威廉·科貝特/William Cobbett
I came off this morning on the Marlborough road about two miles, or three, and then turned off, over the downs, in a northwesterly direction, in search of the source of the Avon river, which goes down to Salisbury. I had once been at Netheravon, a village in this valley, but I had often heard this valley described as one of the f?inest pieces of land in all England;I knew that there were about thirty parish churches, standing in a length of about thirty miles, and in an average width of hardly a mile;and I was resolved to see a little into the reasons that could have induced our fathers to build all these churches, especially if, as the Scotch would have us believe, there were but a mere handful of people in England until of late years.
In steering across the down, I came to a large farm, which a shepherd told me was Milton Hill Farm. This was upon the high land, and before I came to the edge of this Valley of Avon, which was my land of promise, or at least, of great expectation;for I could not imagine that thirty churches had been built for nothing by the side of a brook（for it is no more during the greater part of the way）thirty miles long. The shepherd showed me the way towards Milton;and at the end of about a mile, from the top of a very high part of the down, with a steep slope towards the valley, I f?irst saw this Valley of Avon;and a most beautiful sight it was!Villages, hamlets, large farms, towers, steeples, f?ields, meadows, orchards, and very f?ine timber trees, scattered all over the valley. The shape of the thing is this:on each side downs, very lofty and steep in some places, and sloping miles back in other places;but each outside of the valley are downs. From the edge of the downs begin capital arable f?ields generally of very great dimensions, and, in some places, running a mile or two back into little crossvalleys, formed by hills of downs. After the cornf?ields come meadows on each side, down to the brook or river. The farmhouses, mansions, villages, and hamlets are generally situated in that part of the arable land which comes nearest the meadows.