Old Hampshire Mapped
Cobbett's Hampshire
Transcription (20)East Meon
church
population
improvement
enclosure
I am sure that East Meon has been a large place. The church has a Saxon Tower pretty nearly equal, as far as I recollect, to that of the Cathedral of Winchester. The rest of the church has been rebuilt, and, perhaps, several times; but the tower is complete; it has had a steeple put upon it; but, it retains all its beauty, and it shows that the church (which is still large) must, at first, have been a very large building. Let those, who talk so glibly of the increase of the population in England, go over the country from Highclere to Hambledon. Let them look at the size of the churches and let them observe those numerous small inclosures on every side of every village, which had, to a certainty, each its house in former times. But, let them go to East-Meon, and account for that church. Where did the hands come from to make it? Look, however, at the downs, the many square miles of downs near this village, all bearing the marks of the plough, and all out of tillage for many many years; yet, not one single inch of them but what is vastly superior in quality to any of those great 'improvements' on the miserable heaths of Hounslow, Bagshot, and Windsor Forest. ...
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