ing 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.

[Illustration: CORHAMPTON.]

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