Cobbett knew the road well, and liked this shabby line of military settlements little. Coming up to ‘the Wen’ in 1821, and passing Blackwater, he reached York Town, and thus he holds forth: ‘After _pleasure_ comes _pain_’, says Solomon, and after the sight of Lady Mildmay’s truly noble plantations (at Hartley Row) came that of the clouts of the ‘gentleman cadets’ of the ‘_Royal Military College of Sandhurst_!’ Here, close by the roadside, is the _drying ground_. Sheets, shirts, and all sorts of things were here spread upon lines covering perhaps an acre of ground! We soon afterwards came to ‘_York_ Place’ on ‘_Osnaburg_ Hill.’ And is there never to be an _end_ of these things? Away to the left we see that immense building which contains children _breeding up to be military commanders_! Has this place cost so little as two millions of pounds? I never see this place (and I have seen it forty times during the last twenty years) without asking myself this question, ‘Will this thing be suffered to go on; will this thing, created by money _raised by loan_; will this thing be upheld by means of taxes _while the interest of the Debt is reduced_, on the ground that the nation is _unable to pay the interest in full_?’ It is painful to say that ‘this thing’ has gone on, and that ‘the sweet simplicity of the Three per Cents’ has given place to very much reduced interest. But one little ray of sunshine breaks on the gloomy picture. If Cobbett could ride this way once more he would discover that the acre of drying ‘sheets, shirts, and other things’ is no longer visible to shock the susceptibilities of old-fashioned wayfarers, or of that new feature of the road, the lady cyclist. [Sidenote: _BLACKWATER_] There is a great deal more of Cambridge Town, Camberley, and York Town now than when Cobbett last journeyed along the road; there are more ‘children breeding up to be military commanders,’ more Tommies, more drinking-shops, and an almost continuous line of ugly, and for the most part out-at-elbows, houses for a space of two miles. It is with relief that the traveller leaves behind the last of these wretched blots upon the country and descends into Blackwater, where the river of that name, so called from the sullen hue it obtains on running through the peaty wastes of this wild, heathy country, flows beneath a bridge at the entrance to the pretty village. Over this bridge we enter Hampshire, that county of hogs and chalky downs, but no sign of the chalk is reached yet, until coming upon the little stream in the level between Hartley Row and Hook, called the Whitewater from the milky tinge it has gained on coming down from the chalky heights of Alton and Odiham. This tinge is, however, more imaginary than real, and the characteristically chalky scenery of Hampshire is not seen by the traveller along the Great Western Road until Basingstoke and its chalk downs are reached.