Annabel Arts

Doctors Lane, West Meon for daily exercise and medication.

The family/village church at Hinton Ampner commanding fine parkland views in the romantic tradition (look out for the ha-ha).

Bracing walk at Hill Head. Time for a hot chocolate.

The lion of Longleat lit up for New Year’s Day Lantern festival.

Sarsen stone predating Norman cross but postdating yew tree on the site of an earlier ancient yew at the 12th century St. Peter’s in Terwick or “turd farm”. Not sure what drew them here but I can see why they stay away.

Conceived in the Napoleonic war as a safe and efficient route for goods and traffic from London to the sea at Portsmouth. It was pretty quickly out of date due to the railways and of course the end of the war. Reopened 200 years later as a leisure amenity.

Spooky gathering of bird faced figures adjacent to Cocking church graveyard. This one is “Cochinges” in Domesday with 1 church and 5 mills. If you can find the church car parking (rear of the sculpture studio) it’s worth an exploration down a private road/public footpath past the mill cottages parallel to the river.

View of the Downs from Bepton Church. In Domesday Book as Bebintone with 10 villagers, 10 smallholders and 3 slaves. During the Black Death a mass grave pit was dug here. Still not much at Church Farm - the majority of the village is down the road.

Neo-classicism is not really my bag and you would be right to say the Bastards have totally remodelled this church. After a soap boiler or tallow chandler’s workshop caught fire in 1731 much of the town including the medieval church burnt down. John and William Bastard, known as the Bastard Brothers, built this and a good deal of the other Georgian buildings in the town.

A great improvement? Easier to maintain and I’m sure it looks great from the inside looking out through the new garden feature but from the outside oh dear - all the architect needed to do was blend in the arch with a modern formal white building and it would have been okay. Not that it’s a new trend - the whole village here and original church were demolished to improve the view centuries ago.

The Busk’s cottage ornee Houghton Lodge.

River Test at Houghton Lodge

Old oak at Matley Bog.

Groyne at Hillhead looking towards the Isle of Wight on the horizon.

Pagham harbour with Gadwall, Redshank and Teal lurking behind the reeds in the next pool.

Early example of intellectual property theft? The angel of death nicking someone’s books in a gravestone put inside Exton Church.