I BERKELEY
.IBRARY
JNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
>7 A
r
MEMORIALS
OF
OLD HAMPSHIRE
MEMORIALS
OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
EDITED BY
G. E. JEANS, M.A., F.S.A.
VICAR OF SHORWELL AND RECTOR OF MOTTISTON, ISLE OF WIGHT
FELLOW OF HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD
AUTHOR AND EDITOR OF
"Murray's Handbooks for Lincolnshire, Hampshire
and the Isle of Wight "
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
BEMROSE AND SONS LIMITED, 4 SNOW HILL, E.G.
AND DERBY
1906
[All Rights Reserved}
DA
*
TO
THE MOST NOBLE
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, K.G.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY HIS GRACE'S KIND
PERMISSION
146
PREFACE
HAMPSHIRE may claim in a certain sense to be
the premier county of England, since though not
quite so ancient a kingdom as Kent or Sussex, it
is, as Grant Allen calls it, "the real original nucleus of
the British Empire." It is also one of the most interesting
of the counties, from the importance in early English
history of its charming capital, the architectural value
of its Cathedral and three of its other churches, its beautiful
combinations of woodland and sea, its possession of more
genuine forest than all the rest of England put together,
and its chief place in the naval position of England,
owing to the two great harbours afforded by its fortunate
coast-line. To an editor of Memorials of Old Hampshire
the first difficulty, therefore, is clearly of selection. It
would not be difficult to imagine another volume of the
present size made up only of those subjects that — for
one reason or another — I have been obliged to pass over.
In order, therefore, to obtain more room for the less
familiar antiquities of the county, I decided first to exclude
the Isle of Wight, because that is a distinct entity, and
may possibly hereafter have a volume of its own ; and,
viii PREFACE
secondly, after much consideration, to omit separate
treatment of Winchester, that having been done in
Dean Kitchin's charming volume on the city (in the
Historic Towns Series), and of detailed architectural
history of the Cathedral Church, that being already
accessible in numerous forms. That these have neither
been ignored nor slighted will at once be obvious on
reference to the Index, but the famous city is treated
mainly as the head and representative of its county, and
the Cathedral Church mainly as having influenced the
architecture of the parish churches.
Again, a very obvious danger for the editor of a
volume of this kind is that of allowing the information
to become " snippety " and disconnected, and thereby to
lose half its value. In order to guard against this,
I selected the list of subjects finally, so that they might
present the history of the county as a whole with no
very important breaks, but specially emphasise only the
most characteristic features. Thus in my introductory
sketch I have endeavoured to show the part played by
Winchester throughout, and the place that would be taken
by the subsequent papers on Silchester, the Jutish Settle-
ment, the New Forest, Southampton, and Portsmouth.
My paper on Hampshire Churches as a whole is followed
by papers of more detail on the existing monastic
churches of Christchurch and Romsey and the ruined
Abbeys of Beaulieu and Netley, besides a special and
exhaustive examination of the wall-paintings in the
churches. Then comes a group of the semi-religious
PREFACE % ix
buildings : the palace of Wolvesey, the Hospital of
St Cross, Wykeham's famous College, and the traces left
by the Knights of St. John at North Baddesley. These
are naturally followed by the noblest of Hampshire
houses — one of the most glorious in England — Bramshill,
and this again by the places connected with the Civil
War — Basing, Place House, and Hurst Castle. The story
of Old Hampshire may, I hope, be thought to wind up
fitly with the story of the unique Hambledon Cricket
Club.
I had intended to include a separate paper on the
Earthworks and Camps in the County (see p. 3), and
asked the late Mr. T. W. Shore, whose knowledge of the
subject was unequalled, to contribute it. He, with his
usual kindness, would probably have consented, but he
died before he could answer my letter. His son, Dr. Lewis
Shore, most kindly sent me a very complete catalogue of
them found among his father's papers, but it could not
be used in a book of this kind without complete re-writing.
It is to be published, I believe, in the Papers of the
Hampshire Field Club.
There has been far more labour expended upon these
papers than those who are unused to such work would
imagine. The one on " wall-paintings " must be of per-
manent value as an exhaustive record at the present date.
The long papers on the New Forest and Southampton —
not to make an invidious selection — have involved a good
deal of original research. The subject of Silchester might
have been thought exhausted by the excavators, but
x PREFACE
Mr. Heald's researches at the British Museum have
unearthed a few more points, notably about the history
of Commius.
I must express my obligations to all of the very able
company of writers who have been kind enough to join
me in this work, and particularly to Mr. Ditchfield, the
General Editor of the series. I must take the oppor-
tunity, too, of thanking Mrs. Rawnsley for her charming
sketch of the New Forest — it was mislaid at the time
of publication of her own volume on the Forest, or we
should not have had it ; to Mr. Keyser, for the photographs
of Bramley, which were taken expressly for his paper ;
and to Mr. Nisbett for the use of his splendid collection
of photographs from Hampshire churches, and for many
valuable notes upon them. I cannot imagine anybody
connected with Hampshire who would not find this book
full of interest from cover to cover.
G. E. JEANS.
Shorwell Vicarage, I.W.,
February, 1906.
CONTENTS
General ^Sketch of the History of
Hampshire and Winchester
Silchester . . .
The Jutish Settlement of the
Meon Valley ....
Southampton ....
The New Forest ....
Old Portsmouth . . . .
The Churches of Hampshire
Wall Paintings in Hampshire
Churches .....
Romsey Abbey ....
Christchurch Twynham
Beaulieu Abbey ....
Netley Abbey
The Knights Hospitallers at
North Baddesley
Wolvesey Castle ....
PAGE
By the EDITOR . . i
By the Rev. J. M. HEALD,
M.A 17
By the Rev. L. KNIGHTS
SMITH, M.A. ... 39
By PROFESSOR HEARN-
SHAW .... 47
By WlLLINGHAM F.
RAWNSLEY, M.A. . . 67
By the Rev. G. N. GODWIN,
B.D 100
By the EDITOR . .118
By CHARLES E. KEYSER,
M.A., F.S.A. . . .134
By the Rev. J. COOKE
YARBOROUGH, M.A. . 156
By GEORGE BROWNEN . 168
By Mrs. WILLINGHAM
RAWNSLEY . . . 183
By the Rev. W. A. C.
CHEVALIER, M.A. . 187
By the Rev. P. GAISFORD
BOURNE, D.D. . . 199
By N. C. H. NiSBETT,
A.R.I.B.A. 204
Xll
CONTENTS
The Hospital of St. Cross, Win-
chester
The College of St. Mary, Win-
chester
Bramshill
Basing House ....
Charles I. at Place House and
Hurst Castle ....
The Hambledon Cricket Club .
By N. C. H. NISBETT,
A.R.I.B.A. .
By the Rev. W. P. SMITH,
M.A
By the Rev. P. H. DITCH-
FIELD, M.A., F.S.A.
By the Rev. G. N. GODWIN,
B.D
By the Rev. G. N. GODWIN,
B.D.
PAGE
215
223
237
250
263
By HORACE HUTCHINSON 274
Index .
List of Subscribers
283
287
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS
Beeches in, the New Forest Frontispiece
(From a Water-colour Sketch by Mrs. Willingham Rawnsley)
FACING PAGE
Winchester from St. Giles' Hill (From a Photograph by H. W. Salmon) IO
The West Gate, Winchester (From a Photograph by H.W.Salmon) 14
The Meon Valley (From a Photograph by the Rev. L. Knights Smith) 42
Southampton, The Arcades .... . . . 56
(From a Photograph by Max-Mills, Southampton)
A Glade in the New Forest ... , . . 68
(From a Photograph by F. G. Short, Lyndhurst)
Corhampton Church . (From a Photograph by the Rev. G.Sampson) I2O
Norman Tower, Christchurch Priory . » . . . .122
(From a Photograph by T. A. Tapsell, Christchurch)
The Font, Winchester Cathedral (From a Photograph by H. W.Salmon) 124
Reredos Screen, Winchester Cathedral . . . , .128
(From a Photograph by H. W. Salmon)
Bramley : Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury . .144
(From a Photograph by Walton Adams, Reading)
„ St. Christopher . . » . . . , , . 148
(From a Photograph by Walton Adams, Reading)
Catherington : St. Michael weighing Souls . . . . 150
(From a Photograph by N. C. H. Nisbett, A.R.I.B.A.)
Romsey Abbey . (From a Photograph by Dodridge & Gibbs, Ramsey) 156
xiv INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Christchurch, The Church and Castle 170
{From a Photograph by T. A. Tapsell, Christchurch)
Pulpit at BeaulieU Abbey (from a Photograph by F. G. Short, Lyndhursf) 184
Netley Abbey . {From a Photograph by F. Frith <5r> Co., Ltd., Reigate) 1 88
The Knight Hospitaller's Tomb and Old Chained Bible at
North Baddesley Church . . . . . . . 200
{From a Photograph by the Rev. Dr. Bourne)
Plan of Wolvesey Castle .204
{From a Drawing by N. C. H. Nisbett, A.R.I.B.A.)
Wolvesey Castle . . . (From a Photograph by H. W. Salmon) 212
St. CrOSS, The Quadrangle {From a Photograph by H.W.Salmon) 2l6
The Chamber Court, Winchester College 228
{From a Photograph by H. W. Salmon)
Bramshill, Facade {From a Photograph by F. Mason Good, Winchfield} 244
Place House {From a Photograph by E. J. Nesbit, Earhfield Road, S.W.) 1 64
Hurst Castle . {From a Photograph by F. G. O. Stuart, Southampton) 268
GENERAL SKETCH OF
THE HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE
AND WINCHESTER
BY THE EDITOR
Natural Features
IHE history of every English county largely
depends upon, and might even to some extent
have been foretold from, a careful study of its
natural features. But of few, if any, of the
counties is this so plainly true as of Hampshire. In
England early history naturally looks only to the South
and the East ; the North and the West were the dark
recesses of retreat. And the position of Hampshire in
the very centre of the long southern coast-line, directly
facing the country which was now an enemy and now
a fellow-subject, as the case might be, deeply indented
with two noble land-locked inlets leading into well-watered
valleys, and having both these harbours further protected
by an island flung as if by design across their entrance —
such a county was evidently destined from the first for
the most prominent place in the rise of English naval
supremacy.
But a study of the map will carry us further than this.
After the outline comes the geology. A glance at a
B
2 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
geological chart will show that — leaving out some small
areas — the map is roughly divided into two broad bands
of different colours. To the north is a wide strip of
chalk, forming the noble line of rolling downs that stretch
from Wiltshire into Sussex. South of it is a broad space,
mainly of Bagshot sand, which also fringes the chalk-line
on the north, in the doubtful borderlands of Hampshire
and Surrey, and in both parts grows abundance of pines
and firs. The county is thus divided into upland and
lowland, as, indeed, most counties are, but no others so
impartially.
But Hampshire has been much more favoured by
nature than its neighbours on either side. Wiltshire is
altogether cut off from the sea by the projecting arm of
Dorset, to which it might seem to have had a natural claim,
and has no lowland except a few patches. In Sussex
the chalk downs trending southwards run so near to the
sea that there is scarcely room for agricultural land below
them. But in Hampshire the little rivers which form
the estuary wind their way through secure and fertile
valleys, with ample spaces both for corn-land and pasture,
and beyond them the lower slopes of the downs are formed
of loamy soil. Hence the general result is a woodland
county, well fitted for oak, fir, beech, and yew; with,
happily, no mineral wealth of any sort to attract the
desolating miner, yet not a savage woodland like the
ancient forests of the counties beyond the Thames, but
having wide pastoral spaces between, well protected by
the ridge of the downs on the north, and sloping towards
well-protected harbours on the south, looking out towards
the Continent. Here, then, we seem to have in germ the
history of Southampton and Portsmouth, of the secure yet
accessible capital of Winchester, of William's choice of
the New Forest, and even of the modern rise of health-
giving Bournemouth, and the fast-growing residential
district on the Surrey border.
HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE AND WINCHESTER 3
The Pre-historic Period l
We need not linger over this vast space of time, since
the Hampshire remains, though interesting enough, are
not nearly so important or so numerous as those of
Wiltshire. Some stone and bronze weapons and a few
other objects are preserved in the Museum of the Hartley
University College at Southampton. Barrows, as in
most counties of chalk downs, are numerous. The long
barrows of the older race are not common ; such as remain
are mostly in the neighbourhood of Andover. These
are now assigned by archaeologists to the Neolithic period
and to a dark, long-skulled non-Aryan race, now repre-
sented in Europe by the Basques, Lapps, and Finns, who
poured into Europe from the north-east.
After them, and mostly in the Bronze Age, came a
branch of the great Celtic race, now generally called Goidels
or Gaels, round-skulled, fair-haired, and accustomed to bury
their dead in round barrows. Great numbers of these still
remain all over the county, in spite of continual danger
from the plough, probably at least three hundred. In
some places they are set in conspicuous groups of seven —
one such is close to the railway between Burghclere and
Litchfield, and another on Stockbridge Downs ; while on
Beaulieu Heath and in parts near Petersfield they are
almost as thick as graves in a churchyard.
In the Iron Age came an invasion of other Celts, now
generally called Brythons, and considered to be ancestors
of the Cymry or Welsh. Later still, and not very long
before the Roman occupation, were the Belgae, who have
left their name on the Roman capital, Venta Belgarum
(Winchester). They are generally regarded as Celts,
1 Shore, Popular County Histories : Hampshire, ch. i. ; W. Boyd
Dawkins, Victoria County History, ch. i., p. 253 ff. But for Mr. Shore's
lamented death, as I have mentioned in my Preface, this volume would
probably have had a valuable paper from him on the Barrows and Camps
of the County. See also his paper on " The Origin of Southampton Water,"
Hants. Field Club Papers, vol. v.
4 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
with a strong Teutonic infusion.1 Many of the round
barrows presumably belong to the later rather than the
earlier Celts, but the races were, no doubt, gradually fused.
The Hampshire barrows have never been thoroughly
explored like those of Wiltshire, and weapons, which are
the easiest mark of distinction, are rarely found in these
at all.
The pre-historic camps or earthworks of the county
are very remarkable, and have been more thoroughly
examined than the barrows. Some of these are of quite
astonishing size. They cannot have been meant for
permanent occupation, because, besides the fact that hardly
any probable traces of this have been found in them,
no such large population as they are adapted for could
have got a living out of the bare chalk downs. Hence
arose the interesting system of terrace cultivation. Ter-
races at Woodcot, Wallop, and Somborne have been
noted, and there is another near St. Mary Bourne.2 In a
county of fertile river-valleys walled in by downs, the
purpose of these great camps is almost obvious. They
correspond to the peel-towers of the north, only that they
were a refuge for the tribe instead of a family. Walbury,
the largest of them, which stands just on the dividing line
between Hampshire and Berkshire, is nearly half a mile
long and a third of a mile wide, and could easily have
sheltered the whole probable population of the district —
say, ten thousand souls at most — as a temporary camp of
refuge. There are several others over the valley of the
Test. One of the finest, that of Old Winchester hill,
which towers above the valley of the Meon at a height
of 650 feet, has been thought to be the Roman aestiva
castra or summer encampment, and certainly was of Roman
occupation, but it is more probable that the Remaps only
adapted it from a refuge-camp of the earlier race.
1 Caesar, Bell. Gall. , ii. 4 ; plerotque Belgas esse ortos ab Gcrmanis.
2 Proc. Wilts. Archtzolog. Soc., xii., p. 192.
HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE AND WINCHESTER 5
The Roman Occupation
The recorded history of the part of England that now
is Hampshire begins with the Roman occupation in the
reign of Claudius, A.D. 43, under the command of Aulus
Plautius. The famous earlier invasions under Julius Caesar
in B.C. 55 and 54 affected only the south-eastern part of
the island, and left but little permanent trace. But under
Vespasian, afterwards Emperor, who was second in
command to Plautius, Hampshire was brought more or less
into the condition of a Roman province. The Roman
occupation is treated of with more detail in Mr. Heald's
following article on Silchester, and may, therefore, be
passed over briefly here. It will suffice to say that
there were two considerable towns, Calleva Atrebatum
(Silchester) and Venta Belgarum (Winchester) ; new roads,
always the first care of the Romans, connecting with the
important centres of the kingdom ; fortified stations at
Clausentum (Bittern) and Portus Magnus (Portchester) ;
and villae, or country-houses of great landowners, in
considerable numbers. These are to be found dotted all
over the county, except in the New Forest and the wild
district west of Silchester. A large proportion of the
pavements and other remains belong to the more easily
worked lowland country in the neighbourhood of Andover.
The Jutish and West Saxon Occupation
The Roman garrisons were finally withdrawn from
Britain about A.D. 410, and our island relapsed into a
state about which very little will ever be known. It is
not till the introduction of Christianity, more than two
hundred years later, that Anglo-Saxon history begins to
rest on anything like trustworthy • literary records. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was not begun till after the middle
of the ninth century; and though it most likely incor-
porates some genuine historical traditions, it is almost
impossible to separate these now from the legends in
6 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
which they are embedded. At any rate, we are told, and
we cannot contradict it, of an invasion of Southampton
Water by Saxons under Cerdic and Cynric in 495 and
several subsequent years. An invasion of the Jutes from
Jutland is assigned to the year 514, under two shadowy
leaders, Stuf and Wihtgar. The Jutes, according to a
definite statement of Bede,1 occupied, besides Kent and
the Isle of Wight, " a part of the province of the West
Saxons opposite to the Isle of Wight," about the Hamble
river. A detachment of this settlement, probably the
earliest comers, became the Meonwaras of the singularly
secluded valley of the Meon.2 The struggle between
Teuton and Briton, no doubt, lasted over many years, but
a decisive conflict was bound to come. This took place,
according to the Chronicle, at Cerdicesford, which is fairly
satisfactorily identified with Charford, on the Avon, near
the Wiltshire border, in the year 519, Cerdic and his son
Cynric now heading a new Saxon army, assisted probably
by the allied Jutes of Southampton Water and the South
Saxons of Sussex ; " and sithen from that day have reigned
the kingly family of West Sexe."
The Rise of Southampton
The rise by successive stages of the little tribe of
pirate Gewissas into the kingdom of Wessex, the kingdom
of all England, and finally the world-wide British Empire,
is the most startling illustration of the Parable of the
Mustard-seed to be found in all history. It is to be
noticed, however, that the triumph of Cerdic and his
Teuton allies over the Britons does not apparently make
Winchester a capital city for many generations. The
Teuton pirates had no need of a capital in our sense ;
Winchester, which had probably never been .actually
destroyed, but had only gradually decayed, like Silchester,
1 Hist. Eccles., i. 15.
2 See Mr. Knights Smith's paper on "The Jutes of the Meon Valley."
HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE AND WINCHESTER 7
*
from the withdrawal of the Romans, was still merely an
inland fort. The rise of the county and kingdom is for
the present connected, not with Winchester, but with
Southampton, this being at once the natural sea-port and
trading centre, and also a meeting-point for the kindred
and apparently friendly tribes of Jutes and Gewissas, both
of whom had settlements by the shores of the Southampton
Water.1
The Name of the County
We* now come to the interesting problem, why what
we generally call " Hampshire " is not " Meonshire," as it
perhaps would have been if the Jutes had been stronger
than the Gewissas ; nor " Wessex," as might have been
expected from the analogy of Sussex and Essex; nor
" Wintonshire," as would have been natural if Winchester
had been the capital from the first — but historically always,
and in legal parlance still, " the county of Southampton " ?
The name is additionally awkward now that the town of
Southampton is itself an administrative county.2
The first question answers itself. The second is far
more difficult. It is certainly curious that, while " Sussex "
and " Essex " still survive, the name of the greater Wessex
should have fallen out of use. The reason may perhaps
be found, as Mr. Grant Allen suggests, in the expansive
instinct of the Wessex men, the true ancestors of the
English. The South Saxons and East Saxons stayed
where they had settled. The West Saxons, on the
contrary, were continually pushing out further northwards
and westwards over Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire,
until the land of Wessex was a considerable kingdom,
needing many sub-divisions or shires. The shire of the
fountain-head was then naturally named, like most other
shires, from its principal town, which then was " Han-tune "
1 See further in Prof. Hearnshaw's paper on " Southampton."
2 See Grant Allen, Shires and Counties : Wessex^ pp. 19-21, and County
and Town in England ', p. 18 ; Victoria County History, i., pp. 482-4.
