The high road from Salisbury to Warminster turns northwards at Fugglestone past the two Wilton stations, without entering that town and, passing through Chilhampton and South Newton, reaches the hamlet of Stoford, which has an old inn close to the river bank.  A short half mile westwards is the picturesque old village of Great Wishford, said to be derived from “welsh-ford,” where the church has been so much restored that it is practically a new one.  The chancel with its fine triple lancet window is Early English.  The altar tomb of Sir Thomas Bonham has his effigy in a pilgrim’s robe which is said to commemorate that knight’s seven years’ sojourn in Palestine.  An incredible tradition, current among the country people, says that Lady Bonham gave birth to seven children at one time, and that the sieve, in which they were all brought to the church to be christened, hung in the old nave for many years.  The fine tomb in the chancel is that of Sir Richard Grobham (1629).  His helmet and banner are suspended upon the opposite wall; an old chest in the south aisle is said to have been saved from a Spanish ship by this knight.

The main road continues up the valley to Stapleford, where is a fine cruciform church with Norman arches on the south of the nave and with a door of this period on the same side.  The fine sedilia and piscina in the fourteenth-century chancel should be noticed, and also the well-proportioned porch that has within it a coffin slab bearing an incised cross.  Here the valley of the Winterbourne comes down from the heart of the Plain at Orcheston through Winterbourne Stoke and Berwick St. James; a lonely and thinly populated string of hamlets seldom visited by the ordinary tourist, but of much charm to those who appreciate the more unsophisticated type of English village that, alas! is becoming more rare every day.  Both Berwick and Stoke have interesting old churches.

Continuing up the Wylye we reach Steeple Langford, situated in the most beautiful part of the valley.  Here is a Decorated church with good details and a remarkable tomb-slab bearing an incised figure of an unknown huntsman, also a fine altar tomb of the Mompessons.  The rector here in the days of the Parliament was ejected in the depth of winter with his wife and eleven children, suffering great hardship before succour reached them.  Little Langford is across the stream in an exquisite situation.  Deeply embowered among the trees is the small cruciform church with an interesting Norman door, showing in the tympanum, a bishop, said to represent St. Aldhelm, in the act of benediction.  We may keep to the road that closely follows the railway on the south side of the stream to Wylye, a quiet little place half way up the vale.  Here is a Perpendicular church with a pinnacled tower and an Early English east end.  The Jacobean pulpit stood in the old church at Wilton and was brought here when that was rebuilt.  A famous pre-Reformation chalice is preserved among