Hurstbourne Tarrant
North Hampshire Hills
Hampshire Downs
hills
flint
wheat
chalk
geology
sheep
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UPHUSBAND, once more, and, for the sixth time this year, over the
North Hampshire Hills, which, not withstanding their everlasting
flints, I like very much. As you ride along even in a green lane
the horses' feet make a noise like hammering. It seems as you
were riding on a mass of iron. Yet the soil is good, and bears
some of the best wheat in England. All these high, and indeed,
all chalky lands, are excellent for sheep. But, on the top of
some of these hills, there are as fine meadows as I ever saw. ...
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geology
chalk
loam
well
weather
marl
hills
Hampshire Downs
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And the singularity is, that this pasture is on the very tops of
these lofty hills, from which you can see the Isle of Wight.
There is a stiff loam, in some places twenty feet deep, on a
bottom of chalk. Though the grass grows so finely there is no
apparent wetness in the land. The wells are more than three
hundred feet deep. The main part of the water, for all uses,
comes from the clouds; and, indeed, these are pretty constant
companions of these chalk hills, which are very often enveloped
in clouds and wet, when it is sunshine down at Burghclere or
Uphusband. They manure the land here by digging wells in the
fields and bringing up the chalk, which they spread about on the
land; and which, being free-chalk is reduced to powder by the
frosts. A considerable portion of the land is covered with wood;
and as, in the clearing of the land, the clearers followed the
good soil, without regard to shape of fields, the forms of the
woods are of endless variety, which, added to be never-ceasing
inequalities of the surface of the whole, makes this, like all
the others of the same description, a very pleasant country.
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