An ancient Market Hall once stood in the centre of the
spacious main street; while it stood the villagers were reminded of
the vanished glories of Bedwyn. The road proceeds past Chisbury Hill,
a prehistoric camp on the Wansdyke. Within the earthwork is a barn
that was once the Decorated church of St. Martin. Mr. A.H. Allcroft
thinks that the original building was erected shortly after the drawn
battle between Wessex and Mercia that took place on the Downs
hereabouts in 675. Froxfield is reached just short of the Berkshire
border and the way accompanies the railway and canal through Little
Bedwyn, where is a stone-spired church dating from the early
thirteenth century. Froxfield Church is outside the village on a hill.
It is a small and ancient Norman building, quaint and picturesque. The
old Somerset Hospital here was founded in 1686 by Sarah Duchess of
Somerset for thirty widows of the clergy and others; about half that
number are now maintained in the beautiful old buildings, grouped
round a quadrangle high above the road.
At Hungerford, the first town in Berkshire, over nine miles _direct_
from Marlborough, we return to the Kennet.
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