A
little over a mile to the south-east is picturesque Twyford on the
wooded banks of the Itchen. Here Pope went to school for a time, and
in the chapel of Bambridge House close by Mrs. Fitzherbert was married
to the future George IV.
Twyford Church was believed by Dean Kitchen to be built on the site of
a Stone circle. Two large "Sarsens" or megaliths lie by the side of
the building, and a magnificent yew stands in the churchyard. Shawford
Downs, that rise above the river and village, are scored with
"lynchets" or ancient cultivation terraces and there is no doubt that
the neighbourhood has been the home of successive races from a most
remote age.
The high-road continues over hill and down dale to Otterbourne, with
its memories of a celebrated Victorian writer, Miss Charlotte M.
Yonge. The Rood in the rebuilt church was erected to her memory nearly
twenty years ago. The tall granite cross in the pretty churchyard
commemorates the incumbency of Keble, the author of the _Christian
Year_, who was also vicar of Hursley, three miles away to the
north-west, where a beautiful church was erected through his efforts
on the site of an eighteenth-century building, and, it is said, paid
for by royalties on his famous book.
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