a string of villages, is so remote as to be seldom visited by anyone not on business bent.  The vale seems to end naturally at Coombe Bisset, though the river flows on through Honnington and Odstock for four miles farther before it reaches the Avon.  The church, set picturesquely on its hill at Coombe, is an old Transitional Norman building with some later additions.  The village in the hollow below appeals to one as a happy place in which to end one’s days.  So also appears Stratford Tony, farther up the vale, where, as its name suggests, the Roman road from Old Sarum to Blandford once cut across the valley in the usual Roman manner.  Bishopstone, the next village, has a very fine cruciform church, most interesting in its general details.  The patron of the living was the Bishop of Winchester; thus the village gets its name.  It is possible that some of the bishops took special interest in the building and that would account for its elaboration.  The style is Decorated passing into Perpendicular in the nave.  The chancel and transepts are peculiarly fine and the vaulting of the first-named will be much admired, as also the beautiful windows.  The south door of the chancel with its handsome porch and groined roof; the vaulted chamber, or so-called cloister, outside the south transept, the use of which is unknown; the recessed tomb in the north transept and the grand arch on the same side of the church; all call for especial notice.

The right-hand road at Stoke Farthing leads direct to Broad Chalke, or a longer by-way on the other side of the stream takes us to the same goal by way of Bury Orchard, a village as delectable as its name.  Chalke likewise boasts of a fine church, also cruciform and dating, so far as the chancel and north transept are concerned, from the thirteenth century.  In that transept the old wooden roof still remains.  The nave is Perpendicular, solid and plain; the roof quite modern, though the corbels that supported the old one, carved with representations of angels singing and playing, were not disturbed.  The sedilia in the chancel and the aumbry in the north transept should be seen.  The lych-gate was erected to the memory of Rowland Williams of Essays and Reviews fame.  John Aubrey, antiquary and nature lover, who was a native of Easton Pierce in North Wilts, was a resident here for a long time, and a modern literary association is found in the fact that the Old Rectory has been the home of Mr. Maurice Hewlett for some years.

The hills now begin to close in upon the road and another valley penetrates into the highlands which form the northern portion of Cranborne Chase.  In this vale, in a lovely hollow between the rounded hills, is the small village of Bower Chalke.  Westwards, up the main valley, we pass through Fifield Bavant, where the church is one of the many that claim to be the smallest in England.  Ebbesborne Wake, the next hamlet, lies cramped in a narrow gully between Barrow Hill and Prescombe Down.  The restored church is not of great interest, but an unnamed tomb within bears these very pertinent lines: