The road north-east from Rushall runs through Manningford Bruce. The
church here is possibly Saxon; it has a semi-circular apse. On the
north wall of the chancel is a tablet to Mary Nicholas with arms
bearing the royal canton. This was her reward for helping Charles in
his flight after the battle of Worcester. Manningford Abbots once
belonged to the Abbot of Hyde. The rebuilt church is only of interest
in possessing a very fine pre-Reformation chalice. Two miles farther
is Pewsey, a pleasant town surrounded by the chalk hills. From those
to the eastward Cobbett, when he beheld the vale stretched out before
him, broke into one of those simple but graphic descriptive touches
that help to make the _Rural Rides_ immortal, "A most beautiful sight
it was! Villages, hamlets, large farms, towers, steeples, fields,
meadows, orchards and very fine timber trees. The shape of the thing
was this: on each side downs, very lofty and steep in some places, and
sloping miles back in other places, but on each side out of the valley
are downs. From the edge of the downs begin capital arable fields,
generally of very great dimensions and in some places running a mile
or two back into little cross valleys formed by hills of downs.
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