Wanderings in Wessex Part 15

Stonehenge Down; Wilsford Down to the south; Stoke Down westwards, and, in fact, the whole of the great Plain is a maze of earthworks, ditches, tumuli and relics of a past at which we can only guess. Here, if anywhere in Britain, is haunted ground and perhaps the silence of earlier writers may be explained by the existence of a kind of "taboo"

that prevented reference to the mysteries of the Plain.

The exploration of the upper Avon may be extended from Amesbury to Durrington (one mile from Bulford station), where is an old church containing fine carved oak fittings worth inspection. Across the stream is Milston, where Addison was born and his father was rector.

Higher up the river is pretty Figheldean with its old thatched cottages embowered among the huge trees that line the banks of the stream, and with a fine Early English church. The monuments in the Decorated chancel are to some of the Poores, once a notable family.

The church also contains certain unknown effigies. These were discovered at some distance from the church, probably having been thrown away during some earlier "restoration!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENFORD.]

Netheravon is famous for its Cavalry School. Of its Norman and Early English church Sydney Smith was once a curate, to his great discomfort. The tower here is very old and some have called it Saxon.

The student of _Rural Rides_ will remember that here Cobbett saw an "acre of hares!" Fittleton is another unspoilt little village, and Enford, or Avonford, the next, has a fine church unavoidably much restored after having been struck by lightning early in the nineteenth century; the Norman piers remain. All these villages gain in interest and charm to the pedestrian by being just off the high road that keeps to the west bank of the river. Upavon, however, is on a loop of this highway and sees more traffic. Here is a church with a Transitional chancel; it is said that the contemporary nave was of wood. The fine tower and present nave belong to the thirteenth century. The Norman font with its archaic carving and the fifteenth-century crucifix over the west door should be noticed. Upavon was the home of a kindred spirit to Cobbett, for here was born the once famous "Orator Hunt,"

farmer and demagogue--rare combination! He was chairman of the meeting in Manchester that had "Peterloo" as its sequel. Near Upavon, but down stream, is the small and ancient manor house of Chisenbury, until lately the property of the Groves, one of whose ancestors suffered death for his partic.i.p.ation in the rising of Colonel Penruddock during the Commonwealth.

At Rushall the narrow valley of the Avon, guarded by the opposing camps of Casterley and Chisenbury, is left for the transverse vale of Pewsey, on the farther side of which are the Marlborough Downs. A number of chalk streams drain the vale and go to make up the head-waters of the Avon; in fact two streams, both bearing the old British name for river, meet hereabouts; the one rising about two miles from Savernake station and the other about the same distance from Devizes. Along the northern slope of this vale the ca.n.a.l made to join the Kennet and Thames with yet another, the Bristol Avon, runs its lonely course. Five miles west of Rushall is the divide between the waters of the English Channel and the Severn Sea, and the Bristol Avon receives the stream that rises but a mile from its namesake of Christchurch Bay. High in one of the combes at this end of the valley is the small village of All Cannings, said to have been of much importance in the dark ages as a Saxon centre. All it has to show the visitor now is a cruciform church with Norman and Early English fragments and a good Perpendicular tower.

The villages of Pewsey Vale are many and charming. All are well served by the "short-cut" line of the Great Western, over which the Devon and Cornwall expresses now run. Across the vale, in an opposite direction to the iron way, runs the Ridgeway, a road probably in use when Stonehenge was not, and Silbury Hill, that mystery of the Marlborough Downs, was yet to be. On the western side of this old road are the villages of Patney and Chirton. At the latter is a very beautiful Transitional church. Near Beechingstoke, close to the Ridgeway, is a famous British village, the entrenchment containing about thirty acres. The old road comes down from the northern highlands between Milk Hill (964 feet) and Knap Hill, the two bluffs that rear their great bulk across the vale. Here beneath the "White Horse," a modern one cut at the beginning of the nineteenth century, are the old churches of Alton Priors and Alton Berners, the latter partly Saxon.