8 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
or Hampton, whatever the true etymology of this name may
be ; and this answers the third question. The name of
the shire of Hampton first occurs in the Chronicle in an
entry under the year 755, giving a decree of the Moot of
the West Saxons, which restricted to it the government
of a feeble king, Sigeberht, while the rest of the now
large kingdom of Wessex was entrusted to more vigorous
hands. But it is generally agreed that it must have been
given to the district before the revival of Winchester in
the seventh century, to which we are coming. The now
usual abbreviation, Hampshire, does not seem to go back
much beyond the reign of Henry VIII. It will thus be
seen that Hampshire is not only the original Wessex, as
containing its stamm-haus in England — to use a convenient
German word — but also its chief trading centre and the
city of its kings. It is, therefore, somewhat to be regretted
that Mr. Hardy, in his celebrated series of novels, should,
by his constant use of the name, have created a popular
idea that "Wessex" applies rather to the annexed
Dorsetshire and Wiltshire than to their original mother-
state, Hampshire.
The Revival oi Winchester
The great rise of Wessex, and of Hampshire as the
leading part of Wessex, are closely connected with the rise,
or rather the revival, of Winchester. After the departure
of the Romans, the city had dwindled into a mere fort.
But the existence of the great walls — injured probably, but
still capable of strong defence — made the West Saxons
abandon their national custom of dwelling in scattered
" hams " or villages, now that they were in a most
dangerous forest country, where at any time they might
have to fight for their lives. Still, Winchester was the
great fortress of the settlement and nothing more, until
Christianity had spread thus far after the landing of
St. Augustine. The first mention of Winchester in the
Chronicle is under the year 643, when the young King
HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE AND WINCHESTER 9
Cenwealh, a zealous convert, laid the foundations of the
Old Minster (the present Cathedral) on ground already
given by his father, Cynegils. Still this, though a great
monastic church for the time, was not the Cathedral. The
first Wessex bishop, St. Birinus, had his " bishop-stool "
or cathedra fixed for him at Dorchester-on-Thames, in
Oxfordshire, probably as being nearly in the centre of the
great diocese if Mercia should be torn in half and divided
bebveen Cynegils and Oswald of Northumbria.1 It was
not until 686 that the fifth bishop, Hasdda, transferred his
" stool " to the great monastery church at Winchester,
which thus became the episcopal as well as the royal
city. From that date it may be considered to have
superseded Southampton as the capital of Wessex.
Wessex now began to grow apace, and Winchester
naturally to increase in importance, though apparently not
in size, together with it. First the Jutes had to give way
to the stronger Teutonic branch ; and their settlements in
the Meon valley and the Isle of Wight, which had been
temporarily handed over to the South Saxons (after a
conquest by Wulfhere, King of Mercia), were re-conquered
and annexed by a very vigorous prince, Caedwalla. How
Wessex gradually recovered all the West of England,
which had slipped for a while out of its grasp, and how
it gradually absorbed South Saxons, East Saxons, and
Kent alike, belongs rather to the general story of England
than of Hampshire. It may suffice to say here that the
struggle with the Danes naturally enforced the already
strong tendency towards a drawing of England together
under whichever might be the dominant kingdom at the
time, and that kingdom was Wessex. The accession of
the great Ecgberht in 802 marks an epoch for England
as well as for Hampshire, for he claimed the title of "rex
totius Britannia" whereas until his accession Wessex had
been almost in vassalage to the powerful Offa of Mercia.
1 See Murray's Handbook for Lincolnshire , p. 31.
io MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
The highest point, however, was not reached until a
little later, in the glorious reign of the greatest of English
kings, Alfred, grandson of Ecgberht. Alfred's father,
^thelwulf, though a monk in the Minster until his
accession to the throne, had utterly defeated an invading
host of Northmen, who came by way of the Thames, at
Aclea1 — "the oak meadow" — and thus made Wessex
the champion of England against the Danes. Wessex
was a much more difficult region to attack than Lincoln-
shire or London, and after eight years of persistent
fighting, the Danes found it worth their while to make
the famous Peace of Wedmore, in Somerset, by which
England was pretty equally divided between Alfred and
Guthrum of Denmark. Winchester thus became the
capital of all England that was not included in the
" Dane-law." This was a proud position indeed to have
reached, and the good people of Winchester are — very
rightly — by no means inclined to forget it. Alfred is
also very rightly regarded as the tutelary hero of the
city. A noble statue of him, by Hamo Thorny croft, R.A.,
stands lofty and conspicuous with shield and sword, at
the eastern end of the High Street ; and it is not without
significance that in the Public Gardens close by is serenely
seated the superb statue of Queen Victoria by Alfred
Gilbert, RA., perhaps the very best work of modern
English sculpture. A thousand years of distinguished
history for the city is recalled by these two contrasted
figures.
Winchester, again, was not only the strongest city, the
royal residence, the seat of the principal bishopric, and
the usual meeting-place of the Witan, but also the leader
in learning. In Wolvesey Palace was a school of learning
1 "Aclea" has commonly, since Manning and Bray's History, been
identified with Ockley, under Leith Hill. But in the ninth century " Surrey "
was a far wider area than now, and Mr. C. Cooksey (Hants. Field Club
Papers ', vol. v.) has shown good reasons for making it to be Oakley, near
Basingstoke.
•
HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE AND WINCHESTER n
and art.1 It was here that King Alfred began, and for
many years even wrote with his own hand the English
Chronicle, the first great history-book of the English, the
mother of a magnificent line of literature. Meanwhile the
city was growing in splendour, as it was understood then.
The group of the three great minsters — the Old Minster,
now the Cathedral ; the New Minster, founded by Alfred,
almost adjoining it on the north ; and the Nun's Minster,
a little eastwards, near the modern Town Hall — must have
been one of the most striking groups then to be seen, not
only in England, but in all Europe.
The Danish Kingdom
The division of England between West Saxon and
Dane could not in the nature of things be anything more
than a temporary arrangement. The Danes, owing to the
distance f their base, were continually losing ground,
and under more Alfreds Wessex must have become
England. But in the reign of yEthelred "the Un-redy,"
— the boy of no counsel — things began to slip back again
to the former state, and the senseless massacre on
St. Brice's Day of the Danes settled in England, who
were numerous and powerful, brought about a Danish
re-conquest. Under the strong Swein, or Swegen, and his
still greater son, Cnut, Wessex again became the royal
part of a kingdom that now was really one, and Winchester
the capital of all England. The school-room story of
Cnut rebuking the courtiers is assigned to the Western
shore at Southampton, and the bones of Cnut himself
are said to be in one of the six beautiful mortuary chests
that stand on the side screens of the choir of the Cathedral.
The Norman Conquest
The Danish Kingdom soon came to an end, as the
Wessex Kingdom had come, by the accession of incom-
1 See further in Mr. Nisbett's paper.
12 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
patent young monarchs. After the troubled reign of
Edward the Confessor, whose name is more associated
in memory with Westminster than with Winchester,
came the Norman Conquest, which, though it began in
Sussex, affected Wessex more directly than the rest of
England, and Hampshire more than any other county.
Winchester, again becoming the principal royal residence
and seat of Government, was more thoroughly Normanised
than any other city. The new buildings included a new
royal palace — part of one gateway-pier of which probably
still survives under the archway leading from High Street
into the Close — and a grand new Cathedral Church, almost
as long as the present enormous one, of which the nave,
under its Perpendicular casing, and the unaltered tower
and transepts stand to this day.
The New Forest
But the way in which the Norman Conquest left its
mark most permanently impressed upon the county was
in the strict reservation as a royal hunting domain of the
wild district beyond the Southampton Water, still famous
throughout all England as the New Forest. Much utterly
baseless legend has been persistently asserted about
this afforestation, even by great historians.1 The place
was not selected with ruthless cruelty, but because,
being an almost uninhabited district, it involved
less disturbance in afforestation than any other part
of Southern England would have done. The cruelty
consisted almost wholly in the carrying out of the
savage forest laws against poachers, who had been
accustomed to hunt where they pleased, and naturally
were not inclined to spare the deer. The worst atrocities
even of these were not due to the Conqueror, but. to his
son. Still, the laws roused so much resentment that it
1 See further on this in Mr. Rawnsley's paper on "The New Forest";
Victoria County History , ii., p. 418 ; Murray's Handbook for Hants., p. 180.
HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE AND WINCHESTER 13
is no wonder that the mysterious death of William Rufus
in the Forest was looked on as an act of Divine vengeance.
Domesday Book
The celebrated Domesday Book of the Survey, made
under the Conqueror, is more closely connected with
Hampshire than with any other county. It was compiled
at Winchester ; it was kept at Winchester until West-
minster became the most frequent meeting-place of
Parliament ; and it calls itself " The Book of Winchester."
This makes it all the more curious at first sight that
Winchester is the only town except London not included.
London, no doubt, required a separate treatment, but
Winchester can hardly have been large enough for this
to be the reason. It is more probable, I would suggest,
that it is precisely because the Book was compiled there,
so that all the facts were ready to hand at any time.
This gap was supplied by another census of the city under
Henry I., about forty years later.
Winchester under Bishop Henri de Blois
Hitherto there has been hardly anything but a course
of unbroken growth and prosperity to record, but in the
black time of anarchy and Civil War that succeeded the
death of Henry L, Winchester underwent the greatest
misfortune in her whole history, and that, too, principally
through the ambition and unscrupulousness of her powerful
Bishop, Henri de Blois, nephew of King Henry L, and
younger brother of King Stephen. He aimed at making
his already powerful see still more powerful, and very
nearly succeeded, had it not been for the death of his friend
the Pope, in getting Winchester- raised into an Arch-
bishopric with seven Suffragans. It might thus quite
possibly have outstripped Canterbury. He was the greatest
builder that the diocese ever had until William of
Wykeham. The Old Minster (the Cathedral) was but
14 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
newly completed, so that he added little, except, probably,
the remarkable font But he almost rebuilt Wolvesey as
a castle for fighting instead of a residence for a bishop;
he founded the famous hospital of St. Cross, and built much
of its beautiful Church ; he began the great Episcopal
Castle of Farnham, which, though not quite inside our
county, is closely connected with it ; and he built at least
two other Episcopal residences, Merdon Castle, near
Hursley, and Bishop's Waltham.1
In 1141, de Blois, who was always changing sides, took
up the cause of Stephen, and strongly garrisoned Wolvesey
in his interest. Winchester Castle, at the other end of
the city, was, on the other hand, secured by the Provost
for the Empress Matilda, who was herself brought thither
from Oxford. The result of this extraordinary quarrel
between the two castles — Si rixa est ubi tu -pulsas, ego
vapulo tantum — was nothing of importance for the
claimants to the throne, but was very nearly the
destruction of Winchester. Twenty churches, it is said,
were burnt; but, if so, they must have been very small
and of little interest. A much greater loss was the Nun's
Minster, and greater still, the New Minster, better known
as Hyde Abbey, because it had been, only in the last reign,
transferred from the close neighbourhood of its rival, the
Old Minster, and rebuilt with much magnificence on less
swampy ground in Hyde Meadow. The entrance gateway
is still standing not far from the South- Western Railway
Station. It must have taken Winchester many years even
to seem like recovering from the siege. It has been,
however, far more fortunate than most cities of its antiquity
and importance, never having had again but once to
experience an actual siege. This was in 1645, under
Cromwell himself, but after Cheriton resistance was
useless. The Castle was destroyed, with, happily, the
l For more about de Blois' works, see Mr. Nisbett's two papers on
" Wolvesey " and " St. Cross."
THE WEST GATE, WINCHESTER.
HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE AND WINCHESTER 15
exception of the beautiful Great Hall ; but, on the whole,
comparatively little mischief was done.
The county, indeed, played a larger part than the
city in the Civil War. The celebrated siege of Basing
House — which is fully described by Mr. Godwin further
on — awakened frantic enthusiasm at the time, and has
always been of the highest interest as a display of English
doggedness and loyalty, though practically it was of no
great importance. But the battle of March 2Qth, 1644, on
the east ' side of Cheriton village, eight miles from
Winchester (it is also known as " Alresford fight "), between
the Earl and Lord Hopton for the King, and Waller for
the Parliament, was far more important as laying Win-
chester open, and considerably affecting the Royalist
plans. " That day," says Clarendon, " broke all the
measures, and altered the whole scheme of the King's
counsels." Hampshire, however, has never been a cockpit
of war like many of the Midland counties.
The Decline of Winchester
The siege of 1141 may, perhaps, be considered as
marking the turning-point after which Winchester began
to go down-hill. The cause, however, lay, of course, far
deeper than the mere destruction of buildings or wealth.
It was the overshadowing growth of London as the great
trading centre, and of its neighbour-city, Westminster, as
the permanent seat of Government. Many interesting
events of history, of course, still occurred at Winchester.
In the Chapter House King John was absolved by Stephen
Langton after the Interdict. Henry III. was born in the
city, and received his usual name from it, though his
connexion did it little but mischief. Parliaments still
sometimes met here, notably the one of 1255, which passed
the " Statutes of Winchester." Here, too, in 1487, was
born the Prince Arthur who, if he had lived, would have
spared us a Henry VIII, though whether for the better,
16 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Heaven only knows. Henry IV. married Joan of Navarre,
and Queen Mary was married to Philip of Spain in the
Cathedral. In the Castle in 1603 took place that
iniquitous trial and sentence of Sir Walter Raleigh which
was used fifteen years later as a means of bringing him to
the block. Charles II. began a new palace, designed by
Wren, the last few remnants of which are built up in the
barracks. St. Giles's Fair, once nearly the greatest in
Europe, continued for centuries to be of considerable
importance, especially for the sale of cloth. But the day
of Winchester as a capital was over, and the event of the
greatest real importance in its later history was the
founding of the famous College by Bishop William of
Wykeham, at the end of the fourteenth century, not because
Winchester was a great city, but that it might be under
the peaceful shadow of his great Cathedral Church.1
Southampton and Portsmouth
The early history of Southampton has been touched on
already, and will be more fully treated by Prof. Hearnshaw.
Portsmouth, to be described by Mr. Godwin, is a place of
far more recent importance. It was a seaport town with
a charter as early as noo, but the ship-building dock did
not come much into prominence till four hundred years
later. Now it is one of the greatest naval arsenals in
the world, and, together with the vast shipping centre
of Southampton, makes Hampshire chief among the naval
counties.
So we come back to the point where we began, with
a study of the pre-historic map. Hampshire is still the
great woodland county, with more forest than all the
other counties put together. And the two great natural
harbours that form the most marked feature of its outline
have always been, and still are, the main determining
influences of its history.
G. E. JEANS.
l See Mr. W. P. Smith's paper.
SILCHESTER1
BY THE REV. J. M. HEALD
N the great itinerary of the Roman Empire, which goes
under the name of Antoninus Augustus, and is
supposed to have been compiled about the year
A.D. 320, we find a place called Calleva Atrebatum
mentioned five times. It is named in No. 7, the route
from Regnum (Chichester) to London through Clausentum
(Bittern, near Southampton); in No. 13, a route from Isca
Silurum (Caerleon) through Glevum (Gloucester) and
Durocornovium (Cirencester) to Calleva; in No. 14, another
route from Caerleon through Caerwent and Aquae Sulis
(Bath) to Calleva; in No. 15, a route from Calleva to Isca
Damnoniorum (Exeter) through Venta Belgarum (Win-
chester) and Muridunum (Honiton?); and again in No. 12,
a very circuitous route through Vindomis (Whit-
church?), Venta Belgarum, and Muridunum to Viriconium
(Wroxeter). It is clear that a place through which so
many routes passed must have been one of very great
importance ; but it was practically one of the lost Roman
stations until, after there had been much random guess-
work, Horsley by patient measurements identified it with
Silchester (Brit. Rom., p. 458).
This identification has been so generally accepted, that
there is no need to enter into the details of the reasons
on which it is based. In the Ravenna Geographer the
name is spelt Caleba Atrebatium. The place, unfortu-
nately, is absolutely unknown to history, and the only
1 The author desires to thank the proprietors of the Victoria County
History, which is the standard authority, for permission to make use of their
material.
1 8 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
other mention of it is in Ptolemy's great geographical
work; and in this the fact that the place was practically
unknown has caused great corruption in the text, and it
is only in the edition of Miiller that the correct reading
has been restored.
The addition of the name of the tribe to that of the
town shows that it was the capital of the Canton, as is
the case with similar names, such as Venta Belgarum and
Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough, in Yorkshire). In all such
cases there is a strong presumption that the place was
important as a tribal centre before the Roman occupation.
In the case of Silchester this may be regarded as a
certainty. There may still be seen the earthwork which
formed the protection of the city in pre-Roman times.
In the Victoria County History, vol. i., p. 261, Mr. Boyd
Dawkins mentions this among the traces of the Brythonic
occupation of Hampshire in the Pre-historic Iron Age :
" Among the Pre-historic Antiquities which may be referred
to them (the Brythons) are many of the camps on the
downs, but more particularly the great pre-historic city of
the south, Calleva Atrebatum, with its earth rampart and
fosse surrounding an area far too large to be fortified
by the Romans, who built the later and smaller city of
Silchester."
According to Professor Rhys, the name Atrebates
means simply " inhabitants," but is probably used in the
special sense of farmers or homestead men. By the same
authority the name Calleva is explained as meaning
" the town in the wood." " If this guess be right, it
would suggest that the first syllable of the present name
Silchester stands for the Latin word silva" This may
remind us of the remark of Caesar about British towns:1
" The Britons call a place a town when they have
fortified a thick wood with a rampart and 'a ditch,
and to such places they are wont to retreat when
l Bell. Gall. v. 17.
SlLCHESTER 19
^%
they want to avoid an inroad of the enemy." The district
is still well wooded. In pre-historic times the forest of
Pamber would probably be part and parcel of the great
forest known as the " Andredes Leage " in The Saxon
Chronicle, where (in A.D. 893) it is said to be one hundred
and twenty miles long and thirty broad. This forest was
impenetrable even in the eleventh century,, and William
the Conqueror therefore went from Hastings to London
round by Dover.
As the place is absolutely unknown to history, we
have to 'come down as late as to Domesday Book for the
next allusion to it. We learn there that it was then held
by Ralf de Mortemer, and that before the Conquest
Cheping held it of Earl Harold in alodium. " The Alod,"
says Bishop Stubbs, "is the hereditary estate derived
from primitive occupation, for which the owner owes no
service except the personal obligation to appear in the
host and Council." .This Cheping was dispossessed of
large estates at the Conquest, and it is quite a comfort
to find "that he was perhaps assigned a small estate
sufficient to keep him alive." x
There are a few allusions to the place in mediaeval
chronicles : —
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 1154:
vi. 5. After this the Britons, before dispersed, flocked together from
all parts, and in a council held at Silchester made Constantine King, and
placed the crown of the kingdom upon his head.
ix. i. Uther Pendragon being dead, the nobles from several provinces
assembled together at Silchester, and proposed to Dubricius, Archbishop
of Caerleon, that he should consecrate Arthur, Uther's son, to be King.
Dubricius, therefore, in conjunction with the other bishops, set the crown
upon Arthur's head.
ix. 15. The Bishopric ol Silchester was conferred upon Mauganius,
that of Winchester upon Diwanius, and that of Alclud upon Eledanius.
Henry of Huntingdon, 1155 :
i. 3. Kair Segent, which was situated upon the Thames not far from
Redinge, and is now called Silcestre.
1 Victoria County History, vol. i., p. 428.
20 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Eulogium Historiarum^ 1366 :
iv. 170. Caer Segent, situated not far from Redinge, now called Silecestre,
and almost destroyed.
v. 58. The Bishopric of Silcestre was given to Mauganus, that of
Winchester to Dumanus.
Geoffrey of Monmouth was, of course, something
worse than a mere compiler of legends. He was a
deliberate falsifier of history. He wrote a Romance, and
wished to pass it off as a history compiled from authentic
sources. Still, he may have had some genuine documents
that have since disappeared, and there is often a historical
background to his stories. So in this matter of crowning
Constantine we have a perversion of genuine history.
