Inkpen village is more than a mile away
to the north. Here is a church once old but now smartened up to such
an extent that its ancient character is not apparent. The building,
however, has not lost by the change. The modern appointments are both
beautiful and costly.
[Illustration: THE INKPEN COUNTRY.]
At the back of the Beacon is the lonely little village of Combe, sunk
deep in a hollow of the hills that rise all around it. It has a small
Early English church of little interest, but the village is worth a
long detour to see because of its unique position. Here was once a
cell of the Abbey of Bec in Normandy. A stony hill-road goes out of
the settlement southwards, between the huge bulk of Oat Hill (936
feet) and Sheepless Down, back into Hampshire. The road eventually
leads to Linkenholt, another hamlet lost in the wilderness of chalk,
and then by Upton to the Andover highway at Hurstbourne Tarrant on one
of the headwaters of the Test. The map name is rarely used by the
natives, who term the place "Up Husband"; it was officially spelt "Up
Hursborn" as lately as 1830.
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