Again we have been tempted too far afield and must return to the eastern road out of Westbury that follows the Great Western Railway to Bratton, not far from Edington station.  Above to the right, on one of the western bastions of the Plain, is the White Horse just mentioned.  It is of great size—­180 feet long and 107 in height.  It was “restored” many years ago and the ancient grotesque outline altered by vandals who should have known better.  Above the figure is the great entrenched camp called Bratton Castle, containing within its walls 23 acres.  Bratton Church is built in a peculiar situation against the side of the Down.  The fine cruciform structure, with a handsome four storied central tower, dates from about 1420 and occupies the site of an older building, probably Norman.  The brass to Seeton Bromwich (1607) should be noticed.  We now proceed by the northern foot of the hills to Edington, where is one of the most beautiful churches in Wiltshire, exceeding in its proportions and dignity some of our smaller cathedrals.  It was originally the church of a monastery of Augustinians founded in 1352 by William of Edyngton, Bishop of Winchester.  A tragedy took place here in 1450 during the Cade rebellion, when the Bishop of Salisbury (Ayscough) was seized by the rioters while he was celebrating mass, taken to the summit of the Downs and there stoned to death.  A chapel was afterwards built on the spot, but the exact site is uncertain.  The Bishop’s fault was that, being constantly with the Court, his diocese was neglected and his flock suffered.

The church was both conventual and parochial; the nave, as usual in such cases, being the people’s portion.  The chancel, both in proportions and detail, is a very fine example of the Decorated style.  In the south transept is a beautiful altar tomb with a richly carved canopy; the occupant is unknown.  So is the resting-place of Bishop Ayscough.  Another fine monument is that in the nave to Sir Ralph Cheney (1401).  The beautiful and original fourteenth-century glass should be noticed and also the Jacobean pulpit.  Of the conventual buildings nothing remains, but a few fragments of the succeeding mansion of the Pauletts are now incorporated in a neighbouring farmhouse.  A magnificent yew in the churchyard probably antedates the present church, and may have been contemporary with an earlier parish church of which all record has been lost.

[Illustration:  WESTBURY WHITE HORSE.]

The road goes onward through the charming villages nestling under the northern bastions of the Plain that is still on the right hand as it was at Heytesbury.  We are now on the opposite side with lonely Imber four miles away over the hills, the only settlement between the former town and Edington.  “If one would forsake the world let him go to Imber,” says a modern writer, and an old couplet runs “Imber on the Down, four miles from any town.”  After passing Coulston and Erlestoke (a gem among