Tradition has it that the church was built
by two maiden ladies who lived in the old castle near the church, and
that each built a side of the church according to her taste. One is
said to lie in the chapel at the east end of the south aisle, where
there is a tomb with effigy, the other in a tomb in the north aisle.
The "castle" came in 1551 to Sir Richard Cotton, whose son George
entertained Queen Elizabeth there for two days in 1586. In 1643 a
Richard Cotton held the "strong house" of Warblington against the
Parliament till it was taken by "sixty soldiers and a hundred muskets."
All that remains of the place to-day is a beautiful octagonal tower of
red brick and stone, once part of the main gateway.
Now when I had seen all this I went on into Havant, and there at the
cross-roads I found the church of St Faith close by an old sixteenth-
century half-timbered house--the Old House at Home. Havant is, in
spite of the modern world, a place of miracle; for it possesses a
spring to the south-west of the church, called, I think, St Faith's,
which never fails in summer for drought, nor in winter for frost.
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