[Illustration:  Romsey abbey.]

A road runs westwards from near the summit of Otterbourne Hill through the beautiful woods of Hiltingbury and Knapp Hill to the valley of the Test at Romsey.  There are a couple of inns and a few scattered houses, but no village on the lonely seven miles until the parallel valley is reached.

Romsey Abbey dates from the reign of Edward the Elder, and his daughter, St. Alfreda, was first Abbess.  Another child of a king—­Mary, daughter of Stephen—­became Abbess in 1160, and her uncle, Henry de Blois of Winchester, built the greater part of the present church about 1125, the western portion of the nave following between 1175 and 1220.  The building is 263 feet long and 131 feet broad across the transepts.  The interior is an interesting study in Norman architecture and the change to Early English is nowhere seen to better advantage.  Portions of the foundations of the Saxon church were laid bare during repairs to the floor in 1900.  A section is shown beneath a trap door near the pulpit.

A peculiar arrangement of the eastern ends of the choir aisles is noteworthy.  They are square as seen from the exterior, but prove to be apsidal on entering.  At the end of the south choir aisle, forming a reredos to the side altar, an ancient Saxon Rood will be seen; the Figure is sculptured in an archaic Byzantine style.  The Jacobean altar in the north choir aisle was once in the chancel and had above it those old-fashioned wooden panels of the Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments that may still be met with occasionally.  When these were removed an ancient painted reredos was found behind them.  It is now placed in the north choir aisle.  The subject is the Resurrection and the painting is dated at about 1380.  In a glass case is the Romsey Psalter which, after many vicissitudes, has become once more the property of the Abbey.

In 1625, for some unknown reason, the two upper stages of the tower were pulled down and the present wooden belfry erected.  Outside the “nuns door” is a very fine eleventh-century Rood that owes its preservation to the fact that for many years it was covered by a tradesman’s shed!

Nothing remains of the conventual buildings but a few scanty patches of masonry.  The history of the Abbey was not a very edifying one and, although every effort was made to save the house at the Dissolution, chiefly by the exhibition of the imposing royal charters of foundation and re-endowment, the many scandals recorded gave the despoilers an additional, and possibly welcome, excuse for their work.

A great amount of careful and reverent restoration was carried out some years ago by the late Mr. Berthon, a former vicar; but he will probably be remembered by posterity as the inventor of the portable boat that bears his name and which is still made, or was till recently, in the town.  Romsey (usually called Rumsey) is not a good place in which to stay and, apart from the Abbey, is quite uninteresting.  In the centre of the town is a statue of Lord Palmerston, who lived at Broadlands, a beautifully situated mansion a short distance away to the south.