THE TRAVELLER'S CHART

Blackwater to Winchfield

NINE ELMS STATION

(The course of the line is nearly west as far as Winchester, and then south.)

...

level

[stream] Brook dividing Surrey and Hampshire

HAMPSHIRE

[road under]

[road over] London to Gosport

Farnborough

[to north:-]

BAGSHOT 5 miles

BLACKWATER 4

FRIMLEY 1 1/4 mile

SANDHURST 4

[to south:-]

FARNHAM 6 miles

The Bagshot Sands, which begin immediately on quitting Walton, attain at the 30th mile a very considerable thickness. They consist of beds of ferruginous and ochreous sands resting on white and light greenish sandy clays and marls, in some parts fossiliferous, containing numerous casts of marine shells and teeth of a species of squallous or shark. These beds overlay the London clay, and extend from Walton to Farnborough, where a thick bed of dark clay rises from beneath them for a short distance, and is then succeeded by the chalk. This is the most southern point of what is termed the London Bason. After passing through the chalk for about 20 miles, the sands and clays of the tertiary beds again appear; this is called the Hampshire Bason, but, from the great similitude of the strata and fossils, there can be little doubt that both the London and Hampshire deposits were formed at the bottom of one sea, which, judging from recent analogies and the wide distribution of fossil species, must have been rather a shallow sea, with no very great variety of depth. At the junction of the clay with the chalk, the beds rise at an angle of about 45 degrees, the chalk being very much displaced, and in some parts assumes a vertical position, the whole mass appearing to have been violently upheaved, and the tertiary beds carried off by denudation, thus leaving a broad ridge of chalk dividing the tertiary beds, and giving them the appearance of two separate deposits.

[road under] Hartley Row to Cove

[road under] Blackwater to Cove

[stream] Cove brook

[road under]

[road over] From Elvetham to Farnham

ascend 1 in 528

[north] Fleet Mill

[stream]

[south] Fleet pond

[road over]

The sides of this and other cuttings, especially through the sand, are brilliant with the golden gorse, at which the great botanist Linnaeus wept and prayed when he first saw it in this country

level

[south] The Fox Hills in the distance

35 Through Fleet Pond, an extensive sheet of water on table land, exposed to the wind, and often agitated by high waves, the line passes on a bank of sand. This presented a problem of considerable difficulty and anxiety, - the conditions of which were satisfied by the engineer in the following manner, which has been perfectly successful, and may therefore be a useful example to other engineers. The slopes were first faced with sods, then thatched over with hazel-rods, and pinned down with willows, which have since taken root, and matted the turf on the sand.

[road over] Hartford Bridge to Farnham

[road under]

ascend 1 in 330

[road under]

[road under] Pale Lane

[road under]

[south] Dogmersfield Church in distance

[north] Hartley Wintney Church

[road under] Water Lane

[road under]

Winchfield

[to north:-]

HARTLEY WINTNEY 1/12 mile

HECKFIELD 4

STRATFIELDSAY 6

[to south:-]

GREWELL 2 miles

ODIHAM 2 1/2

WINCHFIELD 1

[road over] London to Odiham

level

[tunnel] Shapley Heath cutting. Tunnel 282 feet long, under the Portsmouth road.

Hartley Wintney Church is picturesque, with a well-wooded and broken foreground. The tower of the church, which has been lately restored with commendable taste, groups well with the adjacent foliage.

The country about Stratfieldsay is its most attractive feature. No one would object to holding the estate on the same tenure as the Duke of Wellington namely, an annual present to Windsor Castle of a little silk banner hung in the guardroom over the Duke's bust.

At Hartford Bridge, the traveller will meet with an inn where the Duke [of Wellington] engages bed-rooms for his guests, so it is kept in excellent order.

Winchfield is the station at which the pedestrian should alight for visiting the Roman town of Silchester. If a vehicle is wanted, then go to Basingstoke. Flys and carts drawn by mules are readily to be hired. Nothing but ruined walls, well covered with ivy, inclosing a space of 100 acres, and fields, positively a mass of broken tiles, remain to denote this apparently extensive Roman station. The streets, crossing the area, and an amphitheatre at the north-east may be traced. Constantine was crowned in this now desolate spot, A.D.407. The most palpable thing is the masonry of the walls. A Norman church, with later details, ancient tomb, font, and some paintings, is in the midst of the area. It has picturesque rudeness and dilapidation, and should be entered. The wooded scenery of Silchester is very rich, and altogether, the spot, with its meagre Roman ruins and desolation and beauty of foliage, is attractive for a picnic. He must be a councillor of the Archaeological Institute who would be tempted by its antiquarian merits alone to journey there

38 Winchfield Church affords a good caution not to judge hastily from the outside of things. The outsides of the church certainly afford no temptation to enter, notwithstanding there is a fine recessed ornate romanesque door at the west; but the ecclesiologist should enter, and he will find a romanesque arch over the chancel, with a sort of crumpled soffit - a very rare example. The Norman font is placed immediately beneath the chancel arch.

Odiham has a charmingly clean country look, with tempting inns - the George especially so. It is a venerable place, with fragments of a castle, and an episcopal palace. The church is most attractive inside; outside it looks to have been patched with brick by Inigo Jones. The little almshouses at the south of the churchyard are picturesque. Odiham was the birthplace o William Lilly, in 1646, whose Latin grammar was so esteemed that it was even penal to use any other.