I have no doubt that the reason for their position is simply that it is
just along the base of the hills that the springs break out, and a
village near a perennial and pure spring generally represents a very
old human settlement indeed. Sometimes the wold drew near the road,
sometimes lay more remote; its pale fallows, its faintly-tinted
pastures, seemed to lie very quietly to-day under the grey laden sky.
Here a chalk-pit showed its miniature precipices; here a leafless
covert detached its wiry sprays against the light. The villages were
pretty enough, with their quaint, irregular white cottages, comfortably
thatched, among the little orchards and gardens; and in every village
the ancient, beautiful church, each with a character of its own and a
special feature of interest or beauty, lay nestled in trees, or held up
its grey tower over ricks and barns. We are apt to forget what
beautiful things these churches are, because they are so common, so
familiar; if there were but a few of them, we should make careful
pilgrimages to see them, but now we hardly turn off the road to visit
them.
I often wonder what exactly the feeling and the spirit were that
produced them, what the demand precisely was that created the supply. I
suppose they were almost always the gift of some wealthy person; of
course labour and perhaps materials were cheaper, but there must have
been a much larger proportion of people employed in the trade of
building than is the case nowadays; probably these churches were slowly
and leisurely built, in the absence of modern mechanical facilities.
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