The road north-east from Rushall runs through Manningford Bruce. The church here is possibly Saxon; it has a semi-circular apse. On the north wall of the chancel is a tablet to Mary Nicholas with arms bearing the royal canton. This was her reward for helping Charles in his flight after the battle of Worcester. Manningford Abbots once belonged to the Abbot of Hyde. The rebuilt church is only of interest in possessing a very fine pre-Reformation chalice. Two miles farther is Pewsey, a pleasant town surrounded by the chalk hills. From those to the eastward Cobbett, when he beheld the vale stretched out before him, broke into one of those simple but graphic descriptive touches that help to make the _Rural Rides_ immortal, "A most beautiful sight it was! Villages, hamlets, large farms, towers, steeples, fields, meadows, orchards and very fine timber trees. The shape of the thing was this: on each side downs, very lofty and steep in some places, and sloping miles back in other places, but on each side out of the valley are downs. From the edge of the downs begin capital arable fields, generally of very great dimensions and in some places running a mile or two back into little cross valleys formed by hills of downs. After the corn-fields come meadows on each side, down to the brook or river.

The farmhouses, mansions, villages and hamlets are generally situated in that part of the arable land that comes nearest to the meadows.

Great as my expectations had been, they were more than fulfilled. I delight in this sort of country..... I sat upon my horse, and I looked over Milton and Easton and Pewsey for half an hour, though I had not breakfasted."

Pewsey Church has a Transitional nave and Early English chancel; the oblong tower being Perpendicular. The carved reredos was designed and worked by Canon Pleydell-Bouverie, who also made the communion rails from some timbers of the _San Josef_, a ship taken by Nelson at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. The roof of the organ chamber and vestry are of much interest; they are part of the refectory roof of Ivychurch Priory.

The country to the north of the little old town is very beautiful. The precipitous wall of the Marlborough Downs, with several lovely and little-known villages at its foot, is a remarkable feature of the landscape. The high road to Marlborough, that climbs the hills for three fatiguing miles, pa.s.ses through the small village of Oare, where there is a modern red-brick church. Not far away to the west are the hamlets of West and East Towel, lost in the lonely by ways beneath the hills. Above them in a fold of the Downs is Huish, dropped down amidst memorials of a long vanished past. Dewponds, earthworks and "hut circles" cover the hills in all directions. At Martinsell, the camp-crowned hill to the east of the high road, until recent days a festival was held, the beginnings of which may have been in Neolithic times. On Palm Sunday young men and maidens would ascend the hill carrying boughs of hazel. They would, no doubt, have been scandalized if told that the ceremony had anything but a Christian significance.

The prospect of the Vale from this hill-side, or from the high road itself, is not easily forgotten, and the beech-woods and parklands of Rains...o...b.., that fill the broad but sheltered hollow below, make a lovely foreground to the view.

We must now return to the lower end of the Vale of Wylye which has been noticed at Wilton, where the river, road and rail come down a narrow defile from Heytsbury and Warminster. This valley has on the north and east the familiar aspect of Salisbury Plain. On the south and west are those wooded hills that are seen also from the neighbourhood of Fonthill, and though both sides of the valley are made of the same material--the current chalk of Wiltshire--they are very unlike in their superficial scenery. The Wylye is perhaps the most beautiful of Wiltshire rivers, and although it has an important cross-country railway running close to it for the greater part of its length, the villages and hamlets upon the banks are peculiarly calm, secluded and unspoilt.

The high road from Salisbury to Warminster turns northwards at Fugglestone past the two Wilton stations, without entering that town and, pa.s.sing through Chilhampton and South Newton, reaches the hamlet of Stoford, which has an old inn close to the river bank. A short half mile westwards is the picturesque old village of Great Wishford, said to be derived from "welsh-ford," where the church has been so much restored that it is practically a new one. The chancel with its fine triple lancet window is Early English. The altar tomb of Sir Thomas Bonham has his effigy in a pilgrim's robe which is said to commemorate that knight's seven years' sojourn in Palestine. An incredible tradition, current among the country people, says that Lady Bonham gave birth to seven children at one time, and that the sieve, in which they were all brought to the church to be christened, hung in the old nave for many years. The fine tomb in the chancel is that of Sir Richard Grobham (1629). His helmet and banner are suspended upon the opposite wall; an old chest in the south aisle is said to have been saved from a Spanish ship by this knight.

