270 Cher hill Gleanings. 



patch of sky, no less than seventy were counted by an observer on 

 Oldborough Hill, and a man afterwards told me that he had couuted 

 as many as seventy-five from the neighbouring eminence of Round- . 

 way. This may have showed the greater stretch of his eyesight-— I 

 or of his conscience ! We Cherhill folks are, of course, prepared to 

 uphold the superior excellence of our own hill as an observing station, 

 whatever others may say. 



And now I think it is high time that I should bring this paper 

 to an end. I have said nothing about the oldest and tallest in- 

 habitant of Cherhill, the White Horse; nor about sundry other 

 ancient inhabitants, whose births and deaths are recorded in the 

 parish registers ; nor about such traces of the good old Wiltshire 

 tongue »as lived on in Cherhill up to the time of my coming into 

 the village. On all these subjects I have already told the Society 

 on several former occasions what little I knew. I will be silent, 

 too, as to the various diggings and openings of barrows that have 

 taken place at different times in the parish, for most of them belong 

 to a period anterior to my coming into the village ; and, besides, 

 you have them already much better chronicled than they would be 

 by my pen, in sources of information open to us all. But these 

 last are the harvest — a very important part of that " History of 

 Cherhill/' which remains yet to be written whenever Cherhill becomes 

 a place distinguished among the towns and villages of England. 

 My contributions are only what I called them in the programme of 

 pur meeting, " Gleanings," 



The two small views at the head of this paper represent respec- 

 tively Cherhill Church from what is known as ' 'the carriage-drive," 

 just above Pilpond ; and the downs looking south from a field be- 

 longing to the Manor Farm, Just below the crest of the hill in 

 the latter view will be seen the White Horse, and a little to the 

 right of this, in profile, the western aggera and valla of Oldborough 

 Camp. Further to the right, and beyond the visible crest of the hill, 

 is the site of the Jubilee bonfire above recorded. Below are some 

 small lynchets. The Lansdowne monument would be about 350ft. 

 still further to the right, beyond where the view terminates. 



