ake Forest. Although nominally still a market town, it is really
but a large village. It is mentioned in the Saxon records as the scene
of a battle between the men of Wessex and those of Mercia in the great
struggle for domination in 675. The cruciform church is a fine
structure, mostly built of flint and dating from Transitional times.
The chancel is Early English and the transepts Decorated, but the nave
is of the older style with fine ornamentation. In the chancel will be
noticed the effigy of Sir John Seymour (1536), the father of Protector
Somerset. A brass commemorates another John Seymour, brother of the
Protector. There is also a monument to a daughter of Robert Devereux,
Earl of Essex. In the south transept is an effigy, cross legged, of
Sir Adam de Stokke (1312) and a plain slab with an incised cross of
another of his family. The church has a quantity of stained glass of
much beauty. An ancient Market Hall once stood in the centre of the
spacious main street; while it stood the villagers were reminded of
the vanished glories of Bedwyn. The road proceeds past Chisbury Hill,
a prehistoric camp on the Wansdyke. Within the earthwork is a barn
that was once the Decorated church of St. Martin. Mr. A.H. Allcroft
thinks that the original building was erected shortly after the drawn
battle between Wessex and Mercia that took place on the Downs
hereabouts in 675. Froxfield is reached just short of the Berkshire
border and the way accompanies the railway and canal through Little
Bedwyn, where is a stone-spired church dating from the early
thirteenth century. Froxfield Church is outside the village on a hill.
It is a small and ancient Norman building, quaint and picturesque. The
old Somerset Hospital here was founded in 1686 by Sarah Duchess of
Somerset for thirty widows of the clergy and others; about half that
number are now maintained in the beautiful old buildings, grouped
round a quadrangle high above the road.

At Hungerford, the first town in Berkshire, over nine miles _direct_
from Marlborough, we return to the Kennet. The townsmen are proud of
the fact that their liberties were given them by John of Gaunt, who
held the Royal Manor, which afterwards became the property of the
town, and as proof of the charter they still show the stranger a
famous horn presented to the burgesses by the great Duke of Lancaster.
A fierce battle is said to have raged on the banks of the Kennet
between West Saxons and Danes, where now