Sopley Church. 



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 (boclandj, the village 

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

 interesting little church, Early-English and Perpendicular, is 

 dedicated to St. Michael, and built, in memory of the saint's 

 burial-place, on a mound. 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 archangel, 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 mystical 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 north 

 transept a hagioscope looks into the chancel, where, on the 

 floor, lie two Early Decorated figures, formerly placed in tombs 

 under the rood-loft, and said originally to have been brought 

 from the ruined church of 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 



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