f the ancient screen and rood-loft still remain, together with a
piscina in the chancel. It is said that the upper part of the pulpit
was at one time used as a font. The old font, restored, for many years
formed part of the wall of the churchyard. The road continues up the
long tongue of Okeford Hill with wide retrospective views. At the
summit a by-way turns to the right along the ridge, which gradually
increases in height until it reaches its summit three miles away at
Bulbarrow Hill (902 feet) just above Rawlsbury Camp. The magnificent
view up Blackmore Vale and northwestwards toward Yeovil is worth the
journey to see. Rawlsbury is a prehistoric circular entrenchment with
a double wall and ditch. Stoke Wake village is just below and
Mappowder is about two miles away by the fields, but much farther by
road. This last is an old-world hamlet eight miles from a railway,
where curfew is still rung in the winter. In the church is an
interesting miniature effigy that probably marks the shrine of a
crusader's heart.

Continuing over Okeford Hill the road presently drops to Turnworth
House at the head of a long narrow valley leading down to a string of
"Winterborne" villages (or more correctly--Winter_bourne_). The
situation of the mansion and village is very beautiful and very
lonely. Few seem to wish to brave the long ascent of the hill and one
can pass from Okeford to Turnworth many times without meeting a
solitary wayfarer. Turnworth Church is Early English, rebuilt on the
exact lines of the old fabric and retaining the ancient tower.

The first of the Winterbournes--Strickland, lies a long mile beyond
Hedgend Farm, where we turn sharp to the left and traverse a very
lonely road, sometimes between close woods and rarely in sight of
human habitation until the drop to the Stour brings us to Blandford
Forum, a pleasant, bright and clean town built within a wide loop of
the river that here begins to assume the dignity of a navigable
stream, crawling lazily among the water meadows, with back-waters and
cuts that bring to mind certain sections of the Upper Thames. The two
fine thoroughfares--Salisbury and East Streets--which meet in the wide
market place are lined with buildings, dating from 1732 or later, for
in 1731 a great fire, the last of a series, destroyed almost the whole
of the town and its suburbs. The old town pump, now a drinking
fountain, records that it was "humbly erected ... in grateful
Acknowledgement of the