We now propose to turn eastwards for the last time and to follow the main London road along the northern boundary of Harewood Forest through Hurstbourne Priors ("Down Husband”) and then past the wide expanse of Hurstbourne Park, in which stands the seat of the Earl of Portsmouth and which clothes the northern slopes of the Test valley for more than a mile with its beautiful woods and glades.  Its eastern boundary is close to Whitchurch, seven miles from Andover.  Whitchurch was another famous posting centre and, like Andover, a rotten borough.  Here an important cross-country route from Oxford to Winchester tapped the Exeter road and here the modern ways of the Great Western and South Western cross each other at right angles.  At the famous “White Hart” Newman wrote the opening part of the Lyra Apostolica while awaiting the Exeter coach in December, 1832.  The great tower of All Hallows still stands, but little besides of the old building.  While the restoration was in progress a Saxon headstone was brought to light.  It bears a presentment of our Lord’s head with the following inscription:—­

  HIC CORPUS FRIDBURGAE REQUIESCAT
  IN PACE SEPULTUM

[Illustration:  WHITCHURCH.]

The old chapel of Freefolk, little more than a mile out of the town, dates from 1265 and came into existence because the winter floods on the infant Test prevented the good folk of the vicinity getting into Whitchurch.  The famous Laverstock Mill, where the paper for Bank of England notes has been made for two hundred years, is not far away by the side of the high road.  The owners of the Mill, and of Laverstock Park, are a naturalized Huguenot family named de Portal, whose ancestors came to England and settled in Southampton during the persecution of the Protestants that followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.  When Cobbett rode by the Mill he made the following unprophetic utterance:—­“We passed the mill where the Mother-Bank paper is made!  Thank God! this mill is likely soon to want employment.  Hard by is a pretty park and house belonging to ‘Squire’ Portal, the paper-maker.  The country people, who seldom want for sarcastic shrewdness, call it ‘Rag Hall!’”

Nearly four miles from Whitchurch comes Overton, once a market but now a quiet village that shows signs of activity (apart from the ceaseless procession of motor traffic) only on one day in the year, July 18, when a great sheep fair takes place.  For Overton is a centre of the great sheep-down country of north Hampshire.  The church is unremarkable except that the nave has Norman pillars with arches of a later date above them.  The fine old manor house near the railway station is called Quidhampton.

After passing Ashe we reach Deane, where a road to the right leads in a mile and a half to Steventon, at the rectory of which village Jane Austen was born in 1775, her father holding the incumbency for many years.  As we rejoin the main road Church Oakley lies to the right at the source of the Test.  Here stands a church built about 1525 by Archbishop Warham, whose ancestors lived at Malshanger, nearly two miles away to the north.  After passing Worting, ten miles from Whitchurch and two from Basingstoke, that we are nearing a large town becomes apparent, and soon the gaunt and curious clock tower of Basingstoke Town Hall comes into view, a land-mark for many miles.