Geoffrey dates the event after the appeal to Aetius. The
third consulship of Aetius was in A.D. 446. According to
Geoffrey, after the appeal to the Roman Consul had
failed, the King of Armorica sent to the relief of Britain
a small force under the command of his brother
Constantine, and he was crowned King of Britain at
Silchester. Constantine is married to a British lady
descended from a noble Roman family, and has three sons,
Constans, Aurelius Ambrosius, and Uther Pendragon.
Constantine is murdered by a Pict, and is succeeded by
Constans, who had been a monk at Winchester. Constans
himself is shortly afterwards murdered by Vortigern, one
of the princes of South Wales, who had urged him to
take the kingdom. The Archbishop of London, Guitolinus,
has charge of the brothers of the murdered king, and,
fearing for their safety, carries them off into Brittany.
Vortigern, in order to strengthen his power, allies himself
with the Saxons.
Here, of course, we have mere legend. But there
is historical fact at the back of it. The usurper,
Constantine, passed over into Gaul, A.D. 408, and, after
various turns of fortune, was there slain with his son
Constans, whom he had taken from the cloister and
associated with himself in the empire. A full account of
SlLCHESTER 21
Constantino's deeds is given by Freeman in the Historical
Review for 1886, in an article entitled " Tyrants of Britain,
Gaul, and Spain." It is difficult to see why Geoffrey
should have made such an utterly unknown place as
Silchester the scene of the Coronation of Constantine
unless he had some authority for it. Otherwise, he would
more naturally have fixed it at some well-known place
such as London or Winchester.
With regard to Arthur, it is now generally admitted
that he was a historical personage.1 Now, the most
authentic statements that we have about him bring him
into connexion with the war against the West Saxons,
and, in consequence, associate him with the district of
Silchester. The site of Mons Badonicus has not been
settled. Carte would identify it with Baydon Hill on the
great Roman road between Silchester and Chichester,2
but there seems no doubt that in the battle or siege there
the opponents were the West Saxons, and that the defeat
retarded their advance for many years. It was this
battle, therefore, that saved Calleva after Venta Belgarum
had fallen. The date of the event has been fixed by
M. de la Borderie as A.D. 493. In the Annales Cambrics
this event is recorded in the following remarkable terms :
" The war of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ upon his shoulders for three
days and three nights, and the Britons were victorious."
The same fact is recorded in Nennius : 3 " The
twelfth (of Arthur's battles) was the war in Mount
Badon, in which upon one day 960 men fell at
one attack of Arthur, and no one laid them low
but he alone, and he was victorious in all his wars."
1 Zimmern (Nennius Vindicatus, p. 285) says : " So far as the most
ancient accounts of the legend warrant a conclusion, Arthur was a distinguished
leader of the Britons in their conflicts with Angle and Saxon, about the end
of the fifth and beginning of the sixth century."
2 Mr. Elton approves of Mr. Skene's identification of it with Bouden Hill,
not far from Linlithgow.
3 c. 56, ed. Mommsen.
22 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
That the entry in the Annales Cambrics is ancient is
shown by the fact that its curious phrase, which is clearly
metaphorical, has been made the basis of a legend, which
is given in a marginal note to the passage of Nennius.
This legend sends Arthur on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem,
where he has a cross constructed of exactly the same
size as the Cross of Christ, and he carries this cross
throughout the battle. In the case of Arthur again it
is probable that Geoffrey had some authority for bringing
him into connexion with Silchester. When Winchester
had fallen, Silchester would remain the most important
city of the district.
It is not easy to say whether all the Bishops mentioned
had any other existence than in Geoffrey's imagination.
Dubricius is certainly historical. We have, fortunately,
an anonymous life of him, evidently compiled from earlier
sources before Geoffrey's romance appeared. As to the
others, we must remain in doubt. We have so little
knowledge about the British Church, that it is seldom
advisable to make any unqualified statement, either positive
or negative, about an event recorded in its legends.
The name Silchester is puzzling in these notices of
Geoffrey, since it is difficult to see how he can have
reached it from any ancient documentary evidence. The
other chroniclers give as great a puzzle in the name
Kair Segent which they introduce. The facts are as
follows : —
The name is found in both the lists of towns given in
Mommsen's edition of Nennius, and in both it appears
in the form Cair Segeint. In the one it is followed
by Cair Legeion Guar Usic, Caerleon-upon-Usk ; in the
other it is preceded by Cair Guoranegon, which is probably
Worcester.1
1 These lists are considered by Zimmern to be earlier in date than
A.D. 796.
SlLCHESTER % 23
The name is also found in a most enigmatical chapter
of Nennius (c. 25) : —
The fifth (Roman Emperor that visited Britain) was Constantine, the
son of Constantine the Great, and he died there, and his sepulchre is
shown near the city, which is called Cair Segeint, as the letters which are
upon the stone of the tomb show. And he sowed there three seeds — that
is, of Gold, of Silver, and of Copper, in the pavement of the aforesaid
city, so that no poor man might dwell in it for ever ; and it is called by
another name, Minmanton.
Among the Roman towns of Wales we find Segontium,
the walk of which are still visible at Caer Seiont, near
Carnarvon. The position of Cair Segeint next to
Caerleon-upon-Usk in the list of Nennius would lead us
to be inclined to identify it rather with Segontium than
with Calleva.
Among the scanty epigraphic remains of Calleva is a
fragmentary inscription of six lines, beginning (i) Deo
Her ... (2) Saegon . . . This was completed in
Orelli as deo Herculi saegontiacorum, but it is improbable
that ten letters in the first line would be followed by
fourteen in the second. Hiibner completes it, Deo Herculi
Saegonti. It has generally been interpreted as the
Hercules of the tribe called Segontiaci. The diphthong is
considered by Mr. Haverfield to forbid this.
In the country of the Catuvellauni numerous coins
have been found bearing the name of a prince called
Tasciovanus, together with the name of Verulaminus.
Some of the coins have the inscription Sego. It is not
improbable that this is an abbreviation of Segontium, and
it has been conjectured that Tasciovanus conquered the
country of the Atrebates, and minted money in their
capital, Calleva (Segontium).1
From the connexion in which the Segontiaci are found
in Caesar, it is most probable that in his time they were
to be found in the valley of the Thames. It is, therefore,
1 Sir John Evans opposes this identification, and thinks that Segontium is
an independent Roman station the site of which has yet to be discovered.
24 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
not improbable that the Segontiaci were ousted from
their settlement by the Atrebates, who were new comers,
and passed over to the West; that Calleva at one time
bore the name Segontium, and that this fact accounts for
the name Cair Segeint
Leland in his itinerary simply notices that in certain
parts within the walls the corn is at first very fine, and
that when nearly ripe it decays ; but he does not seem
to have been curious as to the cause of this. The first
minute description that we have of the place is in
Camden's Britannia. By his time the place appears to
have been reduced to the state of ruin in which we find
it at present.
Such being the meagre account which we can get of
the place from records, we are driven to more general
sources to conjecture what its history may have been.
The Atrebates are found not only in Britain, but also
in Gallia Belgica, where their name still lives on in
" Arras " and " Artois." This was the home country of
the British colony. We have the evidence of Caesar that
the Belgic tribes invaded " Britain : x " The sea coast
is inhabited by those who crossed from Belgium to make
war and gain booty. They are nearly all called after
the names of those cities from which they originally
came. After the campaign was over, they remained
there, and began to cultivate the soil." We are not told
what was the date of this invasion, and it was most
probably a gradual encroachment But Caesar2 speaks
of a certain Diviciacus, King of the Suessiones
(another Belgic tribe), as the most powerful chief
in Gaul, and says that he had authority over a
great part of Britain also. This king lived near. Caesar's
time (nostra memoria). If he did not begin the Belgic
1 Bell. Gall., v. 12.
2 Id., ii. 14. According to Prof. Rhys (p. 24), this is shown by Gaulish
coins to be the correct form.
SlLCHESTER % 25
invasion, he most probably consolidated the results of
it Scholars are not agreed as to the ethnological
affinities of the Belgae, nor is it certain which of the
tribes that Caesar found in Britain were Belgic and which
were not. The reader will find these questions in all
their bearings fully discussed in Dr. Guest's Origines
Celticae, ch. xii.
South of the Thames, in the country that we know
to have been Belgic, several coins have been found,
which show that there was at one time in that district
a kingdom ruled over by a certain Commius and his three
sons — Tincommius, Verica or Virica, and Eppillus.
These coins are described at length by Sir John Evans,
British Coins, p. 151. He says: —
As there are three distinct coinages, probably contemporary, all of which
bear the title of Son of Commius most frequently on the place of honour on
the obverse, it seems no unreasonable supposition that Commius may have
held the sovereign power over the various tribes of the district, and that at
his death his dominions were divided among his sons, probably as rulers of
the Regni, the Atrebates, and the Cantii.
Eppillus minted money at Calleva, as a coin given
by Sir J. Evans in the supplement conclusively proves.
One of these coins, if rightly interpreted, contains the
names of all three brothers ; others contain the names
of Verica and Eppillus ; others the names separately.
Sir John Evans deduces from these facts that at one
time the three brothers held rule conjointly over the
whole of the south-east district, though each had a
separate province more immediately under his own
control, and that Tincommius died first, Verica next,
and so Eppillus, King of Calleva, survived both. The
evidence of the coins, therefore, proves the existence of a
kingdom of the Atrebates with Calleva as its capital.
Now in Caesar's Gallic War there is a certain
Commius, an Atrebate who plays an important part
Caesar had conferred upon him the sovereignty of the
Continental Atrebates, and sent him over to his kinsmen
26 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
in this island to prepare the way for their submission;
but as soon as he landed he was thrown into prison,
and only released when Caesar had been victorious.1
He went back with Caesar to Gaul, and when the General
set out against the Treveri, he was left with some cavalry
to keep watch over the Menapii.2 But in the year B.C. 52
patriotism triumphed over the personal attachment of the
soldier to his general, and he became one of the leaders
in the general insurrection, the object of which was to drive
the Romans out of Gaul.3 He was considered such a
dangerous enemy that Labienus tried to have him
treacherously murdered by the agency of Volusenus. He
escaped, but was so severely wounded that he was thought
to be dead.4 Again, in B.C. 51 we find him. one of the
chief organizers of opposition to Roman rule in Gaul, and
when all the rest submitted, he alone still held out
Volusenus was again employed to assassinate him, but he
received a severe wound in the thigh, and Commius
escaped. Antonius was then commanding in Belgium.
He was anxious to make a settlement of the matter, and
therefore made an agreement -with Commius that he should
be allowed to go where he might never see a Roman again.5
At this point we lose sight of him, but in Frontinus6
there is a passage which shews that at some period of
his life he fled from Caesar to Britain : —
When Commius the Atrebate fled into Britain from Gaul, after being
defeated by Divus Julius, and had come to the ocean, when the wind was
favourable but the tide had ebbed, although the ships were high and dry
on the shore, he notwithstanding ordered sail to be set. So when Caesar,
in his pursuit, saw from afar off the sails filled with wind, he thought that
he had made good his escape, and therefore retired.
At the time of his final quarrel with Caesar he must
have been still in the enjoyment of his full powers, and
the most natural thing for him to do would be to come to
1 Bell. Gall., iv. 21, 27. 3 Id., vii. 76 ; viii. 6. 5 Id., viii. 48.
2 Id., vi. 6. * Id., viii. 23. 6 Strategem, ii. 13, n.
SlLCHESTER ;% 2/
his relations in Britain. The Belgic tribes of Britain had
probably already been influenced by him to join the
league which he had organized against Caesar, and the
fact that he was the implacable foe of their common enemy
would secure him a hearty welcome in Britain.
" Germanus," says Dr. Guest, " was the name assumed
by the Celt when he revolted against Roman supremacy.
Commius, the Atrebate, whom Caesar had taken into his
confidence, rose against Roman oppression when smarting
under tjie sense of injury, and it was then, no doubt,
that the coins were struck which bear the legend, Commios
Germanus — i.e., Commius the rebel, the outlaw. There
were other Gallic chiefs, who, as appears from their coins,
at one time or other took up the same ominous title."
As the coins are found in the very district in which
the Commius of Caesar was supposed to possess influence,
it is no unreasonable conjecture that the Commius of
the coins and he of the Gallic war were one and the same
person. When Caesar invaded Britain, the Catuvellauni,
another Belgic tribe, had the hegemony in the south of
the county. The effect of that invasion was to weaken
that tribe for the time, and thus to enable Commius to
establish a kingdom south of the Thames. The reader
will find the probable limits of this kingdom of the
Atrebates fully discussed by Dr. Guest.1 After a short
time, however, the Catuvellauni regained their power, and
were again over-running the south of the country.
In the reign of Gaius, Adminius, probably a grandson
of that Tasciovanus who minted coins at Sego(ntium),
had applied for the assistance of the Romans to reinstate
him in his rights, but in vain. In the reign of Claudius
one Bericus made the same application with success. We
depend mainly upon Dio Cassius for our knowledge of
the details of this expedition, and his account is not very
clear. The expedition sailed in the year 43, under the
1 Origines Celtics, ii., p. 391.
28 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
command of Aulus Plautius, who had under him the future
Emperor Vespasian and his brother, Flavius Sabinus.
In Dio's account the following points stand out : — That
the expedition was divided into three separate forces ;
that their landing was unopposed, and was made at a
place where they were not expected ; that soon afterwards
they encountered a people called the Boduni, "whom
they that are called the Catuvellauni had under their
dominion " ; that they came to a river, of such width and
depth that the natives thought the Romans could not
pass it without a bridge.1 As the Boduni are not known
in Britain, and the text of Dio is not impeccable, it
has been generally supposed that the Dobuni are meant
— the tribe who lived immediately to the west of the
Atrebates, and whose capital was Corinium (Cirencester).
The only river that can answer to the description is the
Severn. It has also been supposed that the Bericus
(Vericus) mentioned by Dio was the son of Commius.
But Sir John Evans thinks that the interval of time is
far too great to allow of their being the same person.
In an article in Hermes, vol. xvi., on the distribution of
the Roman army in Britain, Dr. Hiibner says that this
Bericus is certainly identical in name and perhaps in
person with the son of Commius. They may very well
have belonged to the same family. In the same article
Dr. Hiibner argues that this invasion was made from the
point where the Belgae themselves had most probably
entered Britain, and that the army marched along the
direct route from Clausentum through Venta Belgarum to
Calleva. If it. was an exiled king of Calleva that had
called them in, this route is not at all improbable.
Vespasian's part in the expedition was considerable.
According to Suetonius,2 he engaged the enemy thirty
times, conquered the two most powerful tribes, and
captured twenty towns and the Isle of Wight Calleva
1 Dio Cassms, Ix. 19. 2 Vesp. 4.
SlLCHESTER % 29
was probably one of these twenty towns. In the
graphic expression of Tacitus, Vespasian was then
" shown to the fates." Aulus Plautius and his immediate
successors did their work in this district so efficiently that
it never had to be done over again, and therefore this
part of Britain has no history. It became the most
completely Romanized district of the whole country.
There is a passage in Tacitus1 that may have some
bearing upon the history of Calleva. We are told that
Agricola spent the winter of A.D. 79-80 in quiet, and
encouraged the Britons to practise the arts of peace, build
temples, forums, and houses, and indulge in baths and
elegant entertainments. The formal plan of Calleva
suggests that it may have been a place thus built to
order.
What was the cause of the destruction of Calleva?
There is only one thing that we can be certain about,
and that is, that most certainly it was not sacked, as were
Anderida and Viriconium. This fact the excavations have
placed beyond dispute. It is unfortunate that we know
less about the downfall of Roman Britain than about the
same catastrophe in any other portion of the empire. The
only original authority nearly contemporary that we have
is Gildas, though some portions of the so-called Nennius
may be nearly coeval with him. Gildas gives us a sermon
rather than a history, and when we have the opportunity
of controlling his facts, we generally find him in error.
There is a glaring instance of this in his account of the
construction of the great lines of defence in the north.
Besides, for some reason or other, he is clearly writing
under the influence of violent and blinding prejudice. The
Britons did not show the cowardice of which he accuses
them. Three things, however, seem to be clear from
his narrative : — (i) That before the invasion of the Saxons,
1 Agric. 21.
3o MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
the country was vexed, not only by the inroad of the
Picts, but by civil war ; (2) that the inhabitants were
divided into two well-marked classes, one of which he
speaks of by the name of Romans (he says, for example, of
Ambrosius Aurelianus [c. 25] that " he alone of all the
Roman nation was by chance left alive in the uproar of
these troubled times ") ; (3) that a large number passed
over the sea, though it may be somewhat of an exaggera-
tion to say that "we know from Gildas that by A.D. 446
there were hardly any of the old Roman families left in
the island."1 Now it is a remarkable fact that there has
been found among the ruins of Silchester a stone bearing
an Ogam inscription. The date of the Ogams makes us
see in this a sign of a Celtic revival. It is an equally
remarkable fact that the Welsh language shows compara-
tively few traces of Latin influence — no more, perhaps,
than can be accounted for by ecclesiastical causes. It is
most strange that a people who are the survivors of a race
that had been intimately connected with the Roman
Empire for many centuries should show in their language
such few traces of Latin influence. It seems certain from
this that the Roman influence cannot have penetrated to
the mass of the people, and that the greater part of those
who had been under the influence of Roman culture — the
inhabitants, that is, of such towns as Calleva — left the
country and passed over sea.
How such an exodus would take place we may learn
from a parallel instance, as Mr. Haverfield has already
noted. In the life of St. Severinus, by Eugippius2
(A.D. 511), we have an account of what was going
on in the frontier provinces of the Danube, Noricum
and Pannonia, after the death of Attila (A.D. 453). The
defence of the frontier has utterly collapsed, and the
1 Mr. Elton ( Origins of English History, 2nd ed. , p. 350) notes, on the
authority of Breton Chroniclers, that the principal migrations into Brittany
took place in the years 500 and 513 A.D. In the first, St. Samson of Dol is
said to have been driven from York.
2 Edited by Sauppe in the Monumenta Gcrmaniat Historica.
SlLCHESTER 31
country is raided by the Rugi, the Heruli, and the
Alamanni. The Saint has preternatural information of the
coming of the enemy, and under his direction the
inhabitants of Quintana (Osterhofen) escape to Batava
(Passau) (c. 27). Then they all pass on to Lauriacum
(Lorch) (c. 28), then to Favianae (Mauer) (c. 31). Finally,
Odoacer transplants the remnant into Italy (c. 44). It is
a pity that the British Jeremiah had not as much sense
as Eugippius. A similar narrative of events in Britain
would be invaluable. Some, no doubt, retreated westward.
The so-called Romans went over sea. The advance of the
West Saxons was very gradual, because their numbers
were small. Winchester was probably taken in the year
that Cerdic landed, because Thomas Rudborne, a monk
of Winchester (1438-1480), informs us in his Breviarium
Chronicorum that when, in A.D. 635, Birinus introduced
the Christian rites into one of its ancient churches, that
church had been for a hundred and forty-two years the
Temple of Dagon. After that their progress was slow.
The great defeat of Badon Hill crippled them for a long
time. There is nothing in the Saxon Chronicle to show
that the site of Calleva was held by the Saxons before
568, when Ceawlin and Cutha came into collision v/ith
/Ethelbert of Kent. When the contending armies passed
over the site of Calleva they probably found it deserted.
Silchester owes its importance simply to the fact that
it is the only instance as yet where the site of a Romano-
British town has been completely excavated. The remains
are not, as a whole, of great interest, nor has anything of
special importance been discovered ; but the ground plan
has been completely made out Some desultory investiga-
tions took place in the eighteenth century, and an attempt
was made by Stukeley in 1722 to give a plan of the city.
The first regular exploration was made by the Rev. J. G.