The main road continues up the valley to Stapleford, where is a fine cruciform church with Norman arches on the south of the nave and with a door of this period on the same side. The fine sedilia and piscina in the fourteenth-century chancel should be noticed, and also the well-proportioned porch that has within it a coffin slab bearing an incised cross. Here the valley of the Winterbourne comes down from the heart of the Plain at Orcheston through Winterbourne Stoke and Berwick St. James; a lonely and thinly populated string of hamlets seldom visited by the ordinary tourist, but of much charm to those who appreciate the more unsophisticated type of English village that, alas! is becoming more rare every day. Both Berwick and Stoke have interesting old churches.

Continuing up the Wylye we reach Steeple Langford, situated in the most beautiful part of the valley. Here is a Decorated church with good details and a remarkable tomb-slab bearing an incised figure of an unknown huntsman, also a fine altar tomb of the Mompessons. The rector here in the days of the Parliament was ejected in the depth of winter with his wife and eleven children, suffering great hardship before succour reached them. Little Langford is across the stream in an exquisite situation. Deeply embowered among the trees is the small cruciform church with an interesting Norman door, showing in the tympanum, a bishop, said to represent St. Aldhelm, in the act of benediction. We may keep to the road that closely follows the railway on the south side of the stream to Wylye, a quiet little place half way up the vale. Here is a Perpendicular church with a pinnacled tower and an Early English east end. The Jacobean pulpit stood in the old church at Wilton and was brought here when that was rebuilt. A famous pre-Reformation chalice is preserved among the church plate, and the village is proud of its bells. One bears the words "Ave Maria"; another not so old is inscribed "1587 Give thanks to G.o.d." Across the stream the hamlet of Deptford stands on the main road, which goes by Fisherton de la Mere to Codford St. Mary. Here another quiet valley opens up into the Plain and leads to the remote villages of Chitterne St. Mary and All Saints, among many relics of the prehistoric past--"British" villages and circles, tumuli and ditches. Codford St.

Mary Church, though partly rebuilt, is still of interest and has a Transitional Norman chancel arch and fine Norman font. The Jacobean pulpit and Tudor altar tomb of Sir Richard Mompesson should be noticed. The altar is said to have been made from the woodwork of a derelict pulpit from St. Mary's, Oxford. Cobbett was enthusiastic about the well-being of the country and its farmers hereabouts, and was especially delighted with the rich picture that this part of the Wylye makes from the Down above. Codford is the village taken by Trollope for the scene of _The Vicar of Bulhampton_.

Codford St. Peter, where there is a railway station, has a much-restored church, practically rebuilt. The ancient sculptured stonework in the chancel, discovered during the rebuilding, is said to be Saxon. The font with its curious Norman carvings is noteworthy. On the other side of the vale are three interesting villages, beautifully placed--Stockton, Sherrington and Boyton. Stockton Church is Transitional with an Early English chancel. Its screen was erected by the former Bishop of Worcester, Dr. Yeatman-Biggs, in memory of his wife and brother. The wall separating nave and chancel is uncommon in its solidity, the small opening being more in the nature of a doorway than of a chancel arch. Two squints made it possible for the people to see the movements of the minister at the altar. In the north aisle is the canopied tomb of John Topp (1640) and on the other side of the church, that of Jerome Poticary. Both these worthies were wealthy clothiers, and the first-named built the beautiful manor house which we may still see near by. The old panelling and moulded ceilings of this mansion are very fine specimens of seventeenth-century workmanship. Jerome Poticary also built himself a fair dwelling that is now a farmhouse. The picturesque Topp almshouses and pleasant old cottages together with the charm of the natural surroundings make this village a delightful one. Sherrington once had a castle owned by the Giffards, but all that is now to be seen is the green mound where once it stood, close to the little old church. Boyton church is a fine example of the Decorated style. It has some older Early English portions. The windows in the Lambert chapel are much admired. Here are also two altar tombs; that with a figure in chain armour, cross-legged, represents the crusading Sir Alexander Giffard. An interesting discovery was made of a headless skeleton under the chancel floor, supposed to have been the remains of a Giffard who lost his head for rebellion in the reign of Edward II. Boyton Manor, a beautiful old house, is not far away. It was built in the early seventeenth century and was for a time the residence of Queen Victoria's youngest son.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOYTON MANOR.]

