Cobbett's Hampshire, 1830

	Old Hampshire Mapped

	Cobbett's Hampshire Transcription (6)
Aldern Bridge Stratfield Saye Heckfield Heath Eversley Blackwater Burghclere Hampshire Downs Highclere Hills Kingsclere Hills hills geology chalk gravel sand	previous Set off for London [from Burghclere?]. Went by Alderbridge, Crookham, Brimton, Mortimer, Stratfield Say, Heckfield Heath, Eversley, Blackwater, ... This is, with trifling exceptions, a miserably poor country. Burghclere lies along at the foot of a part of that chain of hills, which, in this part, divide Hampshire from Berkshire. The parish just named is, indeed, in Hampshire, but it forms merely the foot of the Highclere and Kingsclere Hills. These hills, from which you can see all across the country, even to the Isle of Wight, are of chalk, and with them, towards the North, ends the chalk. The soil over which I have come to-day, is generally a stony sand upon a bed of gravel.
geology clay gravel oak rushes fir forestry woods	With the exception of the land just round Crookham and the other villages, nothing can well be poorer or more villanously ugly. ... There is a clay at the bottom of the gravel; so that you have here nasty stagnant pools without fertility of soil. The rushes grow amongst the gravel; sure sign that there is clay beneath to hold the water; for, unless there be water constantly at their roots, rushes will not grow. Such land is, however, good for oaks wherever there is soil enough on the top of the gravel for the oak to get hold, and to send its tap-root down to the clay. The oak is the thing to plant here; and, therefore, this whole country contains not one single plantation of oaks! That is to say, as far as I observed. Plenty of fir-trees and other rubbish have been recently planted; but, no oaks. next

	Cobbett's Hampshire 1830, contents
	General index (to Old Hampshire Mapped)
	Old Hampshire Mapped

Text HMCMS:B1999.483