Joyce, Rector of Silchester. In the year 1864, he, with the
aid of the then Duke of Wellington, the owner of the site,
32 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
began systematic investigations of the place. These
were continued until his death in 1878. Some further
work was done after that date by various persons, but
in 1884 all excavations ceased. In the year 1890 the
Silchester Excavation Fund was started, and since then
the work has been regularly carried on under the auspices
of the Society of Antiquaries, and under the superin-
tendence of Mr. W. H. St. John Hope and Mr. G. E. Fox,
with other able antiquaries. The discoveries have been
recorded as they were made in Archceologia, and the
most important objects found have been deposited in
the Reading Museum as a loan from the Duke of
Wellington. For a minute account of the discoveries, the
reader must be referred to the first volume of the Victoria
County History of Hampshire. There every detail of
the work is described by Messrs. Fox and St. John Hope
themselves ; and the result forms a most valuable
introduction to the study of Roman-British Antiquity.
We can only give an indication of the principal features.
Outside the walls is the amphitheatre. Amphitheatres
are found at Richborough, Colchester, Dorchester, Ciren-
cester, Wroxeter, and Caerleon-upon-Usk. That of
Dorchester is the largest. It is 218 feet in length and 163
in width, and has an area of 3,380 square yards. It was
calculated by Stukeley to have accommodation for nearly
13,000 spectators. That of Richborough was 200 feet in
length and 166 in width. The dimensions of the Sil-
chester amphitheatre are 150 feet by 120, and are nearly
identical with those of the one at Cirencester. It is said
that in 1 760 five rows of seats were distinctly visible. Now
all traces of them have disappeared
The walls of the city have a circuit of 2,670 yards,
and enclose an area of 102 acres, about the same as
that of Wroxeter and Colchester. It is highly probable
that these walls were erected at a much later date than
the building of the city itself. It is not probable that
SlLCHESTER % 33
inland towns, which were exposed to no danger, would
have the expensive protection of walls, and the fact that
they interfere with the regularity of the ground plan
seems to point to their being an addition at a later time,
when the disturbed condition of the country made them
necessary. One of the few inscriptions belonging to the
place was found embedded in the wall when grubbing-up
a crab-tree growing upon it. The use of such materials
points to building in a hurry in disturbed times. The
mass of the walls consists of flint rubble. As a rule, such
walls have bonding courses of tiles. At Richborough
these courses consist of two rows of tiles ; at Burgh, in
Suffolk, of three rows ; at Colchester there are found
three and four rows. In the walls of Reculver, Kenchester,
Caerwent, and Chester, as well as Silchester, tiles are
not used. Here the bonding courses consist of single
rows of large flat stones. At Caerwent there are four
bonding courses of red sandstone. The walls of
Silchester, like those of Burgh Castle and Richborough,
were faced with dressed flints, and here the flints are
set in what is popularly called herring-bone work, as
is the case at Kenchester. The wall is most perfect on
its south side, where it is about fifteen feet high, and
retains a few traces of its facing of dressed flints. It is
supported by internal buttresses, but has no towers.
Besides the four principal gates facing the four points of
the compass there were two others — one on the north-
east, leading to the amphitheatre ; the other a little south of
the west gate. It was most probably by this postern that
the road from Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum) entered the
town.
The east and west gates were the most important.
The base of the west gate was carefully uncovered in
1890, and a beautiful model of it may be seen in the
Reading Museum. These were double gates, consisting
of two arches of the same span, twelve feet. There
was a guard chamber on each side. The north
D
34 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
and south gates were single, and without any guard
chambers. These gates were partly walled up with
material derived from the buildings of the town. The
same blocking of gates is found at Caerwent, and in
several stations along the Wall of Hadrian. The walls
form an irregular hexagon, the shape being clearly
determined by the already existing Brythonic earthwork.
The streets intersect each other at right angles. There
are seven running north and south, six east and west.
The most important feature of the town must have
been the Forum and the Basilica. This block of buildings
was nearly central, and occupied an area of 310 feet by
275 feet. There are grounds for thinking that it was laid
out before the streets, since the lines of its fronts do not
quite coincide with those of the surrounding roads.
The Forum was a great court about 150 feet square.
There were colonnades round it on every side but the
west, which was formed by the eastern wall of the
Basilica. Behind these colonnades were wide ambulatories,
and behind them were ranges of shops ; only on the south
side the shape of the chamber seems to indicate that
here was a series of public offices. Then the whole block
of buildings was surrounded by similar ambulatories.
Fragments of the bases of pillars, belonging presumably
to these colonnades, have been dug up on the spot. In
the Victoria County History will be found an illustration
of the base and capital of a column from the gateway
of the Forum, restored from the remains. The shops
have been assigned to money-changers, butchers, dealers
in poultry, and so on. In the butcher's shop were found
flesh-hooks and the remains of the steelyards. In the
poulterer's, the bones and skulls of birds, together with
the spurs of game-cocks, in some instances supplemented
by steel spurs. In another place was a large mass of
oyster shells, used for pounding into lime. In the money-
changer's was a small bar of silver, together with some
SlLCH ESTER > 35
coins. Doorways at the west end of the north and south
ambulatories gave access to the Basilica.
This building occupied the whole breadth of the Forum
from north to south. It is the opinion of the excavators
that the original one was destroyed by fire, and then
rebuilt in a very debased style. In the first period, they
say, it consisted of a great hall, 240 feet long and 58 feet
wide, divided into a central nave with narrow aisles by
colonnades of the Corinthian order, and with a semi-
circular apse at each end, the raised floor of which formed
the tribune of the Court of Justice. In the centre of
the length of the hall was a still larger apse or apsidal
chamber raised three steps above the body of the hall.
This was probably the council chamber of the governing
body of the city. The original building had a height
probably of sixty feet, and was erected in the second
half of the second century.
Many inscriptions have been found in this country in
which the restoration of such public buildings is recorded ;
and we should gather from them that, as a rule, the Basilica,
the public baths, and a temple were all found close together.
At Silchester the baths are represented by a building at
a considerable distance from the Basilica, a little to the
north-east of the south gate. They are connected with
a large edifice, which was probably the Hospitium, or
Public Inn. But it is the opinion of the excavators that
the original baths were situated close to the Basilica, at a
place where a long conduit has been found leading from
the smaller west gate to a mass of ruined foundations.
The foundations of three temples have been discovered
The largest is situated about half-way between the forum
and the south wall. It is polygonal in form, and consisted
of a cella 35^ feet in diameter, with an encircling ring
of sixteen columns forming a peristyle. The other two
are near the east gate. They were rectangular in form,
and their remains lie partly under the churchyard and
partly under farm buildings.
36 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
More important than these are the remains of a
Christian church which were found in 1892, just outside
the south-east corner of the Forum. "This building is
remarkable," say the excavators, "as it is probably the
only example of a Christian church of Roman date that
has been found in this country." The remains of Romano-
British Christianity are so scanty, and legend has been
so busy with its records, that it has been denied that
there was any Christianity in Roman Britain at all. The
opinion of Dr. Hiibner, on the contrary, is that among
Roman officials and foreign immigrants it may have spread
early. The few remains which now attest an early
Christian church in Britain belong to them, and are found
only in the thoroughly Romanized districts. Heathenism
continued long. Gildas tells us that Christianity
was received in this country " tepide " — without any
enthusiasm ; and the latest editor of Gildas gives it as
his opinion that " Christian inscriptions are more numerous
in Wales than in any other part of Britain ; yet neither
there nor in the other parts do they indicate a date earlier
than the middle of the fifth century." Of Britain, as
of Gaul, the words of M. le Blanc are true, that " the
legendary stories of a conversion by explosion have no
evidence whatever in their favour." The character and
workmanship of the mosaic pavement of this church show
that it was erected not long after the promulgation of
Constantine's edict of toleration in A.D. 313.
The houses are of two types — the corridor and the
courtyard. In, the one, a row of chambers of varying
size is lined on one or both sides by corridors serving for
communication ; in the other, similar chambers and cor-
ridors are ranged round three or four sides of a courtyard.
" The country houses of Roman Britain," says
Mr. Haverfield, " have long been recognised as embodying
these or allied types ; now it becomes plain that they
are the normal types throughout Britain. They differ
SlLCHESTER ^ 37
widely from the town houses of Rome and Pompeii ; they
are less unlike some country houses of Italy and Roman
Africa; but their real parallels occur in Gaul, and they
may be Celtic types modified to Roman use, like Indian
bungalows. Their internal fittings — hypocausts, frescoes,
mosaics — are everywhere Roman. Those at Silchester are
average specimens, and, except for one ' mosaic, not
individually striking."1
In the plan of the house of the courtyard type
we see. the semi-circular recess or alcove, which is
found in many of the Roman houses in Britain. This recess
may have served as a sacrarium, or place of domestic
worship, where the Lares and Penates were placed.
The rubbish pits have, as usual, produced most of the
objects worth preservation — bones of animals, cats and
dogs as well as those used for food, and a great amount
of pottery. In one of them were found no less than sixty
utensils of iron, among them a gridiron, a plane, and other
carpenters' tools of various kinds.
In epigraphic remains the place is singularly poor.
Only four inscriptions are noted in Hiibner, and only
one of interest, the one addressed to Hercules. More
interesting is a tile containing materials for a writing
lesson, which is assigned by Sir E. Maunde Thompson
to the first or second century A.D. The most recent dis-
covery has been a tile of Nero, showing that the Emperor
had private property in the district.
Now that the excavations are nearly completed, we
can form some idea of what the place must have been
like ; and the conclusion forces itself on our mind that it
never had more than an artificial existence. Large spaces
within the walls never were built over ; and, in the opinion
of Mr. Haverfield, it never contained more than seventy or
eighty houses of any size. The city was not really wanted.
1-EncycL Brit., xxxii. p. 627; Victoria County Hist., i. p. 372.
38 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Its population probably consisted entirely of the officials
that a foreign occupation brings in its train. When the
Roman occupation ended this population disappeared
The population of the district must have been even smaller
than it is now, since the area of forest was more extensive.
The original Calleva was not a city in our sense of the
term at all — only a castle of refuge for distress. When a
place is left derelict in a stoneless region, dilapidation goes
on very rapidly, even in a state of settled civilisation. The
invading barbarian is a thorough utilitarian, and to him
everything for which he has no use is useless. He has no
respect for antiquities, and he will pull down a magnificent
monument of architecture to make a pigsty, and burn
statues to make lime. So Calleva sank down into utter
desolation, and not being wanted was never rebuilt.
J. M. HEALD.
THE JUTISH SETTLEMENT .OF THE
MEON VALLEY
<% BY THE REV. L. KNIGHTS SMITH
.NGLISH HISTORY, we are sometimes told,
begins with the coming of the Saxons to the
shores of Britain. But some share in this
beginning, at least, must be allowed to their
kinsmen, the Jutes. The subject of this article, though
it forms but a small page of English history, possesses,
for Hampshire people in particular, an interest that is all
its own.
From the latter half of the fourth century onwards,
the Saxon pirate fleets had been making constant ravages
on the eastern and southern coasts of this country. So
fierce were their attacks that special measures were
undertaken to withstand them. A " Channel Fleet " was
maintained " to look out for the pirate boats of the
Saxons," and to keep open the communications between
the British province and the main body of the empire ;
the greater towns were fortified with walls ; and the coast,
from the Wash to Southampton Water, was specially
organized under an officer, with the title " Count of the
Saxon Shore."
These expedients kept the marauders awhile at bay;
but on the withdrawal of the Roman garrisons in 407, the
country was left to look after itself. It is described how
"the people of Britain, taking up arms," repulsed a
renewed attack by the barbarians. An appeal was made
to Rome to send back her legionaries, but with no avail,
39
40 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
since the empire needed all her troops in her own death-
struggle. For thirty years the Britons gallantly resisted
the foes that pressed in from almost every side. The
country was then, however, rent with civil strife, and
resistance against Pict and Scot and Gael and Saxon was
rendered futile. In face of a fresh and fierce incursion of
the Picts, Britain had resort to Rome's fatal policy of
" matching barbarian against barbarian." It was with
this view that Britain turned to what seemed the weakest
of her assailants, and " strove to find among the freebooters,
who were harrying her eastern coasts, troops whom she
could use as mercenaries against the Pict."1
Hengist and Horsa, and their Jutish followers, were
accordingly invited with the promise of land and pay
by King Vortigern in 449 or the following year, and
" from the hour when they set foot on the sands of
Thanet, we follow the story of Englishmen in the land
they made their own." The Picts were scattered, but
the Britons found that in the Jutes they had a still more
dangerous foe. The first-comers seem to have been
quickly joined by many more. Britons and those whom
they had called in to be their allies were soon at strife.
The conquest of Kent followed.
In 495, the Saxons, under Cerdic and Cynric, landed
at a spot subsequently called Cerdices-ora (Cerdic's shore),
which was probably at or near the mouth of the Itchen.
In 501, a half -mythical Port and his two sons, Bieda and
Maegla, are said to have landed at Portsmouth, and an
attack was made on Portchester, but the fortress was not
taken. In 508, a more determined onslaught was made,
which resulted in the loss of five thousand Britons, amongst
whom was their leader. In this expedition the Gewissas,
1 J. R. Green, The Making of England, from which I have freely
drawn for the foregoing. I also desire to acknowledge my indebtedness
to Mr. T. W. Shore, Popular County Histories : Hampshire ; Mr.
Reginald Smith, Victoria County History, vol. i. ; Mr. W. Dale, Pro-
fessor Hearnshaw, Mr. N. C. H. Nisbett, and others, who have kindly
afforded me information. — L. K. S.
THE JUTISH SETTLEMENT OF THE MEON VALLEY 41
or West Saxons, were aided by Jutes from Kent and by
South Saxons. The locality was then, as it is now, of
very great strategic importance, since it commanded the
approaches into the heart of the country. This accounts
for the strenuous efforts made both in attack and defence.
Once more, in 514, the West Saxons landed at Cerdices-ora
and put the Britons to flight. With the battle of Charford
(Cerdic's Ford), on the Lower Avon, in 519, the conquest
was completed, and Cerdic and Cynric became kings of
the West Saxons. In 530, they conquered the Isle of
Wight, which was then occupied by their allies, the Jutes,
under Stuf and Wihtgar.
Meanwhile, another body of the Jutes had either
conquered for themselves, or had received as a reward for
their assistance, the district between Southampton Water
and Portsmouth Harbour, and, it is thought, part of the
New Forest also, round Canterton. With regard to the
former district, the line of their occupation is clearly
denned by " a succession of townships along the Meon
Valley from mouth to source. Meon, Titchfield, Wickham,
Soberton, Droxford, Meon Stoke, Corhampton, Warnford,
and Meon East and West were all existing in the eleventh
century, and in all likelihood had then been founded nearly
six hundred years."1 In support of this, we have the
well-known statement of Bede : —
From the Jutes are descended the people of Kent and of the Isle of
Wight and those also in the province of the West-Saxons, who are to this
day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight.2 '
The district watered by the Meon river formed a
natural domicile for the Jutish settlers. It is low-lying
between confining ridges, and in this respect is somewhat
like their native Jutland. There -are also few traces of
Roman occupation ; and, as the Britons had adopted the
better methods of cultivation introduced by the Romans, for
1 Reginald Smith, Victoria History, i. p. 378.
2 Ecclesiastical History, i. 15.
42 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
which the Meon Valley was unsuited in pre-irrigation days,
it is probable that the district was more or less unappro-
priated. The Jutes, on the other hand, depended for their
sustenance chiefly upon their flocks and herds; and for
these, in what are to-day " water-meadows," there would
be abundance of pasture. In the surrounding forests, too,
" the luxurious banquet of beech-mast and acorns," which
Sir Walter Scott describes as being so appetising to Saxon
swine,1 would be found. These same forests would serve
another purpose — that of acting as natural barriers to those
who were hostile to the new inhabitants. In those days
the great forest which stretched across Sussex (the
Andreds-weald) reached as far west as Privett, possibly
even to the walls of Winchester. This would, therefore,
form the boundary on the east and north of the district
appropriated by the Meonwara2 ; on the south there
was the sea ; on the south-west, the New Forest ; on the
west, the rolling downs. At the foot of Beacon Hill, the
Saxons seem to have maintained an outpost, as though
to overlook their Jutish neighbours, if the name Exton be
(as it is thought) Est-Saxon tune (East- Saxon town). Pro-
tected thus on all sides, it is not to be wondered at that this
Jutish settlement preserved its integrity for two hundred
and fifty years. It would seem from the evidence we
possess that the Jutes were the least ambitious, and, when
once settled, the most peaceably-disposed of the three
invading peoples. The facts that the Meonwara were
content with so comparatively small a stretch of land,
which was of poor quality, and that they lived in such
close proximity, with their neighbours, whilst preserving
their integrity, are practical proof of this.
The Meonwara were left in quiet possession of the land
they had made their own, and it is not until 66 1 that we
hear of them again. The kingdom of Mercia, under Wulf-
1 Ivanhoe, ch. i. Meonstoke hogs are historical ; they are mentioned
in the Domesday Survey.
2 Meonwara — i,e., the men of Meon.
II
THE JUTISH SETTLEMENT OF THE MEON^V ALLEY 43
here, was bidding for supremacy over the other kingdoms,
into which the country was then divided. In the year
named, Ceanwalh, King of the West Saxons, was defeated
by Wulfhere, and his territory was dismembered ; while
^Ethelwalch (King of the South Saxons), who had recog-
nized Wulfhere's authority, was rewarded for so doing by
the gift of the Jutish settlements in the Isle of Wight and
the Meon Valley. Thus, it has been said, " both the land
of the Meonwaras and the Isle of Wight . . . came
for the first, time under the rule of a Christian king."
From Mercia, Wulfhere's kingdom, came Wilfrid, who
established himself first at Bosham and then at Selsey.
To him, it would undoubtedly appear, the Meon Valley
owes its Christianity. His name is definitely associated
with the church at Warnford, which still bears the
interesting inscription in its porch : —
Fratres, orate, prece vestra sanctificate
Templi factores, seniores ac juniores.
Wilfrid fundavit, bonus Adam renovavit.
Or, freely translated : —
Brethren, turn ye not away,
Ere ye earnestly do pray
For builders who in former days,
And of late, this house did raise.
That which holy Wilfrid made
Pious Adam hath remade.
It is highly probably that Corhampton1 also, the oldest
church in the county, owes its foundation to St. Wilfrid.
It was only to be expected that, with historical
references so clear, interesting discoveries of relics of the
Jutish occupation, similar to those brought to light in
Kent and the Isle of Wight, would be made in the Meon
Valley. But until quite recently, with, possibly, one
exception, which cannot now be traced,2 no such " finds "
occurred. The reason for this was, possibly, that the
1 See the illustration.
2 Hants. Notes and Queries, ii. I r ; quoted in Victoria History -, i. 379.
44 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Meonwara were a poor tribe, whose graves would have
no mounds to mark them.
Some discoveries, however, have now been made, and
very interesting and instructive they have proved. During
the construction of the Meon Valley railway, which has
opened up this lovely stretch of country, a cutting was
made through a low-crowned hill at Brockbridge, close by
Droxford Station. Here human remains and iron spear-
heads were found. Subsequent investigation by Mr. W.
Dale, F.S.A., and others, proved it to have been a Jutish
burial-ground. Unfortunately, a " steam-navvy " was used
to make the cutting, and much that would have been of
interest was probably thus destroyed or lost. Nevertheless,
much that was of archaeological value was recovered, and
the collection made by Mr. Dale has been presented by
him to the British Museum. He has thus described his
discoveries in a paper read before the Society of
Antiquaries : —
Several swords were found ; but shield-bosses and spear -heads were
more frequent. With some only a single knife, or a knife and spear, had
been laid. With one of the swords,' however, two unusually large spears
had been put. The beads, of which there was a considerable variety, were
only found one or two at a time, never associated in such a number as to
have formed a necklace. I conclude that the fibulae, chatelaine-holders,
tweezers, spindle-whorls of Kimmeridge shale, and a few other things of
feminine use, indicate that it was not a place of sepulture for warriors
only. Vessels are represented by a small rudely-made cup of black earthen-
ware, fragments of two other pots of blackware, and part of a brown glass
tumbler, as well as the remains of two small wooden vessels made tub-fashion,
and hooped with bands of bronze. Roman coins occurred twice only ; two
are pierced. They have been identified for me as of Marcus Aurelius,
Faustina, Crispus, Maximinus, and Constantine II. Amongst a quantity of
much-corroded ironwork are probably some horse-trappings and several shoes,
one quite perfect. I could not discover that any horse-bones were found.
