Old Hampshire Mapped
Cobbett's Hampshire
Transcription (76)church
Hampshire Downs
population
Burghclere
Caernarvon, Lord
In this North of Hampshire, as every where else, the churches and all other things exhibit indubitable marks of decay. There are along under the North side of that chain of hills, which divide Hampshire from Berkshire, in this part, taking into Hampshire about two or three miles wide of the low ground along under the chain, eleven churches along in a string in about fifteen miles, the chancels of which would contain a great many more than all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, sitting at their ease with plenty of room. How should this be otherwise, when, in the parish of Burghclere, one single farmer holds by lease, under LORD CARNARVON, as one farm, the lands that men, now living, can remember to have formed fourteen farms, bringing up, in a respectable way, fourteen families. In some instances these small farm-houses and homesteads are completely gone; in others the buildings remain, but in a tumble-down state; in others the house is gone, leaving the barn for use as a barn or as a cattle-shed; in others, the out-buildings are gone, and the house, with rotten thatch, broken windows, rotten door-sills, and all threatening to fall, remains as the dwelling of a half-starved and ragged family of labourers, the grandchildren, perhaps, of the decent family of small farmers that formerly lived happily in this very house. ...
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