In Unfamiliar England: A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
History
In Unfamiliar England: A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.
Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
Great Britain -- Description and travel
Surely Twyford, a few miles south of Winchester, has quite outlived any
claim to its one-time title of "Queen of Hampshire villages." It has
paid the price of its popularity; modern brick buildings crowd upon its
creeper-clad cottages or have superseded them altogether. Its church
has been restored to the point of newness, and its yew tree, locally
reputed to be the largest in England, is easily surpassed by the one
at Selborne. Still, Twyford is not without an especial interest to
American visitors. Here stands the Elizabethan mansion where Benjamin
Franklin penned his autobiography while a guest of the vicar of St.
Asaphs. The rambling old house with a fine stretch of lawn in front of
it may be plainly seen from the road.
No matter how frequently the wanderer may pause in Winchester, the
attraction of the ancient capital can never be outworn. One might
spend a day among the college buildings, whose rough flint walls and
slate roofs, sagging but little beneath the weight of years, stand
much the same as when the builder finished them six hundred years ago.
Nor should St. Cross and its quaint brotherhood, one of those strange
medieval charities, be forgotten. A great quadrangle of buildings
and an elaborate church, all for "thirteen poor men decayed and past
their strength," seems a great means for a small achievement. Much
has fallen into disuse, but the church is still in good condition and
in many respects a remarkable piece of architecture. But after all,
Winchester's greatest charm is not in her college or her cathedral, but
in her old-world streets and odd corners. Nor should one forget the
shops in which antiques of merit in furniture, books and other articles
may be found.
A broad easy road leads from Winchester through Alton to Jane Austen's
Chawton, from whence a secluded byway brings us to Selborne, a nook
that every tourist knows. But Selborne, nestling beneath its hills, its
thatched cottages and weather-worn buildings stretching along a wide
grass-grown street, has no hint of the resort town. There are other
villages in the Hampshire and Surrey hills that may match it, but none
of them had a Gilbert White to give it immortality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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