A large nodule of pyrites was laid by one of the swords, either as a
weapon or a strike-a-light ; and there was a small piece of whetstone by
one of the spears.
One or two of these " finds " are of special interest. For
instance, it had been stated on high authority that neither
THE JUTISH SETTLEMENT OF THE MEON VALLEY 45
Jutes nor Saxons shod their horses. The discovery of
the horse-shoes, however, proves that the rule was, at
any rate, not universal. The character of the coins found
would seem to point to the early date of the burying-
place, and that some of them were pierced tends to the
conclusion that " keepsakes " were preserved even then.
The discovery of the whetstone suggests that not only
did our Jutish ancestors think that they would need their
weapons after death, but that it would be useful to have
the wherewithal to keep them bright. From this, and
from the fact that the skeletons were discovered lying
north and south, or in any direction, it may be concluded
that the burial-place was used in pagan times. This is
further evidence of its early date.
I have, fortunately, had the opportunity lately of
examining a private collection of discoveries made at
Brockbridge. In this collection was a beautiful example
of the regular saucer-shaped Jutish brooch, on which the
gilt-washing was as bright as though it had only been
done a few years ago. Another item of interest was a
small pair of shears, which had evidently been buried with
the barber of the tribe. These were, of course, rusty, but
the spring had yet a certain amount of strength left in it
The woodwork of a bronze-bound bucket was almost
intact ; and a lady's satchel when found still contained
some Roman coins. One would judge from the state of
the teeth in the skulls found, that their fare was very
hard, for, though still magnificently sound, they were
worn down flat all the way round. One skeleton of
remarkable size, with a sword by the side to match, was
unearthed. It proved on measurement to be over eight
feet in length, but this was quite exceptional, as the rest
were of ordinary dimensions. A 'fine specimen of chain
was discovered. It was, possibly, of gold, but very likely
of a peculiar white metal in common use, gold-washed.
The finders probably thought that it was the former,
46 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
since it quickly disappeared, and has, unhappily, not
been recovered.
The graves in which the remains were found were
only about from two feet to two feet six inches in depth,
and were covered in most cases with flints. Several of
them may clearly be seen to-day, close by Droxford
Station, and probably the ground to the eastward still
contains many interments. It is much to be hoped,
therefore, that certain difficulties which lie in the way of
further excavations may be overcome, and that the work
may be resumed under expert direction. If this be done,
there is good ground for expectation that much more of
interest will be found
L. KNIGHTS SMITH.
SOUTHAMPTON
BY PROFESSOR HEARNSHAW
HE site at present occupied by the great town
of Southampton has apparently been the abode
of man from the earliest times which history
records, and indeed from the remotest eras which
archaeology can trace. The gravel beds which cover the
higher portions of the land within the borough boundaries
are rich in flint implements of the Palaeolithic period.
These belong to an epoch before the time when the
formation, of the English Channel made Britain an island
— the epoch during which streams from the uplands of
Hampshire were carving out the valley which is now
the basin of Southampton Water. The beds of peat which
underlie and fringe Southampton Water contain many relics
of the Neolithic Era, such as highly-polished axe-heads and
arrow-heads, rounded hammer-stones, and needles — relics
of an altogether more advanced civilisation than that of
the older Stone Age. In close vicinity to these remains
of the later Stone Age are some of the oldest Metal
Age, the era of bronze implements. At Bassett, just
outside the borough boundaries, and at Pear Tree
Green, across the Itchen, interesting discoveries of con-
siderable quantities of these have recently been made.
Thus each of the three important eras of unrecorded
history has left distinct and ample traces on this spot.
But as with the history of our country, so with the
history of Southampton there is little precise and definite
47
48 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
information to be gained of any period anterior to that
of the Romans. Legend, persistently repeated by the
mediaeval chroniclers, associates this neighbourhood with
the very beginnings of the Roman occupation, A.D. 43,
and actually traces the name of Hamton to a Roman
warrior, Hamo, said to have been slain here in fierce fight
by Arviragus, brother of the British King, Guiderius.1
When, however, we leave the chroniclers, and come to
deal with actual Roman remains, we are on surer ground.
That there was a very considerable Roman settlement on
the east bank of the Itchen, where the modern Bittern
Manor House now stands, is proved by many interesting
relics. This settlement is usually considered to have been
the " Clausentum " mentioned in Antonine's Itinerary. It
consisted of a peninsula formed by the winding of the
river. On its landward side, it was fortified by a double
line of probably pre -historic earthworks. On its water
sides there are traces of a strong defensive wall. Within
the precincts of the settlement have been found great
numbers of coins, and as they cover the whole period from
Tiberius to Arcadius (A.D. 37-408), there is reason to
believe that the establishment of this outpost was made
very early in the period of the Roman occupation of the
island, and that it was not till their final departure from
Britain that the Romans evacuated it. No traces of
buildings have as yet been found, and present evidence
would seem to point to the view that it was merely a
military station, whose object was to guard the river and
protect the approaches to the important settlement of
Venta Belgarum (Winchester).
On the peninsula between the Itchen and the Test,
on which modern Southampton stands, coins and pottery
have also been found, and in sufficient quantities to make
it probable that there was a minor Roman settlement there.
1 " Portus autem ille ut illo tempore usque in hodicrnum diem portus
Hamonis ut est Hamtonia nuncupatur." — Matthew Paris (Chronica Maiora,
A.D. 43).
SOUTHAMPTON 1% 49
But even apart from these direct evidences, it can hardly
be supposed that a spot of such strategic and commercial
importance was wholly neglected by so practical a people
as the Romans.
Of the incidents attending the departure of the Romans
from this neighbourhood we know nothing.- But we are
told that for some centuries before the end of the Roman
occupation, the south coast of Britain had been infested
by Saxon and Jutish wanderers — traders, pirates, invaders,
and would-be settlers. The Romans had erected a line of
fortifications extending from the Wash to Portchester to
keep the country secure, and they had appointed a special
and powerful official, the " Count of the Saxon Shore,"
to organise the defences of the threatened region. It
would appear, however, that, in spite of these extraordinary
precautions, bands of the wanderers — the more peaceable
and mercantile Jutes — succeeded in establishing them-
selves, probably were allowed to establish themselves,
along the low-lying coast-lands. Certain it is that
when the Roman power was withdrawn from Britain, at
the beginning of the fifth century, Saxons and Jutes began
to pour into the country in numbers sufficient to make
them, in course of time, the dominant race. Eventually,
the scattered settlements of the new-comers coalesced into
kingdoms, and of these kingdoms the one which, in the
end, proved to be the strongest and the most enduring,
was Wessex. The Kingdom of Wessex, in fact, became
the Kingdom of England. Now, with this greatest of the
early kingdoms, Southampton had a peculiarly intimate
connexion. If the story based on the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle be accepted, it was on this spot, in A.D. 495,
that Cerdic and Cynric, the founders of the West Saxon
line, made their landing, and it was from this centre that
they started on their career of conquest. There are
archaeological reasons for doubting this story, and for
regarding the Thames valley, rather than the valley of
E
50 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Southampton Water, as the original home of the West
Saxons ; but if the story be true, and if in this case, as in
so many others, the veracity of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
be established, Southampton becomes one of the most
notable historic places of the world. For, on the one hand,
it received the first footprint on English soil of the ancestor
of King Edward VIL, and formed the first possession of
that royal and imperial dominion which now comprises one
quarter of the land-area of the globe — the British Empire ;
and, on the other hand, eleven and a quarter centuries later,
it witnessed the departure of that small heroic band, the
Pilgrim Fathers, the founders of the New England States
of North America, the pioneers of that second mighty
branch of the Anglo-Saxon race, in whose hands the future
destiny of mankind seems so largely to rest. What other
spot of earth, outside the Holy Land, can boast associations
more magnificent?
But in the remote fifth century of which I am now
speaking, there was little to forecast the greatness in
store for the Saxon peoples or their settlements. The
history which tells of their long conflicts with Britons,
Jutes, and Angles, and of their gradual but steady
expansion, says nothing of the fortunes of their " burh "
at Hamton; but its importance is indicated by the fact
that it gave its name to the shire, " Hamton-scire," first
mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 755. There
is some uncertainty, even, as to the exact site of this early
English town. An old tradition, recorded in the sixteenth
century by both Leland and Camden, says that the walled
borough of the Norman and Angevin Period did not occupy
the site of the Saxon town, but was built considerably to
the south-west of it. The fact that the mother church of
the town, St. Mary's, lies nearly a quarter of a mile north-
east of the walled area, coupled with the fact that round
St. Mary's many Saxon remains have been found, while
within the walls only a solitary coin of Offa has been
unearthed, lends support to the tradition. But a good deal
SOUTHAMPTON > 51
more remains to be investigated and explained before this
problem can be regarded as settled, and I must confess
that I feel more disposed to lay stress on the evidence
against the tradition of the removal.
Southampton emerges from obscurity into the light of
recorded history only with the beginnings of the Danish
invasions in the ninth century. The Scandinavian free-
booters came to the town not only because it commanded
the waterway to Winchester, whose royal palaces and rich
ecclesiastical establishments drew them with an irresistible
attraction, but also because it occupied one of those
peninsular situations, so convenient alike for defence and
for flight, which they were always disposed to select as
a base for their raids. In 857, thirty-five vessels, laden
with their fierce pirate crews, rowed up Southampton
Water, and came to land near Hampton. But the whole
countryside had been roused. The Ealdorman of the
shire, Wulfheard himself, came down to organise the
defence of his territory, and under his leadership, the
English drove off their assailants with fearful and remorse-
less slaughter. Twenty-three years elapsed before another
serious attempt was made. Then, in 860, the Danish
invaders succeeded in effecting their landing. On they
pushed to Winchester, which, in spite of its strength, they
captured and sacked. But as they were hastening back
to their ships, laden with their booty, they were met by
the men of the shire, under Ealdorman Osric, together
with some men of Berkshire, who had come with their
Ealdorman, Ethelwulf, to render help. A great defeat was
inflicted on the Danes, and only a remnant of their host
succeeded in making their escape by sea.
Southampton must in the following years have seen
a good deal of the ship-building activity of King Alfred,
and on its waters must have floated many of those vessels
which helped the great monarch to establish the supremacy
of the West Saxons over Danes and English alike.
52 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
The reign . of King Alfred inaugurated a period of
peaceful development, both for England as a whole and
for its boroughs and villages individually. No recorded
incident marked the uneventful history of Hampton, save
that floods in 935 and lightning in 951 wrought much
havoc.
But with the accession of the weak and shifty King
Ethelred the Redeless troubles came thick and fast. The
Danes renewed their invasions, and at this period they
came, not merely as plundering pirates or as wandering
emigrants, but as great national armies seeking for con-
quests and political aggrandisement. There was no
organised force in this country able to withstand their
sudden and terrible onslaught. In 980, they fell upon
Hampton, captured it, and put most of its inhabitants to
the sword. Next year they came again, and laid waste
all the coast. Finally, in 994, Sweyn of Denmark and
Olaf of Norway, after attacking London and raging Kent,
Sussex, and Hampshire, sat down at Hampton, and waited
until such time as Ethelred should send them the £16,000
of Danegeld with which he .had succeeded in purchasing
from them a momentary cessation of attack. The story
of the later renewal of the attacks, and of Ethelred's further
expedients to ward them off, belongs to the history of
England rather than to that of Southampton. All that
has to be noted here is that when Ethelred's long career
of failure and disgrace came to an end, and he was driven
from his throne and his kingdom, it was from Southampton
(1013) that he fled to the safe haven of Normandy, and that
when, three years later (1016), the struggle of the English
against the Danes was seen to be hopeless, it was at
Southampton that the Witan assembled to offer to the
conquering Canute the crown for which he had so resolutely
and so unscrupulously contended. The connexion thus
established between Southampton and the Danish king
seems to have been maintained during his reign, and it
is to Southampton that the celebrated legend of the
SOUTHAMPTON 53
rebuking of the waves is assigned. At the present day,
a road called " Canute's Road," and a building, apparently
of twelfth century construction, called " Canute's Palace,"
commemorate the dealings of the great monarch with this
borough.
The Danish conquest of England was not destined to
be permanent; but it left results, both for the country
and the borough, most momentous and enduring. Among
the most important of these was the alliance between
the English and the Normans, originally entered into by
King Ethelred, in 1002, as one of his many expedients in
his conflict with Sweyn and Olaf, but cemented and made
closer in many ways, until, in 1066, it led to the succession
of the Norman Duke, William, to the English Crown.
The connexion thus established between England and
Normandy had a profound influence upon the history of
Southampton, which became the great port of arrival from
and departure for the continental dominions of the new
line of monarchs. All the kings came here and all the
great men. A splendid palace was built, occupying most
of the south-western quarter of the town, and containing
extensive accommodation for long trains of nobles and
attendants. Strong fortifications were erected, some of
which — the inner portion of the Bargate, for example —
remain to the present day. A massive castle was placed
upon a lofty mound within the circuit of the walls.
Churches were established, and (1124) the Priory of
St. Denys, a house of Black (Augustinian) Canons, was
founded. Not far from the precincts of the borough, the
beautiful, but wild and little-tenanted expanse of the New
Forest was set apart for the royal sport.
Altogether, the period from the. Norman Conquest to
the loss of the northern French possessions of the English
Crown (1066-1205) must be looked upon as one of great
activity in Southampton, of rapid development, and of
marked prosperity. It is sufficient to mention two signs
of this municipal progress — the founding of a merchant
54 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
guild and the gaining of a charter. The merchant guild
was founded at least as early as the reign of Henry I.
It contained all the important burgesses of the town, and
in course of time it became (even if it was not from the
beginning) the governing body within the borough. Its
ordinances are fortunately extant in a beautifully-written
manuscript of fourteenth century date. They give a most
interesting picture of municipal organisation in the Middle
Ages.
Probably in Southampton, as in other towns, it was
the guild which obtained the charters. Several minor
grants of privileges were secured from time to time from
one king and another, but in 1199, John, just after his
accession, was induced — no doubt by heavy payment — to
concede to the burgesses the " farm " of the borough.
For £200 per annum paid into the royal exchequer they
were to be free from the pecuniary exactions of the sheriff,
and independent of the financial organisation of the shire
— a much-coveted privilege.
The next stage in the -history of Southampton was
inaugurated by an event which was also great with
national importance. This event was the loss to the
English king, in 1205, of his northern French possessions
- — Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine. England
ceased to be the mere appanage of a continental empire ;
Southampton fell from its position as the chief port of
passage between the two shores of the Channel. But it
speedily rose to a new place of even more commanding
importance ; for when Normandy passed into the hands
of the French power, when the Channel became the scene
of frequent hostilities, and when warlike expeditions
continually came and went, Southampton became one of
the great fortresses of the south coast, the guardian of
the English seas, the gathering-place of armies, and the
starting-point of fleets. For two and a half centuries —
roughly, from 1205 to 1453 — its dominant character was
SOUTHAMPTON > 55
that of the mediaeval stronghold. Many times was it
threatened by French fleets, several times actually
attacked, once taken and almost destroyed. The great
and fatal assault was made in 1337, on the morning of
October 4th. Contemporary chroniclers are full in their
accounts of it ; even the Edwardian poet, Laurence Minot,
devotes a section of his Songs on King Edward's Wars
(1352) to a detailed description of it. It was one of the
immediate inciting causes of the fierce and prolonged
struggle, between England and France known as the
"Hundred Years' War." Perhaps the story as told by
Stow, the Elizabethan antiquary, is as vivid as any version
of it. It runs as follows : —
The 4th of October fifty galleys, well manned and furnished, came
to Southampton about nine of the clock, and sacked the town, the
townsmen running away for feare. By the break of the next day they
which fled by the help of the country thereabout came against the pyrates
and fought with them, in the which skyrmish were slain to the number
of three hundred pyrates together with their captain, the King of Sicilie's
sonne. To this young man the French King had given whatsoever he got
in the kingdom of England. But, he being beaten down by a certain
man of the country, cried out, " Ran9on, ran9on," notwithstanding which
the husbandman laid him on with his clubbe till he had slain him, speaking
these words, " Yea," quoth he, " I know thee well enough : thou art a
Fran9on, and therefore thou shalt die " ; for he understood not his speech,
neither had he any skill to take gentlemen prisoners and to keep them
for their ransome. Wherefore the residue of these Genoways, after they
had set the towne on fire and burned it up quite, fledde to their galleys,
and in their flying certain of them were drowned. After this the inhabi-
tants of the town encompassed it about with a great and strong wall.
This statement concerning the wall means that the
fortifications, which had hitherto been strongest on the
landward side, were completed on the seaward side, where,
naturally, the main brunt of the French attack had been felt.
The great " King's House," with its appurtenant buildings,
had been almost wholly destroyed : little beyond its
massive outer walls remained. It was decided not to
rebuild it, but rather to use its ruins to strengthen the
defences of the town. So over its western front was
56 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
erected, probably of the materials found in the ruined
interior, that curious arcade work (see the photograph)
which still remains as a relic of unique interest.
It took the town long to recover from this severe blow.
The inhabitants feared to return, particularly when, only
two years later, the French made another determined,
though unsuccessful, attack upon the place. The Earl of
Warwick (1339) and the Earl of Shrewsbury (1340) were
appointed in succession guardians and governors of the
borough, with orders to see that its defences were made
secure.
But so long after as thirty-six years (1376) alarms were
continual. The town was .only half -inhabited. Two
years' rent was due to the king, and the burgesses were
fain to petition their sovereign to release them from the
burden of maintaining the fortifications. But the need of
the fortifications was never more forcibly demonstrated
than it was immediately afterwards (1377), when the
French made a desperate attack, which was beaten off
only by the heroic bravery and masterly ability of Sir John
Arundel, who for the brilliance of his achievement was at
once made Marshal of England.
It was not to be expected that the English would
remain passive under these and countless similar assaults.
They, for their part, fitted out expeditions against their
enemies, and when, as the result of the battle of Sluys
(1340), they secured command of the sea, they inflicted a
terrible retribution. In 1345, King Edward III. collected
32,000 troops at Southampton. With them he embarked in
a fleet, towards which this town supplied twenty-one vessels
and five hundred and seventy-six mariners. In a few
months Europe rang with the news of the epoch-making
victory of Crecy. Again, at a later stage of that same
interminable war, another warrior-monarch, Shakespeare's
perfect type of heroic kingship, gathered here another host
destined for even more marvellous achievement. The date
was 1415, and for five weeks in that year Henry V. was
SOUTHAMPTON 57
in and about Southampton superintending the assembling
and equipping of the thirty thousand men who were to
vindicate his claim to the throne of France, and the
one thousand five hundred ships that were to convey him
and them to the fields of adventure and renown. It was
from his " chastel de Hantonne au rivage de la mer " that
Henry addressed his final letter to the French king before
he embarked. It was in Southampton that was brought
to light the dangerous conspiracy against his throne and
life which * has made the names of Richard, Earl of
Cambridge, Lord Scrope of Masham, and Sir Thomas Grey
infamous in English history. The conspiracy was
apparently hatched in this neighbourhood ; for Grey in his
letter of confession says that he and others coming from
Hamble met the Earl of Cambridge " at the ferry called
Ickkys " — almost certainly Itchen ferry. The conspirators
were brought to trial (August 2nd) before the County Jury,
and were condemned to death. Sir Thomas Grey was at
once taken to execution outside the Bargate. The other
two claimed privilege of peers, and a special council of
nobles had to be summoned three days later (August 5th)
to pass sentence upon them. Then they, too, were put to
death, and, with their fellow-conspirator, were buried in
the little chapel of the Hospital of St. Julian, or Maison
Dieu.1 Within a week after the execution of Cambridge and
Scrope, Henry V. set sail for France, to experience the
terrible hardships of the siege of Harfleur (in which he lost
some two-thirds of his men) and to win the imperishable
glory of the field of Agincourt.
Next year (1416), the French tried to gain their
revenge by attacking Southampton and burning the
shipping in its waters, and for some time they held the
port under blockade. But the Duke of Bedford came to
its relief, and gained a signal victory over the invading
fleet. He captured eight of the enemy's vessels, drove one
1 This building in Queen Elizabeth's day was lent for worship to a
company of French Protestants, by whose successors it is still used.
