The tower, indeed, is Norman, but the
clustered columns of the nave with their carved capitals and bases are
beautiful specimens of fourteenth-century architecture. The Early
English chancel has a triple east window and side lancets. The
two-storied porch is late Decorated or early Perpendicular. A tomb of
Giles Rowbach and tablets to the Bowie family are of interest. One of
the Bowles, a vicar of the church, was a notable Spanish scholar and
made a translation of _Don Quixote_. Boscombe Rectory was once
occupied by "the judicious" Hooker and the first part of the
_Ecclesiastical Polity_ was written here. Another theologian--Nicholas
Fuller--famous in his day, held the living of the next village--Allington.
At Newton Tony, over eight miles from Salisbury, the pleasant scenery
of the Bourne may be said to end. Beyond, we reach an outlying part of
the Plain that is seen to better advantage from other directions.
Newton Tony has a station on the branch line to Amesbury and Bulford
Camp. Wilbury House, on the road to Cholderton, was erected in the
Italian style in the early seventeenth century by the Bensons, a noted
family in those days, one of whose members is commemorated by a brass
in the church.
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