Sopley Church. 127 



part, it bends across, gaining a lane on the opposite side, which 

 leads away past Ramsdown into Dorsetshire, and along which 

 tradition says the knight rode to Poole. 



The next village we reach is Sopley, that is the soc leag, land 

 with the liberty of holding a court of socmen ; just as the 

 neighbouring village is called Boghamton fhoclandj, the village 

 of the charter-land, or, as we should now say, freehold. Its 

 interesting little cruciform church, Early-English and Perpen- 

 dicular, is dedicated to St. Michael. The Avon flows below, 

 and the old manor-house, now a mere cottage, stands in an 

 adjoining meadow. On the deep north porch rests the arch- 

 angel, on a corbel head. The fine old oak roof of the nave 

 was covered up some sixty or seventy years ago by a plastered 

 ceiling ; but the corbel figures, playing the double pipe and 

 viol, are still standing. In the north aisle are the heads of 

 Edward III. and his queen. Two brackets for images project 

 from the window in the north transept, whose jambs, now 

 whitewashed over, were once painted with frescoes of the 

 miV'Stical vine, in green and red. Here, in the north wall, 

 too, is an aumbrie, whilst the broken stone stairs to the rood- 

 loft still remain. In the south transept a hagioscope, now 

 walled up, looked into the chancel, where, on the floor, lie 

 two Early Decorated figures, formerly placed in tombs under 

 the rood-loft, and traditionally said to have been brought from 

 a church at Ripley. In the east window burns the fiery beacon 

 of the Comptons. 



Here, too, the whole of the church has been most impar- 

 tially, and, I may add, successfully defaced. Everywhere has a 

 snowstorm of whitewash fallen. I know not why we in these 

 days should think that God delights in ugliness. Our fore- 

 fathers at least thought not so. It would be well if for a 



157 