Upton Lovell, about a mile from Codford St. Peter, has a church, the nave of which was built in the seventeenth century. The chancel belongs to the original Transitional building. An altar tomb with an effigy in armour is supposed to be that of a Lovell of Castle Cary.

The manor was held by this family and from them the village takes its name. An unhappy story is told of one of the family, a partic.i.p.ant in the Lambert Simnel rebellion, who managed to find sanctuary here, and, perhaps through his retainers being in ignorance of his whereabouts, was starved to death in the secret chamber in which he had hidden himself. His skeleton was discovered long afterwards seated at a table with books and papers in front of it. Knook is the next village, a mile below Heytesbury. Here is a church that, in spite of ruthless restoration, has retained its Norman chancel and a south door with a fine tympanum. Also the old manor house has still much of its former dignity in spite of its change of station. Away to the north, on one of the rounded summits of Salisbury Plain, is Knook Castle, a prehistoric camp that was utilized by the Romans and possibly by the Saxons after their invasion of the west.

Heytesbury or Hegtredesbyri, seventeen miles from Salisbury, has a station half-way between the old town and Tytherington on the south, and is an ancient place that had seen its best days before the dawn of the nineteenth century. It was another of the "rotten" boroughs and fell into a period of stagnation from which the railway seems to have lately rescued it. Many new roads and houses have sprung up without, however, spoiling the appearance of this pleasant little place. The church, dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, is chiefly Early English with Transitional work in the chancel and Perpendicular in the nave. In the north transept is the Hungerford chantry, to whose founder is due the chantry seen in Salisbury Cathedral. The south transept contains a tablet in memory of William Cunnington (1810), to whose researches the antiquaries of Wiltshire owe a great deal of their information. This church was made collegiate by Bishop Joscelyn in the twelfth century.

Heytesbury Hospital was founded by Lord Treasurer Hungerford, whose badge, two sickles, may be seen over the entrance. In the beautiful park are some magnificent beeches and a group of cedars below the fir-clad Copley Hill which is crowned by a prehistoric camp.

At Tytherington there is another church, very small and old and once a prebend of Heytesbury. In the early days of the last century service was only performed here four times a year, and a legend was once related to the writer of a dog that had been accidentally shut up in this church at one service and found alive and released at the next, ten weeks later! A mile farther is Sutton Veny, where there are two churches, a fine new one, and an old ruined building of which the chancel is kept in repair as a mortuary chapel. The manor house is picturesque and rambling, as is the village itself, straggling along the road to Warminster. At the upper end of the street a cross road on the right leads to Morton Bavant and to the main route on the north side of the stream. The partly rebuilt church is of little interest, excepting perhaps the arch of chalk that supports the fourteenth-century tower, but the village deserves the adjective "sweet." The stream, although now of small size, and the surrounding hills that rise close by into Scratchbury Camp, make a lovely setting for the mellow old cottages and bright gardens that one may hope are as good to live in as they are to look at. Close by the village certain Roman pavements were found in 1786, but the site is now uncertain and the mosaics have been lost. At the cross roads just referred to, the left-hand road climbs the hill to the Deverills--Longridge, Hill, Buxton, Monkton and Kingston, pleasant hamlets all, of which the first has the most to show. Here is a fine church partly built of chalk and containing the tomb of the Sir John Thynne who made Longleat. The old almshouses were founded by his descendant, Sir James, in 1665. In Hill Deverill Church is a monumental record of the Ludlows. To this family General Ludlow, of the Army of the Parliament, belonged. Beyond the last of the Deverills is Maiden Bradley, alone with its guardian hills, which ring it round with summits well over 800 feet above the sea. Long Knoll is the monarch of this miniature range and well repays the explorer who climbs to its summit with a most delightful view. In Maiden Bradley Church is the tomb of Sir Edward Seymour, Speaker of the House in the reign of Charles II, and a fine Norman font of Purbeck marble.

