Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/49

Rh filled them? Why, too, did not the Chroniclers mention them specifically? Why, further, if William pulled down all the churches, are the only two, at Brockenhurst and Milford, recorded in Domesday, still standing with their contemporary workmanship? Why, too, is Fawley church, with its Norman door, and pillars, and arches, formerly, as we know from another portion of Domesday, in the Forest, remaining, if all were destroyed? And why, last of all, if the inhabitants were exterminated, was a church built at Boldre, in the very wildest part of the Forest, immediately after the afforestation, and another at Hordle?

Had there been any buildings destroyed, all ruins of them would not have been quite effaced, even in the course of eight centuries. The country has been undisturbed. Nature has not here, as in so many places, helped man in his work of destruction. They cannot, we know, have been built on, or ploughed over, or silted with sand, or choked with mud, or washed away by water. The slightest artificial bank, though ever so old, can be here instantly detected. The Keltic and West-Saxon barrows still remain. The sites of the dwellings of the Britons are still plainly visible. The Roman potteries are untouched, and their urns, though lying but a few inches under the ground, unbroken. We can only very fairly conclude that, had there been houses, or villages, or churches destroyed, all trace of them would not be gone, nor entirely lost in the preserving record of local names. 31