“Is it an old house?” I said. “Oh yes, sir--it was built in 1860.” This then was not the object of my search, and I found that the mansion I was looking at was the old Shipley House. [Illustration: Twyford. Queen of Hampshire Villages.] Passing by a school on the left, and entering the street of the little town, I saw in the centre of it a blacksmith’s shop with another megalith in front of it. Dean Kitchin has given the great stones, with which this place abounds, their full weight, and considers that Twyford may be so called from Tuesco, the deity we commemorate on Tuesday. Further on I came to a brewery, evidently not for small beer, for it had a triumphal arch with a profusion of embellishments which must irritate the feelings of good teetotalers. There are besides these new structures some timber-crossed cottages in the village, with old-fashioned hollyhocks, blue campanulas, and masses of phlox. Before leaving, I may observe, that this “Queen of Hampshire villages” ought to be in high favour with the fair sex as many of them have become Young by residing in it. Proceeding straight on into the country, I came to the Manor farm with several old arches in front of it, suggestive of a monastery. A little beyond this is the lodge of the present Shipley House, with two tall cypresses (Lawsonianæ) in front of it. Then, coming to another finger-post, I took the beautiful road to Brambridge,[106] overhung on both sides with trees. And now a long wall of gravel and mortar skirts my right along Brambridge Park.[107] The avenue here is said to be the finest in Hampshire. It consists of four rows of lime-trees. The double line on each side is a study for an artist, the outer branches drooping down and resting on the ground, while the inner, being close together, have been drawn up, so that they rise on either side like the columns of a cathedral. The house belonged to the Fitzherbert family, and it is locally supposed that George IV. was privately married in the old chapel attached to it. Turning round the park on the right, I again crossed the river, or rather canal, saw a pretty cascade caused by the old lock, and soon reached the little old church of Otterbourne--forsaken and neglected--standing in the midst of a yard full of mouldering gravestones. Many a large and handsome monument--thought much of in its day--is here entirely concealed in ivy; as completely obscured and lost to view as those to whose memory it was erected. Proceeding to the north, I entered the village of Otterbourne, with its neat new brick cottages and large green common. In its centre some children were playing round a large horse-chestnut tree, whose leaves had been touched by the rosy fingers of autumn. At the right-hand corner is an old house of comfortable dimensions, covered with a variety of climbing plants. This is the quiet village home of Miss Yonge, the authoress of the “Heir of Redclyffe.” [Sidenote: Compton.]