Resuming the route northwards from Sutton Veny, Bishopstrow is soon reached. Above the village to the north is the great rounded hill called Battlesbury Camp, crowned with the usual entrenchments and surrounded by the curious "lynchets" or remains of ancient terrace cultivation. Bishopstrow Church dates from 1757, when it replaced a building with Saxon foundations and east end. The main road is now taken on the north bank of the stream and in two miles, or twenty-one _direct_ from Salisbury, we arrive at the old town called, no one knows why, Warminster. It may be that the Were, the small stream or brook running into Wylye gives the first syllable, but that St. Deny's Church was ever a minster there is no evidence, though it is occasionally so called by the townspeople. Now quite uninteresting, the church was rebuilt some thirty years or more ago. In High Street, close to the Town Hall, is the chantry of St. Lawrence, still keeping its old tower but otherwise rebuilt. For its age and situation Warminster retains little that is ancient, but it is a pleasant and very healthy town, 400 feet above the sea. Here, in the early nineteenth century, two eminent Victorians--Dr. Arnold and Dean Stanley--received their first education at the old Grammar School.

St. Boniface College, established in 1860, is a famous house of training for missionaries. Warminster has "no villainous gingerbread houses running up and no nasty shabby-genteel people; no women trapesing about with showy gowns and dirty necks, no Jew-looking fellows with dandy coats, dirty shirts and half heels to their shoes.

A really nice and good town" (Cobbett).

The great show-place and excursion from Warminster is Longleat. To reach the great house and famous grounds we take the western road which reaches the confines of the park in a little over four miles and pa.s.ses under the imposing ma.s.s of Cley Hill, an isolated eminence of about 900 feet, on the summit of which a curious "ceremony" used to take place, as at Martinsell, on Palm Sunday. The boys and young men from neighbouring villages would ascend the hill to play a game with sticks and b.a.l.l.s. Not one could say why, but that it was "always done." Undoubtedly this was an unconscious reminiscence of a pagan spring festival.

Longleat is indeed a "stately home of England" and one of the most famous of those larger mansions that are more in the nature of permanent museums for the benefit of the public than of homes for their fortunate possessors. In normal times the galleries are open on two or three days in the week, according to the seasons, and holiday crowds come long distances to see the magnificent house and its still more splendid surroundings, perhaps more than to inspect the art treasures which form the nominal attraction. Still these are very fine and should, if possible, be seen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LONGLEAT.]

The origin of "Long Leat"--the long shallow stream of pond and lakelets artificially widened and dammed--was, like that of so many other great houses, a monastic one. An Augustinian Priory stood here before the Dissolution, but when the Great Dispersal took place it had already decayed and no great tragedy occurred. Protector Somerset had a young man attached to his retinue, and in his confidence, named Sir John Thynne who, when his master lost his head, very adroitly kept his own, afterwards marrying the heiress of a great London merchant--Sir Thomas Gresham. This enabled the husband to add greatly to the small property he had already purchased, which included the old priory buildings, and the altered state of his fortunes prompted him to erect a stately residence on the old site. His first efforts were destroyed by a disastrous fire, but in 1578 the stately house was finished and, as far as the exterior is concerned, was practically as we see it to-day. The interior was entirely remodelled at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Sir Jeffrey Wyatville. James Thynne--"Tom of Ten Thousand "--was the Lord of Longleat in 1682. He was engaged to the beautiful sixteen-year-old widow of Lord Ogle, when she had the misfortune to attract the attention of Count Konigsmark, a Polish adventurer, whose hired a.s.sa.s.sins waylaid and shot Thynne in Pall Mall. The Count escaped punishment, but his instruments were hanged upon the scene of the crime. The property then pa.s.sed to a cousin who became the first Viscount Weymouth. The third Viscount was made Marquis of Bath when he was the host of George III in 1789. A famous guest of the first Viscount was Bishop Ken, who stayed at Longleat for many years as an honoured visitor.

