"The village itself is a very homely and irregular one without a single dwelling of any pretence. The country lying adjacent to Salisbury Plain consists of broken, sparsely peopled downland, and very ornate or finished cottages would be out of keeping, but they would not look so well copied in a very rich, heavily timbered country."
_Note._--Conglomerate chalk is, like cob, vulnerable to the attacks of a really determined rat.
The outer defences provided by the exterior rendering can be backed up by the mixing in of broken glass or sharp flints with the substance of the wall, where such attacks are likely.
[Illustration: +Marsh Court, Hampshire.+]
[Illustration: +Brick-and-chalk Vaulting at the Deanery Garden, Sonning+]
"Chalk" is a term somewhat loosely used to denote the soft white limestone--the "_Creta Scriptoria_"--that is cousin to Marl on one side and to Ragstone on the other.
In its purest form chalk consists of over 95 per cent. of carbonate of lime in the form of fine granular particles held together by a calcareous cement, its organic origin being clearly traced in the remains of the minute sea creatures with which it abounds.
Hewn blocks of chalk have been used for walling and vaulting from immemorial times, and, where not exposed to direct erosion by the weather, remain to this day as clean-cut as when they were first quarried and a very great deal harder.
The filling in of the great vaults at Salisbury Cathedral and in the Bishop's Palace are of chalk, whilst innumerable lesser buildings of more or less antiquity still remain to us as monuments to the excellence and durability of this stone.
Chalk, too, was often used in combination with flint or brick to build the engaging chequer-work walls that embellish so many downland villages.
At Medmenham there are cottages both old and new of hewn rock chalk, and both the Berks and Bucks banks of the Thames have many buildings to show of this beautiful material.
Amongst present-day architects Sir Edwin Lutyens was the first to give hewn chalk an opportunity of showing its quality in serious architecture, Marsh Court in Hampshire being an instance of more than local celebrity.
In the great walls at the Bishop of Winchester's palace, Farnham Castle in Surrey, the old builders appear to have used bricks, limestone and chalk proper, according as the several materials were delivered, quite indifferently, and with results altogether delightful.