Old Hampshire Mapped
Cobbett's Hampshire
Transcription (77)Burghclere
chalk
geology
flint
loam
woods
downs
corn
poor rates
In former RIDES, and especially in 1821 and 1822, I described very fully this part of Hampshire [Burghclere area]. The land is a chalk bottom, with a bed of reddish, stiff loam, full of flints, at top. In those parts where the bed of loam and flints is deep the land is arable or woods: where the bed of loam and flints is so shallow as to let the plough down to the chalk, the surface is downs. In the deep and long valleys, where there is constantly, or occasionally, a stream of water, the top soil is blackish, and the surface meadows. This has been the distribution from all antiquity, except that, in ancient times, part of that which is now downs and woods was corn-land, as we know from the marks of the plough. And yet the Scotch fellows would persuade us, that there was scarcely any inhabitants in England before it had the unspeakable happiness to be united to that fertile, warm, and hospitable country, where the people are so well off, that they are above having poor-rates!
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