Amongst the treasures on the walls of the corridors and saloons are several Holbeins, portraits of contemporaries of his, including Henry VIII. There are also a number by Sir Peter Lely, one being of Bishop Ken and another of his friend and host; several interesting paintings of celebrated men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and some good representative examples of great artists from Raphael to Watts.

The grand staircase and state drawing-room are of admirable proportions and form part of the work of Wyatville. In the drawing-room is treasured a cabinet of coral and a writing tablet which belonged to Talleyrand. The great hall, which contains a collection of armour and ancient implements of war of much importance and value, has a fine wooden roof and minstrels' gallery. Among the stags' horns that decorate the walls will be seen two mighty headpieces that once belonged to Irish elks and were discovered in a peat bog. The chimney-piece here belongs to the period before Wyatville began his transformation of the interior.

Not least of the attractions of Longleat are its surroundings. The park is sixteen miles round, and a large portion of this great s.p.a.ce is taken up by garden and pleasaunce, as distinct from the deer park itself. The approach from Warminster and the north is by a wooded ascent with Cley Beacon to the right and past "Heaven's Gate," a favourite view-point with Bishop Ken, who, it is said, composed the morning hymn a.s.sociated with his name while contemplating the inspiring scene before him. Almost as fine is the approach from the south through the arched gateway on the Horningsham road. This route pa.s.ses through groves of magnificent timber and by the string of delightful ponds that give the place its name.

The road that hugs the Plain on its western side goes almost directly north from Warminster and, pa.s.sing Upton Scudamore, reaches Westbury in less than four miles. The history of this old town is closely bound up with that of the kings of Wess.e.x and at Westbury Leigh is a site called the "Palace Garden," encircled by a moat said to have once been the residence of these monarchs. The Westbury White Horse is supposed to have been cut as a memorial of the great victory of Alfred over the Danes in 890 (or 877). In the later Middle Ages, this town, like many others in the west, was a centre of the cloth trade, and, later, iron foundries were a feature of the place.

The handsome cruciform church, in the midst of its fine chestnut trees, is of much interest. Originally Norman, the greater part of the present building is early Perpendicular. The dingified central tower and the s.p.a.ciousness of the interior will be admired. On the south of the chancel is the Willoughby Chapel, on the north, that of the Maudits. The south transept contains a monument of Sir James Ley, created Earl of Marlborough by Charles I. The chained book, a copy of Erasmus' _Paraphrase_, and also the fine, though modern, stained gla.s.s in the east and west windows is worthy of notice.

A new suburb has grown up on the western side between the original town and the railway junction nearly a mile away and the immediate surroundings of the station, as we enter it from the south, are reminiscent of a northern industrial town. Smoke and clangour, and odours not often met with in Wiltshire, are very insistent. Not so many years ago Westbury was in a backwater, if that term may be applied to railways, but now that it is on the new main route to Devon and Cornwall the industrial aspect of the town may increase greatly during the next few years.

Frome, six miles away over the border in Somersetshire and on this same new way to the west, has shaken off its ancient air of bucolic peace and now prints books and weaves cloth and does a little in the manufacture of art metal work. The town, nevertheless, is very pleasant despite its strenuous endeavour to make money in a way Mercian rather than West Saxon. Its broad market place and steep and picturesque streets leading thereto, especially that one named "Cheap," and the rural throng that congregates on market and fair days is distinctly that of Wess.e.x. Frome Church is more beautiful within than without. It is approached, however, by a picturesque and steep ascent of steps, on the left-hand wall of which are sculptures of the Stations of the Cross. The church is extraordinary for the number of its side chapels and its amazing mixture of styles, but the interior has an air of much dignity and even beauty, which was greatly added to by a restoration which took place during the fifties of the last century. Perhaps the most interesting item about the church is the tomb of Bishop Ken, who was brought here from Longleat "at sunrising." His body lies just without the east window and the grave is thus described by Lord Houghton:--

A basket-work where bars are bent, Iron in place of osier; And shapes above that represent A mitre and a crosier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROME CHURCH.]

