262 KINGSCLERE 



would be correspondingly gratified in his wanderings 

 thence that the widely scattered hamlets and villages 

 which dot the borders of this silent land are, each in 

 its way, places of peculiar interest. ' The little village 

 of Steventon — where Miss Austen was born, where 

 she grew into womanhood, and where she wrote her 

 first three novels — lies in the North Downs of 

 Hampshire, at about equal distance from Whit- 

 church and Basingstoke. Beyond the church and the 

 manor house there appears to have been what was 

 then the sufficient equipment of a country parson's 

 daughter.' 1 Newbury, which is rather too remote 

 from Kingsclere and its Downs to be comprehended 

 in this glance, Overton being the most accessible 

 station for Park House, and stopping the express 

 at Overton to accommodate John Porter's guests 

 quite the usual thing — has more than once figured 

 in a description of a visit to Ormonde and other 

 great horses. The Newbury traveller, after cross- 

 ing Greenham Common and Crookham, approaches 

 so near to the junction of Berks, Wilts, and Hants, 

 he, not unassisted in the impression by the local 

 Jehu, firmly believes that he has 'met' the three 

 counties in driving across a rivulet at Knights- 

 bridge. Overton and Whitchurch, with the famous 

 paper-mills at Laverstoke, a couple of miles distant 

 from each of those places, have played their part in 

 making history. Sixty years ago a writer, briefly 

 describing Whitchurch, its situation, distance from 



1 Austin Dobson. 



