Ringwood Church. 123 



fourth verse of the third chapter of Galatians, according to the 

 version of the Geneva Bible, are roughly painted.* 



As in all the other churches of the district, the church- 

 wardens have here from time to time shown their natural 

 attachment to ugliness. The Early-English triplet at the east 

 end has heen blocked up, the gravestones in the chancel defaced, 

 and a brick porch patched on at the south side. 



The road now winds on by low water-meadows, pastured by 

 herds of cattle, past Blashford Green, till we reach Ringwood, 

 the Rinwede of Domesday.^ Here, at the Grammar School, 

 was Stillingfleet educated. Here Monmouth wrote his three 

 craven letters to James, the Queen Dowager, and the Lord 

 Treasurer, imploring them to save that life which it was a 

 disgrace to own. 



The old church has been pulled down, and a new one, 

 modelled in every particular after it, has been built on its site. 

 A church ought doubtless to tell its own date by its style. Yet 

 it is far better that we should copy a moderately good speci- 



* There was formerly a cell here, subordinate to the Abbey of Saint 

 Saviour le Vicomte in Normandy, to which it was given by William de 

 Solariis, A.D. 1163, but dissolved by Henry VI., and its revenues annexed 

 to Eton. Tanner's Notitia Mbnastica< Hants., No. xii. See, also, Dug- 

 dale's Monasticon Anglicanum, Ed. 1830, vol. vi., part, ii., p. 1046. 



f Same edition as before, p. iv. a. The entry is remarkably interesting. 

 Out of its ten hydes, four were taken into the Forest. In the six which 

 were left, there dwelt fifty-six villeins, twenty-one borderers, six serfs, 

 and one freeman. There were here 105 acres of meadow, a mill which 

 paid 22s., and a church with half a hyde of land. On the four hydes 

 which were taken into the Forest, fourteen villeins, and six borderers, who 

 had seven ploughlands, used to dwell. How very much the woodland 

 preponderated over the arable we may tell by the additional entry, that 

 the woods maintained 189 hogs, whilst a mill in that part was only assessed 

 at 30d., which facts may help us to form some opinion of the kind of soil 

 that was in general afforested. The meadows, as usual, were not touched. 



R 2 



