THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY & NATURALIST. 



77 



dug up in the field, in their games of bowls. This 

 battle did much to ruin the royal cause. On March 

 3ist the House of Commons heard two sermons at 

 St. Margaret's, Westminster, one from Master 

 Obadiah Sedgwick, text Psalm, iii, 8, and the other 

 from Master Thomas Cox, text Daniel, xi, 32. When 

 I was a boy the traditions of the Westmeon fight 

 lingered in the village. An old labourer named Shaw- 

 yer, whose family name appears in the parish 

 registers from the beginning, used to say that he had 

 " heerd tell as how there was a terrible fight once up 

 the hill in Oliver's time." He certainly had not got it 

 from books. His great grandfather might have been 

 there. 



WEATHER REPORT FOR THE WEEK. 

 From the meteorological register made at the Ordnance 

 Survey Office, Southampton, under the direction of Col. Sir 

 Chas. Wilson, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., F.R.S , R.E. Lat. 50 

 54 '' so"N. ; long. i 24' o" W. ; height above sea, 84 feet. 

 Observers Sergt. T. Chambers, R.E., and Mr. J. T. Cook. 



* Black bulb in vacuo. 



THE HAMPSHIRE INDEPENDENT, May 24, 1890. 



SOPLEY CHURCH. 



A correspondent writes : In the quaint old church 

 of this parish, the chancel end, there is a finely carved 

 large chair, dated 1604, when James the first was 

 king. It is ornamented with cross swords and other 

 well-cut designs. Near the belfry are three ancient 

 stone recumbent figures. There is some pretty 

 fresco work in the church, one subject being the 

 " Marriage supper of the Lamb," another " The 

 Crucifixion," with the two women and the Centurian 

 looking on. " Tyrell's Ford" is near, over which 

 1'yrell escaped when he had shot Rufus. 



BEE SWARMING. 



E.D., of 35, Nelson-road, Freemantle, writes under 

 date of Wednesday : I had my first swarm of bees 

 to-day, the 2ist of May. 



WEST MEON. 



" Peter Lombard" contributed the following notes 

 to the Church Times of March 21 last. They should 

 have preceded those in last week's Independent. 



Yet a mile further westward from Westbury, and 

 we are at Westmeon, the furthest point of my 

 pilgrimage into the Meon country for the present. A 

 very pretty village and not without historical interest. 

 Fifty years ago there used to be an old church here, 

 heavy and uncouth to look upon. It was partly 

 Norman, partly, I believe, Saxon, and withal, a good 

 deal of it was modern churchwarden. They had put 

 in hideous windows, and a big gallery with a lion 

 and unicorn, and square doors. That church had, 

 according to tradition, been founded by St. Wilfrid of 

 York during his banishment into Sussex. He had 

 come up the Meon country and converted the people 

 from heathenism, and two churches further down the 

 valley unquestionably owe their foundation to him. 

 In the hands of a skilful architect this old church 

 might have been restored to its pristine massive 

 beauty ; but unfortunately, church architecture was 

 not understood fifty years ago as it is now, and the 

 rector of those days, a munificent and persevering 

 church-builder, caused it to be pulled down and 

 another to be built a few yards from it, at an expense 

 to himself of some 11,000. It is one ofSirGeo. G. 

 Scott's, and has considerable beauty of its own, 

 though it is by no means what the great architect 

 would have designed a few years later. The outer 

 walls are of black flint, each of which was cut in a 

 square mould, and as the builder did his work in the 

 most substantial style, the appearance is like that of 

 black marble. 



I saw the old rector lay the foundation-stone on 

 August 9, 1843. It lies out of sight just above the 

 level of the ground under the east window, and bears 

 the following inscription. I want to give it here, for 

 I believe there is no copy of it to be found in any 

 journal or parish record, and if printed here once for 

 all, it will at any rate be interesting to antiquaries in 

 generations to come, who otherwise would have no 

 record of it : 



Antiquo Dei jam ruente templo 



Huncce primum 



^dis novae lapidem 



Posuit H. V. Bayley, D.D., 



Rector. 

 ix Aug., MDCCCXLIII. 



Hicks ) 



jfloody f aedituis, et T. Lewis, aedificatore. 



I believe it is a good piece of Latin. At any rate he 

 had the character of being one of the best classics ot 

 his time. 



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