58 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
on to the sandy shore, and forced another up Southampton
Water, where in sight of the town it was sent to the
bottom with all its eight hundred men.
In 1417 King Henry once more crossed from
Southampton to France, this time with great pomp and
amid much rejoicing. His ship had sails of purple silk,
royally embroidered with the arms of the kingdom that
he held and the kingdom that he sought to gain. Thus he
said farewell to his great port, so intimately associated
with his most deadly peril and his most brilliant victory;
and soon (1422) in the midst of his triumphs, he was called
upon to say farewell to his kingdom and his life.
During his son's long and troublous reign, Southampton
more than once came into the main current of national
affairs. It was here, for example, in 1445, when the great
war was entering upon its last phase, full of humiliation for
England, that Margaret of Anjou landed for her marriage
with the king. She was lodged for four days at Maison
Dieu, and thither the king came to greet her. They were
married at Titchfield Abbey.
While Southampton was thus taking part in critical
national events it was recovering from the blow of the
French occupation, and was making considerable
commercial and constitutional advance. Its wine trade
with Gascony became very important ; as early as 1215 it
was second only to that of London.1
In the fourteenth century, the still more lucrative
connection with Venice was established. Venice was one
of the great emporia of Eastern goods — the spices,
perfumes, and rich raiments of Persia, India, and Cathay.
Every year, amid impressive ceremony, a fleet of galleys
set forth with oar and sail for Northern Europe laden
with the wealth of Asia. On their return, the Venetian
merchants took with them the products of the cold lands
1 In 1272, Southampton imported 3,147 tuns of wine as compared with
London's 3,799 tuns.
SOUTHAMPTON .» 59
which they visited, the wool and cloth and leather of
England and the fine cambrics of Flanders. In 1378,
a statute of Richard II. allowed the Venetians to make
Southampton (vice Calais) their port of call ; and from
that time till the sixteenth century — when the Eastern
trade passed out of Venetian hands — year by year, for some
sixty days at a time, the great ships rode at anchor in
Southampton Water, and the merchants did business. An
interesting tomb in North Stoneham Church, four miles
north 6f the town, bears record to one of these visits.
It would appear that in 1491 an epidemic, or some other
scourge, carried off a number of the Dalmatian oarsmen
of the Venetian galleys. They were buried in the Church
of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of seafaring men, and
a stone slab was placed over their resting-place, with
the inscription, "Sepultura de la Schola de Sclavoni,
ANO DNI MCCCLXXXXI."1 Within the town itself four
annual fairs were established, and, in course of time,
confirmed by royal charter.
As to the government of the town, it steadily
increased in independence and dignity. A charter of 1400
(2 Henry IV.) gave judicial autonomy to the borough —
cognisance of all pleas, claim to all fines and forfeitures.
Another, of 1445 (23 Henry VI.) raised Southampton to
the dignity of a Corporation, so that its mayor, bailiffs and
burgesses became persons in law capable of holding
lands and prosecuting pleas. A third, dated 1447
(25 Henry VI), completed the emancipation of the borough
by elevating it to the rank of a county with a sheriff of
its own. These favours were conferred expressly and
explicitly because of the burden of defence which fell upon
the inhabitants of the town. Thus, the charter of 1400
states in its preamble that the additional privileges granted
by the king were bestowed "pro melioratione et forti-
ficatione villae praedictae in frontem inimicorum nostrum
notoriae situatae." Honours and offices were heaped upon
1 Hants Field Club Papers, ii. p. 357 ; Archceologia, liv. p. 131.
60 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
the mayor, until he became an official of national dignity
and importance. He was made king's escheator, clerk of
the market, mayor of the staple, steward and marshal of
the king's household — but probably exercising this function
only when the king was in the town — and an admiral of
England within the wide limits of the port of Southampton
— i.e., from beyond Portsmouth on the east to beyond
Lymington on the west.
Amid these strenuous duties, these heavy responsi-
bilities, these lucrative activities, and these accumulating
honours, Southampton came to the end of the Middle Ages,
and passed out into the modern world — the world of the
Renaissance and the Reformation.
At the close of the fifteenth century and the beginning
of the sixteenth, geographical discovery and scientific
revelation, intellectual conquest and religious revelation,
political transformation and social transition, followed one
another with bewildering rapidity. The old order, the
order which had grown up through a thousand years of
slow development, passed away with a completeness and
swiftness unparalleled in history. But its passage was not
from life to death, but rather from travail to birth. A
fresh and glorious energy manifested itself throughout the
Western world. New and vast fields of enterprise and
adventure were opened up, alike in distant quarters of the
globe and in unfamiliar regions of the human spirit. All
kingdoms felt the change, and over their remotest hamlets
a subtle transmutation passed.
Southampton was affected more than most English
towns by the passing of the old order. Two of the features
which marked the beginning of the modern era in English
history were these. First, in the matter of foreign
politics, the mediaeval ambition of English kings and
statesmen to possess French provinces and to acquire
the French Crown gave place to a policy which combined
two elements, the maintenance by diplomatic means of
SOUTHAMPTON ;% 61
the balance of power in Europe, and the extension of
English influence and dominion in the newly-discovered
lands beyond the seas. Secondly, in the matter of foreign
commerce, the opening up of the Cape route to the East
Indies moved the centre of gravity of the mercantile world
from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Venice and the
other city-states of Italy fell from their high eminence :
they ceased to " hold the gorgeous East in fee." Lisbon,
Amsterdam, Antwerp, and London entered into their
inheritance.
These two changes, the one political, the other
commercial, had a profound effect upon the fortunes of
Southampton. The change in foreign policy destroyed
its importance as a fortress and a military port : its walls
and its castle at once became mere antiquarian relics.
The change in international trade, and particularly the
cessation of the voyages of the Venetian fleet (which came
for the last time in 1532), deprived the town of one of
the great sources of its wealth.
Hence it was that the age which saw England
advancing to the proud position of a first-rate European
Power — the era in which the foundations of England's
colonial and commercial supremacy were laid — was for
Southampton a period of decline, struggle and distress.
A statute of 1495 (11 Henry VIL), dealing with the fishing
and navigation of Southampton Water, spoke of the town
as "now lately greatly decayed" In 1530 the burgesses
petitioned Henry VIII. for a reduction of their fee-farm
(then £226 135. 4d. a year), because of the falling-off of
their trade, and, in response, the king by statute
(22 Henry VIII.) remitted the £26 133. 4d. per annum.
Notwithstanding this reduction the payments of the bur-
gesses fell hopelessly into arrears,' and in 1549 no less
a sum than £1,844 is. 6d. was owed to the Exchequer.
Edward VI. remitted £1,044 is. 6d. of this heavy debt;
but even that generous concession did not suffice to
make matters straight, and in 1552 he, by charter,
62 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
permanently reduced (under certain conditions) the fee-
farm to £50 per annum, at which sum it still stands. All
this is eloquent of poverty and adversity, and it seems
probable that in " the spacious days of great Elizabeth "
the town touched the bottom of its fortunes. But
improvement was at hand. New trade was opened out,
new industries established. Queen Mary, whose husband
Philip had been well received here on his coming to
England, had granted to the burgesses the monopoly of
the import of sweet wines. When the Newfoundland
fisheries were opened up, Southampton became the chief
emporium for the fish and oil that were brought to
England, and its vessels entered very largely into the new
enterprise. Expeditions for colonisation and exploration
were fitted up here, and such men as Sir Humphrey
Gilbert and Lord Baltimore came hither to equip their
fleets. The extremely interesting (but, unfortunately,
unpublished) Books of Examination and Depositions of
the early part of the seventeenth century give details of
a vigorous maritime activity on the part of the townsmen.
They also present vivid pictures of the perils of navigation
in those days, for they tell of seas not only tossed with
storms, but also swarming with pirates — French, Spanish,
Dutch, Flemish, Turkish, and even English — into whose
merciless hands many a Southampton vessel fell. About
the same time, too, the town became famous for its
" Hampton serges," the manufacture and export of which
gave occupation to a large number of people.
Thus gradually Southampton worked its way back to
a moderate prosperity; and, although not again till the
nineteenth century did it attain to that importance and
distinction which it had at the close of the Middle
Ages, yet it remained a delightful provincial town,, full of
interesting relics, rich in noble associations, pleasant in
situation, and happy in the peaceful labours of its
folk. For many generations it numbered some five
thousand to six thousand inhabitants. They dwelt mainly
SOUTHAMPTON ;* 63
within the circuit of its ancient walls, beyond which lay
sweet stretches of meadow, on which they sowed their
seed and fed their flocks ; or woodland, in which they
wandered in the hours of their leisure. Now and again
the pomp and circumstance of great events disturbed their
quietude. In the year of his accession (1603), King
James I. came to Southampton, and, strange to say, " by
the majesty of his royal presence," so astonished the town
clerk that he was compelled to break off suddenly his
speech of welcome and adulation. In 1625 King
Charles I. met some Dutch envoys in Southampton, and
made with them a treaty, not without importance at the
time. Most significant of the events of that period,
however, though it made no stir at the moment, was the
departure of the " Pilgrim Fathers " from this port to seek
a home in the New World. After crossing from Holland,
and having settled their affairs in different parts of
England, they re-assembled at Southampton, and remained
here nearly a fortnight before all was ready for their
memorable voyage. When the preparations were
completed, they put to sea in the May-flower and the
Speedwell. But the latter proved to be unseaworthy, and,
after an attempt to patch her up had been made at
Dartmouth, she was abandoned at Plymouth, and the
whole of the little company finished their voyage in the
famous ship, the May-flower. Who among the men of
Southampton, in whose midst that small heroic band
sojourned for fourteen days, dreamed of the high destiny
in store for that New England which was to be founded
far in the unknown West by those lowly refugees ?
The departure of the Pilgrim Fathers from England
in 1620 marked the beginning of an emigration unique
in the history of the world. Within 'the twenty following
years twenty thousand Englishmen, many of them men of
position and substance, went into voluntary exile in order
that they might establish political institutions and a
religious organisation which were unattainable in their
64 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
mother-country. The causes which led them to depart
eventually led their fellows who remained behind into open
war with the King and his ministers. In the great Civil
War, Southampton did not take a very prominent part.
At first its allegiance was divided, the authorities leaning
to the Royalist side, the populace to the side of the
Parliament. But before the struggle had lasted three
months (November, 1642), the parliamentary party
gained the ascendant, admitted a garrison, and kept the
town faithful to the parliamentary cause till the end of the
war. Romsey and Winchester were held by the Royalists,
and within the triangle formed by these towns and
Southampton incessant skirmishing took place. But the
main course of the war was but little affected by these
local brawls. It may be mentioned, however, that during
the changes of these troublous times an interesting man
was brought to the town in the person of one Nathaniel
Robinson, who came as chaplain to Major Murford, the
" infamous Brownisticall Governor of Southampton," as
he was described. Robinson had the distinction of
conducting the negotiations between Oliver Cromwell and
Richard Major, of Hursley, which eventually led to the
marriage of Richard Cromwell to Dorothy Major.
Although lacking episcopal ordination, Robinson was
" intruded " into the livings of All Saints' and St. Lawrence,
and these he held until the Act of Uniformity (1662)
necessitated his retirement. Then he became the first
pastor of the Independent congregation, which began to
assemble for worship in a meeting-house Above Bar, and
as such he is to be regarded as the father of Nonconformity
in the borough.
When one gets past the date of the Restoration, one
feels that the limit of time is reached to which the title
of this volume, Memorials of Old Hampshire, can be
legitimately applied. But perhaps a few notes concerning
more recent times may be admitted.
SOUTHAMPTON ;* 65
A new era of prosperity dawned for Southampton in
the reign of George III., when the town became for sixty
years or more a popular watering-place and health resort,
rivalling Brighton on the one hand and Bath on the other.
The place caught the fancy of the King's sons — the Prince
of Wales, the Duke of York, the Duke of Cumberland —
and they brought the fashionable world at their heels.
The leaders of society bathed in the somewhat slimy
waves of the western shore, and drank the innocuous waters
of a little mineral spring which good fortune brought to
light. The town began to grow with rapidity. New rows
of Georgian mansions sprang up, named after the patron
divinities of the time — Brunswick Place, York Buildings,
Carlton Crescent, Cumberland Place. Coaches ran daily
to London and other towns. The " Long Rooms," under
a " Master of the Ceremonies," provided dancing and other
delights for the gay and festive throng. But this heavy
Hanoverian revelry brought but a transient profit and a
fleeting notoriety to Southampton. About 1803 its
modern prosperity was established on the surer basis of
maritime enterprise and commerce. In that year a bill
was passed through Parliament authorising the making
of docks, and as an immediate result the Watergate and
other venerable impediments to development were cleared
away. The great war with Revolutionary France brought
considerable naval and military activity. The marvellous
expansion of English trade and industry, owing to what
is known as the "Industrial Revolution," quickened
Southampton's mercantile marine. A new population
began to be drawn to the town, and new suburbs
began to rise for the accommodation of the strangers.
In 1774, there were but 705 houses in the town, and
all but 1 20 of these were within the circuit of the
walls; in 1824, the number of houses was 2,535. The
census returns showed an almost equally rapid increase
in the number of inhabitants : the 7,9 1 3 persons of
1 80 1 had grown to 19,324 by 1831. As to the rates,
F
66 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
they mounted upward with an even more startling
acceleration : in 1 803 they stood at five shillings in the
pound ; in 1813 they had reached ten shillings.
Fresh developments came to Southampton with the
successful application of steam to locomotion, when the
Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company in
1840, the Royal Mail Company in 1842, and the Union
Company in 1853, in turn made Southampton their
headquarters. The railway, begun in 1835 a^d finished in
1840, superseded the stage coach, and brought the town
into closer touch with London and the new world of
commerce in the north.
From that time Southampton's growth has been rapid
and — except when the P. and O. Company moved their
headquarters — uninterrupted. Its population is now about
108,000, and its rates as high as the most enthusiastic
pioneer of progress could desire.
F. J. C. HEARNSHAW.
THE NEW FOREST1
BY WlLLINGHAM F. RAWNSLEY, M.A.
[O part of Hampshire is more interesting than
the New Forest, full of curious, if not unique,
customs, having a somewhat remarkable caste of
inhabitants, and abounding, as the whole
district does, in scenes of natural beauty, with a colouring
at all times of the year richer than that of any other
district in England. It is free and open to all comers,
who may roam at will over the whole of what is practically
an enormous park, without fear of trespass ; with
opportunities, geological, botanical, and entomological,
which are quite exceptional, and a chance of seeing in
their wild state a fair number of birds, and more different
kinds of four-footed animals than any other open district
in England can show.
The term New Forest, applied to this district as early
as the reign of William I, shows that England was a land
of forests existing before the Conquest. All over
Hampshire, both on the Tertiaries and up to, if not on,
the chalk Downs, there was one continuous stretch of
forest, beech growing on the chalk, oak on the clay, and
furze and heath on the sand. Indeed, the greater part of
England was, not technically but practically, forest, and
tenanted by herds of swine. These animals in early
1 I have consulted for this chapter the Victoria County History of Hamp-
shire, vol. ii. ; Wise's New Forest ; Manwood's Treatise of the Laws of the
Forest, 3rd ed. 1665, and 4th ed. 1717 ; Mudie's Hampshire, 1838 ;
Transactions of the British Archaeological Association, 1845 ; various Blue-
books from 1789 onwards; etc.
67
68 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
times were the universal food of our ancestors, beef being
little used, and mutton still less, if at all ; so it is obvious
that swine would be kept wherever there was food for
them. Hence the importance of woodlands for " pannage "
was recognized by the Saxons, and penalties were imposed
for the destruction of the trees, the value of a tree being
estimated, not by the amount of timber it contained, but
by the number of swine it would feed. In later times, the
woods were used for hunting grounds. These were
common to all, but the peasants' rights were gradually
absorbed by the Thegns — the landed gentry of the time —
and their rights, in turn, were over-ridden by the King,
who appropriated the best of the woodlands to his own
use, under the title of Terra Regis. This, under the
Normans, became the Foresta, a title signifying a tract of
land perambulated, but not fenced — though there might
be enclosures in it to keep the deer together — and
comprising heaths and cultivated bits as well as woodlands,
in which the beasts of the chase were protected by
stringent laws, and officers appointed to administer them.
Though William found -plenty of woodland in the
New Forest, it must be borne in mind that a forest is
not necessarily wooded at all. A Scotch keeper, when
asked by a Londoner where the trees were in the " Deer
Forest " he had taken, exclaimed, " And wha ever thowt
o' seeing a tree in a fa wrest ? " But when a tract had
been perambulated and " afforested " as a sanctuary for
wild beasts, not to be hunted without royal licence, it
still remained only a "chase" until certain forest officers
had been appointed and special laws made, with special
courts for administering them. As these officers and
courts could only be appointed by the King, it follows
that only the King could make or possess a " forest."
In a " chase " offences were dealt with by common law.
The animals of the chase did not include the stag or red
deer, which was called a hart when full grown in his
sixth year, but were the buck, doe, fox, marten, and roe ;
THE NEW FOREST 69
and these animals were termed campestres, as dis-
tinguished from the ferce silvestres of the forest, who
were supposed to lurk in the woods by day and only
come into the fields by night. A warren was only for
the smaller game, which were the same as would be found
in a modern game covert to-day.
The term " chase " survives, as in " Cannock Chase,"
and " Waltham Chase." Neither chase nor warren was
enclosed, ,but, though the woodlands sufficed for the swine,
for cattle it was necessary to have pasture, and this had
to be fenced to keep the deer out. So farming began in
the forest, and pastures were formed, as in the backwoods
now, by grubbing and ploughing any suitable bit of
woodland.
Manwood speaks of a " Charta de Foresta of Canutus,
a Dane and King of this realm, granted at a parliament
holden at Winchester A.D. 1016, and called Charta
Canuti" which gave the King sole and exclusive hunting
rights. But we now know that this charter was simply
a fraud on the part of William, who wished to shift on
to Cnut's shoulders the odium which his own usurpation
of all rights in the New Forest and curtailing of the
existing privileges of the Earls and Thegns and other
landowners was sure to excite. Still, that the Charta
Canuti should have been considered authentic for
centuries shows that there was nothing improbable in
the tale that such a charter had been discovered by
William ; and this would tend to prove that forest laws
did exist before the Conquest. Doubt was first thrown
on the " Charta Canuti " by Lord Chief Justice Coke at
the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Having thus paved the way, William proceeded in
1079 to make his New Forest; and by the time that
the Domesday Book Survey was made in 1086, he had,
partly by confiscation of the lands of those who had
opposed him, and partly by taking in village lands
previously outside the Forest in various parts of England,
7o MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
possessed himself of some 17,000 acres as his own
property, in addition to the royal hunting-grounds of his
predecessors. At the same time, he made laws of
unparalleled severity to safeguard his royal beasts of the
chase, and penalties of mutilation by loss of hand or eye
were freely enforced against any who even distressed
a stag or boar within a royal hunting-ground, though
landholders might shoot the boar, wolf, or fox outside. If
we follow up the history of the Forest, it will be seen
that, whereas William I., starting from the forged Charta
Canuti, substituted mutilation for fines in certain cases,
his son Rufus went further, and not only exacted the
death penalty, but enforced his savage laws with cruel
severity against both peasant and peer.
Henry II, warned by his brother's death, published a
new Code, called " The assize of Woodstock" 1 1 84, which
substituted fines again for death and mutilation, and in
1215 Magna Charta caused the repeal of the most
oppressive of the forest laws.
In 1217, a Charta de Foresta in the name of Henry III.,
still a minor, set forth that in future no one should lose
either life or limb for any forest offence; and in 1228
another Charta Foresta disafforested all the lands in the
kingdom which had been afforested since the death of
Rufus.
Henry VIII. enacted laws against poachers, and made
it felony to take hawks' eggs or kill rabbits.
In 1540, an Act, known as the "Drift of Forests,"
ordered all forests and commons to be driven each year
at Michaelmas, in order to keep down the number of the
cattle and ponies and kill the weaklings.
