I20 THE EXETER ROAD 



ot" the House. It is said to be of foreign make. 

 Bullets have up to recent years been extracted from 

 the south door of the church, the original oak door 

 in use two hundred and sixty years ago ; and the 

 flint and stone south walls and buttresses l^ear vivid 

 witness, in their patching of brick, to the ruin that 

 befell this part of the building in those troubled 

 times. Strange to say, a beautiful group of the 

 Virgin and Child still occupies a tabernacle over the 

 west w^indow, uninjured, although it can scarce have 

 escaped the notice of the fanatical soldiery. Within 

 the church are memorials of the loyal Paulets, 

 Marquises of Winchester, and for a period Dukes of 

 Bolton. Their glory has dejoarted with their great 

 House, and althouoh a smaller residence was built in 

 the meadows, close at hand, that has vanished too. 



When Basing House was laid in ruins the Marquis 

 of Winchester retired to his hunting lodge of Hawk 

 Wood, to the south of Basingstoke, and, enlarging it, 

 made the place his residence. His son, created Duke 

 of Bolton, employed Inigo Jones to build a new 

 house on the site of the lodge, and this is the present 

 Hackwood Park. The existing house stands in the 

 midst of dense and tangled woodlands, and although 

 imposing, is a somewhat gloomy pile, with a ghost 

 story. That bitter lawyer, Richard Bethell, of whom 

 it was said that he ' dismissed Hell, with costs, and 

 took away from orthodox members of the Church of 

 England their last hope of everlasting damnation,' 

 when he became Lord Chancellor and was created 

 Baron Westbury, purchased Hackwood Park, and it 

 was to one of his friends tliat the ' Grey Lady ' of 



