Ye Olde George Inn stands beside the River Meon, a fifteenth-century coaching inn with wooden floors, inglenook fireplaces and five bedrooms above the bar. Mark runs it, and the kitchen works from what the seasons and local suppliers bring in: Brixham crab linguini with chilli, garlic and Parmesan; a chicken, leek and ham pie with creamed mash; fish and chips in Badger-ale batter; wild-mushroom fettuccine finished with truffle oil. Dogs are welcome in the bar and out on the patio.
The village had a second pub for a long time, the Izaak Walton, which began life as the New Inn. It is closed until further notice. Older residents can point you to others that are gone entirely: the Angel is now Cross Cottages, and the Old Bell once stood beside a saddlery, so a man could have a drink while his only pair of shoes was mended.
The shop and Post Office sit on the High Street, selling essentials. Clara Fisher remembered when the village supported four bakers, three grocers, a butcher, two mills, wheelwrights, farriers and a fish-and-chip shop. Now there is one shop.
All Saints rises above the houses on the slope, an early-twelfth-century Norman church with a cruciform plan, a central tower and a broach spire. The west doorway carries Norman zigzag; inside there are traces of medieval painting and a pulpit of 1706, brought here from Holy Trinity Minories in London. The font is Tournai marble, black and carved, and a key reason to go inside. Nikolaus Pevsner called it "one of the most thrilling churches in Hampshire."
The walking is the main reason to base yourself here. A circular route of seven or eight miles starts at the church, crosses the Meon, climbs to the South Downs Way and the ridge above the Sustainability Centre, and passes the pond at South Farm where the river rises. Allow three to four hours; there is one long climb and descent, and much of the ground is grass and uneven underfoot. The Meon itself runs clear and chalk-filtered through the village, with wild trout, minnows and brook lamprey, and water voles have been recorded back along its banks. East Meon is the highest village in the Meon Valley, and the Downs close in to the south and east.
The bishops of Winchester once held East Meon as their largest estate in Hampshire, and the late-fourteenth-century Court House still stands from that time, arranged in its day around two courts. In 1086 the Domesday surveyors counted 138 households, split between the land of King William and the land of the bishop, along with seven mills. They valued the whole place at sixty-five pounds, a pound more than it had been worth before the Conquest. In March 1644 Sir William Waller's Parliamentary army gathered on the heath by the village before the Battle of Cheriton. In 1986 Hampshire Museums picked East Meon as its Domesday Village, because the records were good and the plan had stayed essentially Norman; the model they made was sent to the tapestry museum in Bayeux.
Petersfield, six miles east, is the nearest station and the practical place to shop. A volunteer bus, the MV3, runs there and back on Wednesdays and no other day.
On a summer Sunday the cricket club plays on the recreation ground, which also keeps a climbing frame, swings and a see-saw. Once a year the Sixes tournament becomes the village party, and the whole place comes down to the field.