We must have had some rain recently
From the Doctor’s
Doctors Lane, West Meon for daily exercise and medication.
Cones
The family/village church at Hinton Ampner commanding fine parkland views in the romantic tradition (look out for the ha-ha).
Windy shore
Bracing walk at Hill Head. Time for a hot chocolate.
Lion’s Den
The lion of Longleat lit up for New Year’s Day Lantern festival.
Stones to mark
Sarsen stone predating Norman cross but postdating yew tree on the site of an earlier ancient yew at the 12th century St. Peter’s in Terwick or “turd farm”. Not sure what drew them here but I can see why they stay away.
Water roads
Wey and Arun canal at Loxwood
Conceived in the Napoleonic war as a safe and efficient route for goods and traffic from London to the sea at Portsmouth. It was pretty quickly out of date due to the railways and of course the end of the war. Reopened 200 years later as a leisure amenity.
Spooky priests
Cocking priests
Spooky gathering of bird faced figures adjacent to Cocking church graveyard. This one is “Cochinges” in Domesday with 1 church and 5 mills. If you can find the church car parking (rear of the sculpture studio) it’s worth an exploration down a private road/public footpath past the mill cottages parallel to the river.
Nothing to see here…move along
Bepton Down
View of the Downs from Bepton Church. In Domesday Book as Bebintone with 10 villagers, 10 smallholders and 3 slaves. During the Black Death a mass grave pit was dug here. Still not much at Church Farm – the majority of the village is down the road.
Bit Bland
Blandford Bastards
Neo-classicism is not really my bag and you would be right to say the Bastards have totally remodelled this church. After a soap boiler or tallow chandler’s workshop caught fire in 1731 much of the town including the medieval church burnt down. John and William Bastard, known as the Bastard Brothers, built this and a good deal of the other Georgian buildings in the town.