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John Keble's Parishes By: Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901) |
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PREFACE To explain the present undertaking, it should be mentioned that a
history of Hursley and North Baddesley was compiled by the Reverend
John Marsh, Curate of Hursley, in the year 1808. It was well and
carefully done, with a considerable amount of antiquarian knowledge.
It reached a second edition, and a good deal of it was used in
Sketches of Hampshire, by John Duthy, Esq. An interleaved copy
received many annotations from members of the Heathcote family.
There was a proposal that it should be re edited, but ninety years
could not but make a great difference in these days of progress, so
that not only had the narrative to be brought up to date, but further
investigations into the past brought facts to light which had been
unknown to Mr. Marsh. It was therefore judged expedient to rewrite the whole, though,
whenever possible, the former Curate's work has been respected and
repeated; but he paid little attention to the history of Otterbourne,
and a good deal has been since disclosed, rendering that village
interesting. Moreover, the entire careers of John Keble and Sir
William Heathcote needed to be recorded in their relations to the
parish and county. This has, therefore, here been attempted,
together with a record of the building of the three churches erected
since 1837, and a history of the changes that have taken place;
though the writer is aware that there is no incident to tempt the
reader no siege of the one castle, no battle more important than the
combat in the hayfield between Mr. Coram and the penurious steward,
and, till the last generation, no striking character. But the record
of a thousand peaceful years is truly a cause of thankfulness, shared
as it is by many thousand villages, and we believe that a little
investigation would bring to light, in countless other places, much
that is well worth remembrance. For the benefit of those who take an interest in provincial dialect,
some specimens are appended, which come from personal knowledge. The lists of birds and of flowers are both from the actual
observation of long residents who have known the country before, in
many instances, peculiarities have faded away before the march of
progress. The writer returns many warm thanks to those who have given much
individual assistance in the undertaking, which could not have been
attempted without such aid. C. M. YONGE.
ELDERFIELD, OTTERBOURNE,
18th June 1898. CHAPTER I MERDON AND OTTERBOURNE The South Downs of England descend at about eight miles from the sea
into beds of clay, diversified by gravel and sand, and with an upper
deposit of peaty, boggy soil, all having been brought down by the
rivers of which the Itchen and the Test remain. On the western side of the Itchen, exactly at the border where the
chalk gives way to the other deposits, lies the ground of which this
memoir attempts to speak. It is uneven ground, varied by
undulations, with gravelly hills, rising above valleys filled with
clay, and both alike favourable to the growth of woods. Fossils of
belemnite, cockles (cardium), and lamp shells (terebratula) have been
found in the chalk, and numerous echini, with the pentagon star on
their base, are picked up in the gravels and called by the country
people Shepherds' Crowns or even fossil toads. Large boulder stones
are also scattered about the country, exercising the minds of some
observers, who saw in certain of them Druidical altars, with channels
for the flow of the blood, while others discerned in these same
grooves the scraping of the ice that brought them down in the Glacial
age. But we must pass the time when the zoophytes were at work on our
chalk, when the lamp shells rode at anchor on shallow waves, when the
cockles sat "at their doors in a rainbow frill," and the belemnites
spread their cuttlefish arms to the sea, and darkened the water for
their enemies with their store of ink. Nor can we dwell on the deer which left their bones and horns in the
black, boggy soil near the river, for unfortunately these were
disinterred before the time when diggers had learnt to preserve them
for museums, and only reported that they had seen remains... Continue reading book >>
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