In Elizabeth's reign, a closer attention began to be
paid to the vert, as distinguished from the venison, of
the forest, and a law was passed to prevent the felling
of trees for charcoal, which was still used for smelting
the ironstone, though " sea coal " had largely superseded
"bavins" and "fire-coal" (charcoal) for domestic use two
THE NEW FOREST 71
hundred years earlier in London : it was called " an Act
that timber shall not be felled for burning of iron." This
applied to all oak, beech, and ash growing within four-
teen miles of the seaboard, and therefore handy for the
dockyards. In her reign a system of enclosures to protect
growing trees was in use in the Forest, and this was
continued by James I. and William III. James's plan was
to plough bits of land, gather acorns, and dibble them in ;
and William in 1698 began a systematic annual planting
and enclosing, at the rate of two hundred acres a year.
In the early Hanoverian days, when a man was hung
for stealing a sheep, it was but logical that the killing
of a deer in a royal forest should be treated with equal
severity. So we find that under George I. the penalty
for killing a deer was seven years' transportation to
America ; while going into a forest armed and disguised,
or maliciously destroying trees, was a felony, the
punishment for which was death. Indeed, to such a pitch
had deer-poaching and the destruction of forest trees
increased in this reign, that a sanguinary statute, known
as the "Black Act," was passed in 1722-3, to deal with
the disguised poachers who particularly infested the forest
of Bere, and, as Bishop's Waltham was their headquarters,
were known as " The Waltham Blacks."1 Even up to
the nineteenth century, the belfry of Lymington Church
is said to have been a recognised poachers1 larder, where
" New Forest Mutton " was hung till otherwise disposed
of.
In Queen Victoria's reign the Forest had long ceased
to be a royal hunting-ground, and its usefulness received
a further blow from the invention of iron ships. Few
very fine oaks now remain ; the most notable one is
" The Knightwood Oak." This has been pollarded, and
has since sent up a very fine head. It is nearly nineteen
feet round at four feet from the ground, and is probably
1 See Murray's Handbook to Hampshire ; Bishop's Waltham.
72 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
seven hundred years old But the peculiarity of the
Forest oak was its angularity. This caused it to grow
the very best " knees," which were used as brackets to
support the deck timbers and keep the framework of a
wooden ship together. Its proximity to the sea was
also a great point ; and at Buckler's Hard, on the Beaulieu
river, as late as 1812, ships were built and launched for
the British navy, among them three of Nelson's fleet at
Trafalgar — the Agamemnon, the Euryalus, and the
Swiftsure.
In this reign, too, the pheasant more and more takes
the lead as the chief denizen of the game preserve ; and
the wild deer begin to be looked upon as an intolerable
nuisance to farmers. Hence in 1851 Bere, on the Sussex
border, and Parkhurst, in the Isle of Wight, were
disafforested ; while in the New Forest the " Deer
Removal Act" nominally and almost practically put an
end to the deer, and changed the character of the Forest
A Royal Commission appointed "to enquire into the
state and condition of the Woods, Forests, and Land
Revenues of the Crown," produced, between 1787 and
1792, seventeen reports.1 To the New . Forest Report,
published July 22nd, 1789, is attached an excellent map
by Driver. This is the only map which shows the
boundaries of the "walks," a matter of no small
importance, as many of them are now the boundaries of
parishes or unions.
In lieu of the right to keep deer, which really was
a considerable expense, the Government were, by the
Deer Removal Act, 1852, empowered to enclose and plant
10,000 acres, and another 10,000 when that was thrown
out, in addition to the 6,000 that had been assigned to
them, with similar powers, by the Act of William III.
The felling of fifty thousand pounds' worth of timber, in
order to clear the ground for planting in likely spots, and
1 No. v. deals with the New Forest ; vi. with Alice Holt and Wolmer ;
xiii. with Bere Forest.
THE NEW FOREST 73
the introduction of the hideous plantations of Scotch pine,
which is the only tree that the soil in the greater part of
the Forest will support, produced so much local feeling
that planting was stopped ; and in 1 877 an Act to amend
the law for the administration of the Forest limited
re-enclosure and planting, and provided that " in cutting
timber, care should be taken to maintain the picturesque
character of the ground, and to leave everywhere enough
old timber of an ornamental kind." Thus the Forest
came to be administered, for the most part, as a great
national park, and all future legislation will doubtless look
to this end rather than to that of making any profit out
of it for the Crown. It is devoutly to be hoped that
provision for the proper planting and protection of
deciduous forest trees will be made, so that the New
Forest may never cease to be what it now is — the delight
of all who love natural beauty at its very best. In this
connexion one thing admits of no doubt — namely, that
in order to do this, and to prevent the character of the
Forest from being grievously changed, a stop must be
put to the alarming encroachment of the seedlings from
the above-mentioned Scotch pines — a matter which has
already been taken in hand by the Crown. The Scotch
pine, when old, is a beautiful tree, whether single or in
clumps, particularly when lit by the rosy glow of sunset.
The earliest in the Forest are said to have been planted
at Ocknell1 Clump.
Domesday Book gives a minute account of the
afforestation by William L, with every field, farm and
estate afforested in hides, carucates, and virgates. A hide
was from one hundred to one hundred and twenty acres ;
a carucate (caruca — plough) was -as much as a plough-
team could till in a year, and it varied from sixty to
one hundred acres ; a virgate, or yardland, was the fourth
part of a hide. Naturally, most of the holdings were in
I Hock (hock) £«0//=the high mound.
74 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Saxon hands, and so they remained. The usual remark
in Domesday Book, after mentioning each holding, its
tenant, and extent, is, " It was taxed for so much (i.e., in
the days of Edward the Confessor, about twenty years
before the Conquest) ; now for nothing." Or, " Now it
is in the Forest," showing that the tenants were not evicted,
and that their rent was reduced or remitted altogether.
Of Minstead Manor there is the following notice: —
The sons of Godfric Malf— [may we not here trace the true origin of the
name Malwood which has puzzled so many, and which adjoins Malf s Manor,
if indeed it was not part of it ?] — have of the King Mintestede, their father held
it of King Edward. Then it was taxed for three Hides and a half, now his sons
have only half a Hide which was taxed for one Virgate, the other land lies in
the forest. The arable land is one Carucate, and it is there in Demesne with
4 Bordarsl and 3 slaves and 16 acres of meadow, woodland for 10 hogs, and
in Wincestre one house of 12 pence rent. This land in the time of King
Edward was worth ^8, and afterwards 15 shillings, now 20 shillings.
The oldest existing perambulation of the New Forest,
made in 1280, shows the bounds to be — east and west, the
Southampton river and the Avon ; south, the sea-coast ;
north, the line running east, and west from Owerbridge
to North Charford. This is preserved in the Chapter
House of Westminster.
The next, made twenty-one years later and preserved
in the Tower, gives limits which remained practically the
same till the last perambulation made in 22nd of
Charles II., 1681. This also is in the Westminster Chapter
House. From this it appears that a line drawn straight
through the Forest from north-west to south-east is
twenty-one miles long ; from east to west, sixteen miles ;
and from north to south, fourteen miles long ; and that
it contains 92,365 acres (Report v., 1789), thirty acres
less than the present statistics make it. The New. Forest
exceeds in extent all the other forests of England put
together.
1 A Bordar or Borderer (bordarius) was the tenant of a cottage (borde)
with land attached, the owner of which was bound to work for his lord
and supply his table.
THE NEW FOREST 75
The officers of the Forest ranged from the Lord
Warden and his lieutenant to a verminer and sub-verminer,
between whom came a riding forester, a bow-bearer,
two rangers, two woodwards, four verderers, two stewards,
twelve regarders, nine foresters or master-keepers, and
thirteen (originally fifteen) under-foresters or groom-
keepers. The latter had for stipend only £1 6s. Sd. a
year, which in the 26th Elizabeth, 1584, was doubled.
They depended mainly on perquisites, animal and vegetable
— e.g., fees for each deer killed, and the sale of rabbits
and swine which they bred and fed all the year in the
Forest; and wood — both "windfall and rootfall," and
" browse wood " — which was cut and sold in excessive
quantities. These perquisites had a very destructive
effect on the Forest — so much so, that it was a great
saving when ten pounds was allotted to each under-keeper
in lieu of fees.
Besides the destruction of the woods caused by these
perquisites, the Forest became, from the same cause, so
overstocked with deer, that in the hard winter of 1787
three hundred died of starvation in one walk alone. There
were then ten or twelve times that number in the Forest.
We hear of seven hundred at Boldrewood, five hundred
at Broomy, two hundred and fifty at Eyeworth, six hundred
at Ladycross and Whitley Ridge, and so on, all in very poor
condition for want of winter feeding. Three tons of hay
was the estimate for feeding every hundred deer through
the winter if no browse-wood were cut for them. The
needs of the deer used to be partly provided for by hay
grown in New Park, till Charles II. had the fence round it
made good "for the preservation of our red deer now
coming out of France," the native stock being apparently
exhausted, or needing a cross. These are all gone, and
the few now in the Forest were a later importation. The
occasional sight of one or two of them is one of the best
of the many surprises the Forest has for those who
frequent it. The " present of Good Venison from the New
76 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Forest," for which the Archbishop of Canterbury writes
his thanks to Queen Eleanor in the latter half of the
thirteenth century, preparatory to giving her a good sermon
for being hard on her tenants and encouraging usury, was
probably a Fallow buck. The Fallow deer, though quite
wild for centuries, are of Asiatic origin, and were
introduced, some say, by the Crusaders, but more
probably by the Romans. The peculiarity of the New
Forest breed is that, instead of being either dark or
mottled all the year round, they are, without exception,
dark in the winter, but with light dappled coats in the
summer.
Besides the fact that many of the Forest officers had
a direct interest in its mismanagement, one of the great
difficulties in the proper management of the Forest was
what Manwood calls the Divisum Imperium. The Lord
Warden and his various officers looked after the vert and
venison, and all that related to the pleasure of the King ;
and the Exchequer had the overlooking of the timber, and
all that related to the profit of the King, and had few
officers under them. The business side of the Forest,
therefore, suffered. How much it suffered, may be seen
from the following: — 1
In the time of Elizabeth the chief fund at the disposal of the Govern-
ment was derived from the land and property of the Crown, and, therefore,
great attention was paid to it ; hence in the survey of 1608 we find that
in the New Forest at that time there was estimated to be the immense
quantity of 315,477 loads of timber — viz. :
197,405 loads fit for the Navy,
118,072 ,, of dotard and decayed timber.
But in the course of one century at the survey of 1707 there were only
19,873 loads all told. This was mainly the result of waste and mismanage-
ment, though doubtless the need of money during the Civil War had
much to do with it.
The best comment on the Forest administration is
to be found in the concluding paragraph of the
1 Report v., 1789.
THE NEW FOREST* 77
Report of 1787-1792, before mentioned, in which the
Commissioners say that they have found very judicious
plans for the improvement of the Forest and the correcting
of abuses in almost every reign, but that they all failed
for one cause — that the execution had been left to officers
whose interest it was to counteract them ; and they have
little hope of their own recommendations faring any better
unless they can get rid of " the radical error of the present
system of Government."
In a forest as old as the Conquest, there are, naturally,
many terms which require explanation connected both
with the forest itself, the hunting, the offences against
forest laws, the officers who had to take note of them,
their courts, etc. To begin with, everything in a forest
was referable to one of two heads, Vert or Venison — the
vegetable and animal products.
The head officer in the New Forest was Lord Warden,
but the greatest personage was the Justice in Eyre —
"Justiciaries Itinerans." There were two of these, and
they went the circuit of all the forests of England, one
north and one south of the Trent, each setting up his
" Justice Seat " at the chief place near to any forest
The Rangers had to drive the beasts back into the
forest when they got out into the purlieus. These were
the parts outside the Forest which had once been in it,
but had been disafforested at a later perambulation. Note
that the pourallee is not the purlieu, but the perambulation
itself. Manwood, speaking of this term " purlieu," says : *
It cometh of the French word pur, clear, entire, and exempt ; and lieu,
that is a place — i.e., a place exempt from the forest ; and the perambulation
whereby the purlieu is disafforested is called in French pourallee — i.e., a
perambulation ; so that the purlieu and the pourallee are two distinct things,
and purlieu is the right name of the place disafforested.
The two Woodwards had to do exclusively with the
vert, and carried bills or hatchets instead of bows and
i Ed. iii., p. 318.
78 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
arrows, but they were bound to report to the Court of
Swainmote or to the Court of Attachment (called also
Woodmote) any offence they were cognizant of against
venison as well as vert.
The four Verderers (viridarii) saw to the enforcement
of the laws, and acted as judges in the Court of Swainmote.
The twelve Regarderers (regardatores) were lesser
officers, and had to move about over the Forest to see
to the felling of timber, that the lawing or expeditating
of " mastives " (to be explained further on)' had been
carried out, and to view and inquire into trespasses and
encroachments, " assarts, wastes, purpestures, and all
faults." The Regard of the Forest was made every third
year.
The Foresters (forestiarii), or " esquire " and
" groom " keepers, had to be about in the Forest at all
seasons looking after both vert and venison. There were
at one time a great number of foresters, walkers, and
under-keepers, and it is certain that many of them
enriched themselves by extortions and exactions in a most
oppressive manner. The Oharta de Foresta (Henry III.)
has a special clause " to avoid all manner of surcharging
of the Forest with over many foresters, etc., to the end
that, by reason of the diminishing of these officers, their
extortion might also the easier be diminished."
The courts for trying offences were of three kinds.
The Woodmote, or Court of Attachment, was so called
because the Forest officers who reported an offence might
attach a man's person if he were taken in the offence, or
his goods if only suspected, and he had to appear before
the court and clear himself to get his goods back. This
court was held every forty days or oftener, and was only
one of inquest ; the offender, if a true bill was found, was
committed for trial at the next Swainmote. This court,
the frequent holdings of which became very oppressive,
was eventually appointed to be held three times a year —
viz., "Fifteen days before Michaelmas, to take agistment ;
THE NEW FOREST 79
about St. Martin's Day (November nth), to receive the
pannage; and fifteen days before St. John's Day
(June 24th), 'to fawn the deer'" — i.e., to clear off all
animals from the Forest except the deer when about to
fawn in what was termed the Fence-month. At this court
the Verderers presided, with a jury of " Swains," or
freeholders of the Forest. It took cognizance of all kinds
of forest offences, and convicted in minor cases ; but the
convictions had to be confirmed and the graver offences
entirely dealt with by the Lord Chief Justice in Eyre,
whose court was held once in three years, when all
inhabitants of the Forest between twelve and fourteen
years old had to appear to take the oath of allegiance to
the King.
A court held in the Verderers' Hall, at Lyndhurst, still
keeps the name of Swainmote. The iter or circuit of the
Justice in Eyre was- put an end to in 1640, but the office
was only legally abolished in 1817. Charles II. tried to
revive it, and Vere, Earl of Oxford, held the last justice-
seat at Lyndhurst in 1669 and 1670, which was adjourned
to Winchester, September 2Qth, 1670. The Royal Coat-of-
Arms provided for the occasion still hangs in the Verderers'
Hall.
The terms agistment, pannage, and fence-month, before
used, need some explanation ; as do also expeditating
and the various Forest encroachments.
Pannage, or pawnage, Manwood says, is the gathering
of money — " pawns " — for the profit made of the fruit of
trees; but it is generally used, he admits, of "the mast
of such trees only as bear fruit to feed hogs, or else of
the money for the agistment of such mast." The term
" pannage-month " is still used in the Forest to signify the
time — about eight weeks — during which pigs may run in
the Forest. Originally it was from fifteen days before
Michaelmas to forty days after — that is, till Martinmas.
The Fence-month, which began fifteen days before and
lasted till fifteen days after Midsummer Day, is called
8o MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
in Latin Tempus Vetitum, or Mensis Vetitus ; so clearly
the word " fence " is the same as the French defendu.
Previous to the commencement of the month there was
a drift of the Forest, to get all the cattle and ponies out,
and to see that only legitimate commoners were making
use of the rights of common or pasture. The cattle were
driven into pounds, whence the owners fetched them
away, a " foreigner " (the term is still used in the Forest)
paying a penalty, and on the third offence forfeiting his
beasts to the Crown. Manwood says of this :
And it seems very reasonable that the cattle of foreigners, who have no free
land in the Forest, should have no manner of common there, because of right it
belongeth unto the inhabitants, and to such as have lands and tenements in
their tenure and occupation there ; for they only are subject to the burthen
and inconveniences of the Forest in their corn, meadows, and pastures, where
the deer often feed ; and for that cause they are to have the benefit of the
common, for qui sentit onus sentirc debet et commodum.
Since the removal of the deer, the use of the fence-
month has departed, and the custom has lapsed ; as also
has the more serious exclusion of commoners from the
use of the Forest in winter.- Originally, after the end of
the pannage-month (November nth), the time called the
Winter Haining began, and, in order to allow the deer
to have all there was to eat during the winter, com-
moners' cattle were kept out from November nth to
April 23rd.
This closing of the Forest to horses in the winter
enabled it to feed bigger animals, for whereas we now
consider that the Forest herbage — taking it both in
summer and winter — will not suffice for ponies of more
than thirteen hands high, we find that by a statute of
Henry VIII. no " stone horse " might run in the Forest
who was not fifteen hands high, and any mare that was
thought not able to bear " foles of reasonable stature,"
and any filly or gelding not likely to grow " to be able to
do profitable labour," would be, at the discretion of the
drivers, killed and buried. This was a very good law,
THE NEW FOREST 81
for in pack-horse days a small, weak beast was of little
service.
The Forest was driven a second time at Michaelmas
to take the agistment, or pay for herbage. This word
came to have two meanings, just as pannage did — that is,
both the herbage and the money taken for the same.
There were formerly two under officers in the New Forest termed Agistors
(Agistatores], a word of very uncertain derivation, whose duty it was to collect
the profit arising from the herbage and pannage for the King's use ; but the
herbagt and pannage being granted to the Lord Warden these profits were
collected by the Lord Warden's Steward, and the appointment of agistors has
been discontinued for a century.l
It is odd that this obsolete office should be one of
the two ancient terms which are still used in the Forest,
where everyone is now familiar with the terms Verderer
and Agister. Of these, the former was originally a judicial
officer who looked after the King's interests, but is now
elected to look after the rights of the commoners as
against the Crown ; while the name " Agister " has been
for some time erroneously given to the marksmen, who
are officers working under the verderers, and whose duty
is to mark, with a special tailmark for each district (there
are four of them) the commoners' cattle and ponies. The
branding is a private affair of each individual owner.
Their work has this much in common with that of the
obsolete agister — that they collect the small fee which is
paid to the verderers for each head of stock running in
the open. Hence, perhaps, the usurpation of the name.
Expeditation was apparently introduced in the reign
of Henry II. At that time, most farmers and freeholders
kept a watchdog, who was generally a mastiff, and called
simply canis — a greyhound being called canis venaticus,
or le.porarius> and a spaniel canis fugax (which looks as
if the Normans had difficulties in getting their dogs in
" to heel "), or canis odoriferus, the exact counterpart of
1 Report v. 1789.
82 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
the American " smell dog."1 In the Charta de Forest a of
Edward I. we read : " No mower shall bring with him a
great mastiff to drive away the deer of our Lord the King,
but little dogs to look to things without the coverts " ; and
mastiffs were rendered harmless by the cruel method of
cutting off three toes from the fore feet, the foot being
placed on a block of wood of prescribed size, " eight inches
thick and a foot square," and " a chizel of two inches " set
on the claws, which were struck off " at one blow." If,
after this, a dog could pull down a deer, he was free to
do so without prejudice to his master.
