OTH HALL, NEWBURY.]

A charming excursion can be taken to Lambourne, up in the heart of the
chalk hills to the north-west. This was one of King Alfred's towns,
and until the coming of the light railway one of the most unknown and
remote in the kingdom. Railway and road follow the course of the
Lambourne, a delightful river, clear and cold from the chalk and never
seeming to run dry, as do other streams of a like nature in
exceptionally hot summers. Another railroad goes directly north from
Newbury and forms the main route between Oxford and Winchester. This
also penetrates the heart of the Berkshire uplands and taps a district
inexhaustible in charm and interest, in the centre of which is
Wantage, famous as the birthplace of Alfred. But this country has been
fully described by Mr. Ditchfield in "Byeways in Berkshire."

The Bath road in a little over three miles from Newbury reaches
Thatcham, once, by all accounts, a large and prosperous market town,
but this was in the days of the Angevin kings. The great market square
probably dates from their time and the battered remains of the old
market cross may have replaced a still more ancient one. The fine
church has a Norman door and Transitional arcading, but a very
thorough "restoration" has obliterated most of the ancient features.
The Danvers and Fuller tombs should be seen, also an interesting brass
to Thomas Loundye. The fabric of a chantry chapel at the other end of
the village dates from 1334, but it was much altered in externals in
the early eighteenth century, when it was turned into a school.

The Bath-London road that we have travelled from Marlborough now
approaches the most beautiful stretches of the Kennet, lined with fine
parklands on the gentle northern slopes of the valley. The high hedges
and fences are in places very jealous of the beauties they encircle,
but there are charming glimpses here and there of this pleasant
countryside. Woolhampton, with a modern church of no particular
interest, is passed four miles from Thatcham, and two miles farther
comes Aldermaston Station, where we leave the great highway and turn
south to Aldermaston Wharf on the Kennet Canal. This is a most
pleasant spot, and to enhance the charm of the surroundings a large
sheet of ornamental water has been formed, close to, and fed by, the
channel. Aldermaston village is nearly two miles to the south-west and
well-placed among the wooded hills that march with the Hampshire
border.