Again we have been tempted too far afield and must return to the eastern road out of Westbury that follows the Great Western Railway to Bratton, not far from Edington station. Above to the right, on one of the western bastions of the Plain, is the White Horse just mentioned.

It is of great size--180 feet long and 107 in height. It was "restored" many years ago and the ancient grotesque outline altered by vandals who should have known better. Above the figure is the great entrenched camp called Bratton Castle, containing within its walls 23 acres. Bratton Church is built in a peculiar situation against the side of the Down. The fine cruciform structure, with a handsome four storied central tower, dates from about 1420 and occupies the site of an older building, probably Norman. The bra.s.s to Seeton Bromwich (1607) should be noticed. We now proceed by the northern foot of the hills to Edington, where is one of the most beautiful churches in Wiltshire, exceeding in its proportions and dignity some of our smaller cathedrals. It was originally the church of a monastery of Augustinians founded in 1352 by William of Edyngton, Bishop of Winchester. A tragedy took place here in 1450 during the Cade rebellion, when the Bishop of Salisbury (Ayscough) was seized by the rioters while he was celebrating ma.s.s, taken to the summit of the Downs and there stoned to death. A chapel was afterwards built on the spot, but the exact site is uncertain. The Bishop's fault was that, being constantly with the Court, his diocese was neglected and his flock suffered.

The church was both conventual and parochial; the nave, as usual in such cases, being the people's portion. The chancel, both in proportions and detail, is a very fine example of the Decorated style.

In the south transept is a beautiful altar tomb with a richly carved canopy; the occupant is unknown. So is the resting-place of Bishop Ayscough. Another fine monument is that in the nave to Sir Ralph Cheney (1401). The beautiful and original fourteenth-century gla.s.s should be noticed and also the Jacobean pulpit. Of the conventual buildings nothing remains, but a few fragments of the succeeding mansion of the Pauletts are now incorporated in a neighbouring farmhouse. A magnificent yew in the churchyard probably antedates the present church, and may have been contemporary with an earlier parish church of which all record has been lost.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WESTBURY WHITE HORSE.]

The road goes onward through the charming villages nestling under the northern bastions of the Plain that is still on the right hand as it was at Heytesbury. We are now on the opposite side with lonely Imber four miles away over the hills, the only settlement between the former town and Edington. "If one would forsake the world let him go to Imber," says a modern writer, and an old couplet runs "Imber on the Down, four miles from any town." After pa.s.sing Coulston and Erlestoke (a gem among beautiful hamlets), from rising ground near by, may be obtained truly glorious views of the west country toward Bath and Bristol and the distant Severn Sea. A lane now turns left to Cheverell, where is a fine old mansion with an interesting courthouse and cells for prisoners, and an Early English church with a Perpendicular tower. Within the church is a tablet to Sir James Stonehouse, of interest to those who have explored the Plain, for this was the "Mr. Johnson" of Hannah More's _Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_ and the cottage in which the shepherd--David Saunders--lived is still shown in the village.

We now approach a parting of the ways. The Salisbury-Devizes road crosses that we have been travelling, which runs west and east from Frome to Andover. Southwards toward Salisbury is the pleasant little town of West Lavington. Here is a famous college for farmers known as the Dauntsey School. It was endowed in 1895, partly from certain moneys left by Alderman Dauntsey who flourished in the fifteenth century. The Dauntsey almshouses were also an inst.i.tution a.s.sociated with this benevolent merchant. The church is an interesting building of various dates, from Norman to Perpendicular. The Dauntsey chapel was erected on the south side in the early fifteenth century for the family of that name; another, called the Beckett chapel, stands to the south of the chancel. A fine altar tomb, one of two in the south transept, bears a rec.u.mbent effigy of Henry Danvers. Among other objects of interest is the memorial of Captain Henry Penruddocke, shot by soldiers of the Parliament, while asleep in one of the houses of the village. The road through West Lavington leads to the heart of the Plain at Tilshead, pa.s.sing at its highest point St. John a Gore Cross, where a chantry chapel once stood, a shrine where travellers might make their orisons before braving the terrors of the great waste.

