoke, take the last sixteen miles of our course over the great road, straight and lonely of houses, that runs across the hills to Winchester. The Romans built up the solid foundations of the greater part of this highway which passes through no villages, though it has several within a short distance of its straight hedges and interminable telegraph posts. Near the Sun Inn, high on the chalk hills five miles from Basingstoke, a lane turns left to Dummer, worth visiting for the sake of the old unrestored church dating mostly from the early thirteenth century. The old beams and the large sixteenth-century gallery have escaped "improvement." The oak pulpit is said to date from the early fifteenth century. The most striking feature of the interior is a canopy over the chancel arch, a relic of the rood that once stood beneath it. Several interesting brasses of the At Moores, and a squint at the back of a recess, or image niche, should be noticed. George Whitfield's first ministry was in this church. Close by is the ancient manor house, partly of the fourteenth century, and on the Basingstoke side of the village is Kempshott Park, a "hunting lodge" of George IV. The bare rolling Downs reach a height of over 650 feet east of Dummer, in the neighbourhood of Farleigh Wallop and Nutley. On the other side of the Winchester highway North Waltham has a rebuilt church in "Norman" style. Steventon, the birthplace of Jane Austen, already mentioned, is but a short distance farther. East Stratton is another out-of-the-way village off the high road to the left and just beyond Stratton House, a seat of the Earl of Northbrook. A magnificent avenue of beech trees leads to Micheldever village, and also, in the opposite direction to the station, to that point on the South Western Railway where the traveller to Southampton notes that the exhausted pant of the engine has changed to an easy glide as the train passes the summit tunnel and rolls down to Winchester. The dim recesses of Micheldever wood extend to the east of the Roman road on its undulating but perfectly straight course until it drops to Headbourne Worthy.
As we descend the last few miles the ancient capital of Wessex and of England is seen ahead lying in the lap of its enfolding hills. The blunt and stern outline of the grey cathedral is softened by the misty veil, shot with mingled gold and pearl, that rests softly over the valley and that obliterates everything mean and unworthy in the scene before us. Just as the memories of great and famous days that cling round the old towns of Wessex—threads of faith and chivalry, valour and high endeavour—make an opalescent robe to hide for a moment the futilities of the present.
INDEX