Tilshead met with a curious misfortune in 1841, according to the inscription on one of the cottages. A great flood, caused by a very sudden thaw which liberated some miles of snow-water on the higher portions of the Plain, tore down the narrow (and usually waterless) valley and caused great destruction in the tiny village; the old Norman church being the only building that was quite undamaged. Market Lavington is farther east on the Pewsey road. It was once of some importance and is one of those decayed towns that almost justify Cobbett's claim that the population in the valleys around the Plain was very much greater in olden days. The church here has a fine Perpendicular tower, and is partly of this style and partly Decorated.

Within will be observed a squint, an ancient credence table in the chancel, and a stoup in the vestry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORCH HOUSE, POTTERNE.]

Our road now runs northward past Lavington station to Potterne, three miles from the Lavington cross roads and eleven from Westbury. This is one of the most attractive villages in Wiltshire; remarkable for its half-timbered houses of the fifteenth century, especially that known as "Porch House," purchased and restored by the late George Richmond.

This is supposed to be identical with the old Pack Horse Inn that once stood in the village. Potterne Church is a fine example of Early English, and the natural dignity of the building is enhanced by its domination of the village around it. It is said to have been built by the same Bishop Poore who erected Salisbury Cathedral, and is the only church on the present site. An earlier building was once in the old churchyard. The Perpendicular tower will be admired for its proportions and detail. When restorations were in progress in 1872 the archaic tub-shaped font, now standing at the end of the church, was discovered under the present font. Around the rim are inscribed the words of the ancient baptismal office:--SICUT. GERVUS. DESIDERAT. AD.

FONTES AQUARUM. ITA. DISIDERAT. ANIMA. MEA. AD. TE. DS. AMEN. (Psalm xlii. 1). There are several interesting bra.s.ses and memorials in the church and outside on the north side will be seen an old dole table for the distribution of alms.

Two miles of pleasant undulating road now bring us to Devizes upon its hill beyond the railway. The town kept, until about a hundred years ago, its old style "The Devizes"--Ad Divisas,[4] the place where the boundaries of three manors met. This is the generally accepted explanation of the name, though there is still room for conjecture.

Remains, considerable in the aggregate, of the Roman period have been discovered in the town and immediate neighbourhood. It is quite possible that a Roman origin of the town itself may be looked for; but it is as a feudal stronghold hold that Devizes began to make its history and as a humble dependency of that stronghold the modern town took its beginning. The castle was built by Bishop Roger in the early years of Henry I, and its chief function seems to have been that of a prison. Robert, the eldest son of the Conqueror, was shut up in it.

Soon afterwards, its builder, having taken the side of Maud in her quarrel with Stephen, was imprisoned in a beast house belonging to the castle, when the king, in one of his smaller successes, took possession. Another notable prisoner was Hubert de Burgh, who escaped and flew to St. John's Church for sanctuary; his gaolers recaptured him at the altar, but soon afterwards gave him liberty on being threatened with the wrath of the Church. During the reign of Edward III the nephews of the French king were kept here as hostages. Its last appearance in history was during the Civil War, when the keep was defended by Sir Edward Lloyd for the King, but according to Leland it must by that time have fallen into evil state, for, in 1536, he writes: "It is now in ruine and parte of the front of the towres of the gate of the kepe and the chapell in it were caried full unprofitably, onto the buyldynge of Master Baintons place at Bromeham full four miles of," and after Cromwell had "slighted" it, the remnants, goodly enough even then, were used as a free quarry by anyone desiring to build. The mound and ditch that surrounded the outer walls and a few fragments of the masonry of a dungeon is all that can be seen to-day, but the mound is crowned by a modern and rather imposing castellated building.