A man was, however, allowed to pay a fine of three
shillings to save his dog's claws, and a village might
compound Thus Lymington was allowed thirty-two dogs
unlawed. If a man kept two dogs unlawed, he still only
paid three shillings for the two, but if a dog was owned
by two men each had to pay. Oddly enough, a greyhound
was free, but might not be used for hunting. In later
times a gauge was kept, through which if a dog could
squeeze his body he was free of expeditation. One of
these gauges hangs in the . hall at Brousholme Park,
Yorkshire ; and in the Verderers' Hall at Lyndhurst is
an old stirrup of the sixteenth century, which was at that
time and onwards used for this purpose. It is called
Rufus's stirrup, and is of a much better shape for the
dog-gauge than that at Brousholme. The word
" expeditate " seems to mean to cut joints ex pede, off
the foot
The Verderers' Hall at Lyndhurst was, until its
destruction in 1852, a very interesting old building, but
1 In the earliest treatise on hunting, a book called The May sire of
the Game, largely based on a French book of the chase .by Gaston de Foix,
we read that " Spanyell houndes " were so called " for the nature of
them come first oute of spaigne." The author of this book was Edward,
Duke of York, who was Warden and Chief Justice in Eyre of the New
Forest and all Forests south of the Trent in 1397. He fell at Agincourt,
where he led the right wing. Leland says of him that " being a fatte
man," in the heat and throng of the battle he was " smouldered to death "
(Memorials of Old Northamptonshire, p. 179).
THE NEW FORBST 83
the only genuine antiquity in it now is the prisoners' dock,
of solid dark oak entirely hewn with the axe, a good
specimen of old English carpentry. Of the " stable for
f ortie horse " of King Charles I. a part of one wall remains,
between the National School playground and the Crown
Inn yard. It is of brick, massively built
Besides hunting with dogs, the offences against venison
in the New Forest were almost innumerable, and the
penalties often very severe. But the most remarkable
names are those of the offences against vert, such as
waste, assart, and purpresture.
Waste was the illegal "felling or cutting down of the
coverts, which might grow up again and become coverts
in time."
Assart, from assartir, to make plain or grub up, was
the grubbing up of the tree or copsewood roots, in order
to turn woodland into arable or pasture.
Purpresture, from pourpris — taken, was the making
of an illegal encroachment on the Forest, as by building
a hut or fencing in a bit of forest and adding it to a
holding.
Manwood grows quite eloquent on this subject, which
he treats at great length. He says that —
If every owner of lands in the Forest might build as many Houses
as he pleased, it would in a short' time be so full of People and Houses
that the Wild Beasts would be frighted out of the Forest ; and therefore
at first Forests were made where there were few or no inhabitants, and
afterwards by the special Licence and Favour of the King some few
people were suffered to dwell there. . . . New erections and increasing
dwelling houses in the Forests are —
1. Ad terror em ferarum, for the sight of many Houses would
terrify the Deer.
2. Ad nocumentum Forestce, because the People and the Inhabi-
tants would destroy the Vert.
3. Ad super oner ationem Foresta, for by the encrease of Houses
and Inhabitants the Forest of necessity would be surcharged.
4. Ad exilationem ferarum, because the multitude of People and
their Dogs would drive the Deer out of the Forest.
Therefore, nothing can be more hurtful to a Forest than Purprestures.
84 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
The peculiar laws under which the natives of the
New Forest lived for many centuries has tended to keep
alive a number of traditions which are handed down as
facts, and too readily accepted by the majority of visitors
— and even many of the residents — as history. Foremost
among these is the singularly persistent story of the
destruction of villages and churches to make the New
Forest. The statement was made by the monkish
chroniclers, who had good reason to abuse the King ; and
each writer who copied the statement usually added to the
enormity and embellished it with details, until the number
of destroyed churches in the course of three centuries
reached, in various accounts, the grand totals of twenty-two,
thirty-six, or fifty-two, and in no less than sixty parishes.
But the contemporary chronicler says nothing of it, and
Domesday Book gives the total of the inhabitants " in
and around the New Forest " as two hundred, and speaks of
only two churches — Brockenhurst and Milford — both of
which churches are still standing, and. by the Norman
work in them, bear witness that they were standing about
the time when the New Forest was made.
If the Forest before the perambulation of Edward I.
extended north and west into Wilts and Dorset, and
far beyond the limits then fixed, as some maintain, it is
conceivable that in those counties evictions and even
destruction of churches might have taken place, and that
land was afforested which might have supplied corn for
the use of man. But have we any traces, documentary
or other, of such buildings having existed and having
been swept away ? It would seem to be impossible to
find proof of this. But when the later chroniclers, as
quoted by Knighton, say that William Rufus " levelled
twenty-two Mother Churches with Villages, Chapels,
Manors, and Mansions between Southampton and
Twynham, which is now called Christchurch," of all of
which the Saxon chronicler says nothing, then we know
for certain that they are romancing.
THE NEW FOREST 85
Apart from the fact that no sign of any ruined church
exists, any intelligent person who traverses what is now
the forest can at once satisfy himself that this district, so
far from " supplying the markets of Winchester with corn,"
as Vitalis, in his Historia Ecclesiastica, written about 1 100,
would apparently have us believe, is, and always has been,
incapable of producing crops, or of supporting even a
sparse population. And the geological testimony also is,
on this point, positive and unmistakable. There are
a few small streams with alluvial soil, and there is clay
or marl full of small white river- shells on the tops of
the rounded knolls ; but the greater part of the present
New Forest is a great bed of gravel with patches of sand,
on which nothing would grow but heather, furze, and
bracken, and a few stunted firs. The old name, also, of
the New Forest, " Ytene," which means a furzy tract,
bears excellent .witness to its character. Previous
quotations from Domesday Book have shown that even
the few people who were living in the district when it was
afforested were not evicted and not oppressed ; for their
rents were reduced, and common rights allowed to them
for the loss of the " right to the woods " which belonged
to their holdings.1 In fact, what William I. probably did
was to turn an open furzy district into a Royal Forest, to
give it a very stringent set of laws, and appoint officers
to carry them out; and we shall thus be justified in
throwing overboard entirely the tradition of William's
destruction of churches and parishes, and turning a dense
population adrift.
Along with this, too, must go another and still more
cherished tradition, which owed its origin to the same
monkish detestation of William's successor. The making
or possession of a forest always seems to have had a bad
effect on a king's character, and certainly Rufus was rightly
detested by all for his cruelty and rapacity, and by none
1 Victoria County History, ii., pp. 419-421.
86 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
so deservedly as by the Church. He had brought in the
death penalty for killing a deer, and he had made the
Church, from the Pope downwards, his lasting enemy by
refusing to pay Peter's Pence and declining to fill up
bishoprics — notably that of Canterbury — and taking all
their great revenues for his own private use year after
year, while he had even put out the eyes of some who
had ventured to side with the monks against him. These
things being so, it was not to be wondered at that the
same Forest which had witnessed the death of his brother
and his nephew should have seen him also fall, struck by
a perhaps well-aimed arrow, for which neither was any
repentance likely to be expected nor any punishment
awarded
Below the hill which leads from Malwood to Canterton
is "Rufus's Stone," a stone pillar standing near the road-
side, now enclosed in a hideous triangular cast-iron case.
On its three sides it bears the inscription : —
Here stood the oak tree on which an arrow, shot by Sir Walter
Tyrell at a stag, glanced, and struck King William II., surnamed
Rufus, on the breast ; of which stroke he instantly died, on the 2nd
of August, 1 100. King William II., surnamed Rufus, being slain as
before related, was laid in a cart belonging to one Purkess, and
drawn from hence to Winchester, and buried in the Cathedral
Church of that city. That the spot where an event so memorable had
happened might not hereafter be unknown, this stone was set up by
John Lord Delaware, who had seen the tree growing in this place,
anno 1745.
This stone having been much mutilated, and the inscription on
each of its three sides defaced, this more durable memorial [the
iron case], with the original inscription, was erected in the year
1841 by William Sturges Bourne, Warden.
The bold assertions of this inscription would seem
to admit of there being no doubt either as to the
place or manner of the King's death ; but if the reader
will turn to Wise's book on the New Forest, he will find
much to make him hesitate in accepting the tradition of
THE NEW FOREST 87
the glancing arrow. The Anglo-Saxon chronicler writing
at the time simply says he was shot by one of his men.
John of Brompton says, " by accident, sagittam cervo
incaute dirigens " ; and Stowe follows him. But the
oldest writers, such as Henry of Huntingdon and William
of Malmesbury, both of them contemporary, are by no
means unanimous, even as to the spot, one speaking of
it as happening at Brockenhurst, another at Chorengham,
and another at Thorougham, now Fritham, near an old
chapel which his father had pulled down. Fritham, like
Minstead, was afforested, but was never taken possession
of by the King as part of his own property. The stories
of his prophetic dreams and warnings are obviously of
monkish origin, and seem to have been manufactured in
an attempt to throw upon Providence the onus which the
writers did not like to place on ecclesiastical shoulders.
Clearly, there would be many who would gladly assist
Providence to get rid of a man whom they could only
regard as a monster of cruelty and oppression. It sounded
natural to say that it happened in the excitement of the
chase, and it was not a bad idea to say that the hand
that sped the arrow was Tyrell's, as there was no known
cause of enmity between him and the King, so that if
he shot him it must have been accidental. His flight gave
colour to the accusation, and made it look as if he had
more to do with it than he admitted. Tyrell himself
always denied it, and probably with truth, for it is hardly
to be doubted that the hand that drew the bow-string
was under orders from a distance, and there were always
plenty of men who could be hired to do the Church's
bidding, and they would feel that those who gave them
the task were quite able to protect them from any incon-
venient consequences. Tyrell's flight may well have been
prompted by an unwillingness to run any risk of having
to play the part of scapegoat. He also knew, of course,
that the news of the King's death would be eagerly looked
for abroad, and in those days the only way for news to
88 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
travel was by special messenger, so he fled towards
Ringwood. And here we come to another of the
picturesque traditions which cluster so thickly round the
Red King; for there, at Tyrell's Ford, over the Avon, a
smithy long existed which has always been said to pay
a yearly fine to the Crown because the blacksmith assisted
Tyrell in his flight. But when, a few years ago, the Fane
family, the owners of the property, redeemed their Forest
Dues, great pains were taken to trace the supposed fine
and its commutation, but in vain ; nothing could be
found about either one or the other, in the Fane papers
or in the Land Record Office, where at least a note of
the money paid for commutation must have been entered.
So this story, also, has to be relegated, though not without
regret, to the misty region of the picturesque, where
foundations are not fact, but fancy.
That Rufus, however, was taken to Winchester in a
forest cart and buried in the Cathedral without ceremony
is certain, and the old track from Otterbourne to Shawford
Down is still called King's Lane.
There are many of the name of Purkess still living
not far from " Rufus's Stone." But when the name of
Purkess first crept into the account as the man who carted
the King's body to Winchester one cannot tell. It is
obviously a corruption of Perkins, a name not found till
the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Still, the family of
the man, whatever he was called, may very well be still
living in the Forest, and even the ruins of the cottage in
which he is said to have lived not far off are very properly
taken care of by the owner.
Finally, though in the Cathedral you are shown
" Rufus's tomb," it is quite certain that this is another fable
which will not abide enquiry. The tomb is a block of oolite,
hollowed out for the head, six feet long and twenty-two
inches deep, and covered by a fine dark brown Purbeck
slab in the shape called dos d'dne. It stood under the
tower, and later was moved to near the altar steps.
THE NEW FOREST 89
In his account of the opening of this tomb in 1868,
Mr. Joyce says : " It is observable that Stowe, in his
Annals, gives an almost literal version of the account of
Rufus's death, as delivered by the Latin chroniclers, and
then subjoins a description of the tomb in which the body
once lay as it would seem from personal observation."
He says : —
King William, on the Morrow after Lammas day hunting in the
New Forest of Hampshire in a place called Chorengham, where since a
chapelh was builded, Sir Walter Tyrell shooting at a Deere, unawares
hit the King in the breast, that he fell down starke dead and never spake
worde. . . . He dyed in the year of Christ noo in the 13 yeare of
his raygne on the and day of August, when he had raygned 12 years
1 1 moneths lacking eight days, and was buried at Winchester in the
Cathedrall Church or Monastery of Saynt Swithen, under a playne flat
marble stone before the lecterne in the queere, but long since his bones
were translated and layd with King Cnute's bones.
This extract is from the fourth edition, printed in 1592.
We know that his bones were taken up, and put into
a chest with Cnut's bones, in 1525, the year in which
Bishop Fox completed his chancel screens, on the top of
which the six fine Italian chests were placed, and where
they still remain, and the inscription was placed at the
time on the third or westernmost chest on the south side :
Hie jacent ossa Cnutonis et Willelmi Rufi" Some of
these chests were violated in 1642, but the bones of Rufus
were put back in the same chest in 1861, with the inscrip-
tion : In hac et alter a e regione cista reliquiae sunt ossium
Canuti et Rufi Regum, Emmae Reginae, Winae et Alwini
Episcoporum. The corresponding chest referred to, bears
the inscription : In hac cista A.D. 1 66 1 promiscue recondita
sunt ossa Principum et Prelatorum sacrilega barbarie
dispersa A.D. 1642. It has been ascertained that the chest
on the southern screen contains only the bones of two
skeletons, presumed to be those of Cnut and Rufus.
It is thus clear that Rufus's bones could not then be
in the so-called " Rufus's tomb/' nor, if he were buried,
as William of Malmesbury, writing at the time, says he
90 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
was, under a plain flat marble stone, could he ever have
been in it Yet Clarendon, writing in 1683, speaks of it
as Rufus's tomb, and evidently believes that his body was
then in it, and Gale, in 1715, following Clarendon, says : —
In the area at the ascent to the altar is a raised monument of greyish
marble, in which lay interred William Rufus before it was broken open
and rifled in the late rebellion.
Further on, he says : —
In the tomb of William Rufus which was broken open by the rebels
in the time of the Civil Wars was found the dust of that King, some
relics of cloth of gold, a large gold ring, and a small silver chalice.
Now, a chalice is the peculiar mark of a priest's inter-
ment, and clearly points to the fact that the body in
that tomb was not that of Rufus. Yet Milner, following
Gale, called it Rufus's tomb, and supposed it to be empty.
It was, therefore, rather a surprise when, on being opened
in 1868, it was found to contain the bones of a man much
displaced, and the largest bones violently broken, as would
be likely to happen when the tomb was violated in 1642,
together with bits of embroidered cloth, with fragments
of linen, serge, and muslin, and seven different patterns
of gold braid, also a small oval turquoise and a small
carved ivory head, possibly of a knife -haft, with a socket-
hole and a hole for a rivet, the whole stained green, as
if by long contact with bronze. These are still to be
seen ; but there was also a weapon like a spear originally
nine inches long, but broken in two, the socket having
the tapered end of the shaft still in it, and several bits
of the shaft, to the extent of three feet six inches in all,
either clean cut, or half cut, half broken, into bits of two
or three inches only ; the section of the shaft which was
oval, measuring one and a half inches by one inch diameter.
This was put back with the bones, which sufficed to form
nearly a complete skeleton, five feet nine inches high, and
no drawing was taken of it. The ring and chalice were
gone ; bits of mortar which had dropped in showed that
THE NEW FOREST 91
the lid had been removed and refixed ; and the chipped
condition of the lower edge of the oolite showed that the
whole tomb had been moved before. It was now again
moved eastward, and placed in the retro-choir between the
chantries of Bishop Waynflete and Cardinal Beaufort, and
a few years later was again put back to what may be
considered its original position under the great tower,
and probably close to the spot where Rufus was originally
buried; for Walkelyn's tower, which collapsed in 1107,
was said to have fallen in disgust at having this blood-
stained King interred beneath it. Who it was that
occupied and still occupies the tomb it is impossible to
say, but both the character of the tomb itself and of the
patterns on the gold braid found in it would indicate an
age somewhat earlier than that of Rufus.
The man who conveyed the body of Rufus to
Winchester was said to be a charcoal burner, and there
was originally a great deal of charcoal made in every
forest in England for the purpose of smelting iron ; and
just as iron is now worked to the best advantage when
found in the neighbourhood of coal, so it used to be a
great thing to find iron where there was plenty of timber
growing. Hence the ironworks at Sowley Pond. A good
deal of coal began to be used in Elizabeth's reign, which
explains her veto on felling timber " for the burning of
iron." At this time all over Sussex the industry died out
and fled to the North, leaving only in all directions the
" hammer ponds " to attest its previous existence ; though
a few of these were in occasional use till near the end
of the eighteenth century.
Until the last few years, three circles for charcoal
burning remained in the Forest, with quaint turf -covered
wigwams built after the manner of the early Britons, in
which the charcoal burner lived whilst engaged in firing
his pile. Now only one is in use, and that but seldom.
But though timber is not now much used for charcoal,
some is still required each year to satisfy the claims of
92 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
those houses which have " fuel-rights " attached to them.
These rights at one time were very damaging to the
Forest, and in the twenty-sixth of Elizabeth — 1584 — a law
was passed, which said that no inhabitant of any house
newly built since the beginning of the Queen's reign
should be allowed any wood in the Forest to be spent
in any such new-built house.
The rights which the inhabitants of the Forest claim
are of three kinds, though comparatively few have all
the three — rights of fuel (" Estovers "), rights of turf
(" Turbary "), and rights of " common " or pasture. The
right of " pannage," according to Manwood, goes with that
of " common."
This is the difference between pawnage and agistment — the pawnage
is the agistment of the mast of the trees or the profit that is made of it,
and agistment is the herbage of the ground or the profit that is made
of the same.
This agistment right is enjoyed by all natives of or
dwellers in the Forest, who are mostly called commoners,
and is a very valuable right indeed. The right of
" Turbary," or of having turf cut from the Forest to be
burnt in a cottage hearth or under a copper is less
universal, and as the natives are not indigent, it is not
now very valuable, but it is very hurtful to the Forest.
The turf is not cut from a peat bog, the New Forest bogs
being too watery to admit of this, as many a stranger
following the hounds has found to his cost, but it is the
matted roots of the heather with soil adhering which is
cut in thin round cakes, fifteen inches across, with a broad,
cross-handled, ace-of -spades shovel. The turves are pared
off in chequers, growing bits being left between, and the
heath land is thus deprived of half its top surface at each
paring, and there is very little left but sand and .gravel,
so that the soil has no chance to improve. These turves
will smoulder when lit, and give out warmth, and many
little farms have each year a stack of some thousands.
The right of " estovers," or wood for fuel and fencing,
THE NEW FOREST> 93
is not very common now, but a good deal of wood has
to be found for it every year, and as wind-falls may not
always suffice, it is also a right which may be very hurtful
to the Forest — a fact which was recognised in the earliest
times. Manwood instances the case of the Prior of
Lancaster, who
. . . Had by charter every day two cartloads of deadwood to be burnt in his
Priory ; but because he took Viridem boscum pro mortuo contrary to his
grant, his Estovers were seized into the hands of the Lord of the Forest,
and the Erior was fined pro Estoveriis rehabendis ^3 6s. 8d., et rehabuit
Estoveria suaJ-
The derivation of the word is somewhat obscure, but
probably it comes from the old French estovoir, and means
" necessaries." In the Forest now it is translated into
" timber rights," and these rights are attached to a messuage
or tenement. Manwood says that " a man may have
' Estovers ' appurtenant to a house," and " if the Estovers
are spent in any other house, 'tis a good cause of seizure
of the same Estovers, for this is an abuse which is a cause
of Forfeiture. Even if the King grant a man as much
firewood as he thinks fit to burn in another man's house,
'tis a void grant." Also the house in which the Estovers
are to be burned must be " an antient house." The wood
might not be sold, and " if he that hath Estovers in a
Forest make hurdles of them, and sell those hurdles, he
is punishable." In all this there is no mention of a hearth.
But the current idea in the Forest is that these rights of
fuel attached to the hearth, so if a house was taken or
burnt down, the hearth was preserved as the proof of
an existent right. In more than one orchard by the
roadside you may still see heaps of brick rubbish piled up
and left to mark the hearth-stone. There certainly are
one or two cases in which the right is registered as
attaching to " one chimney in an antient messuage," which
may seem to give some support to the idea of " hearth-
tenure," though it may also be only a limitation, and merely
1 Itin. 10 Edw. III. fo. 65.
94 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
mean that the owner has a right to burn estovers only in
one room in his house in which is an ancient chimney, the
rest of the house being modern, and therefore without
rights ; for no doubt most of the houses which have timber
rights now have been rebuilt since the days of Elizabeth,
and yet have been allowed to retain their rights ; and it
is not unlikely that a chimney or hearth was either actually
or nominally retained to secure the rights. But it was to
the messuage or tenement in which the hearth was, not
to the hearth, that the estovers were attached ; a hearth
without a house could have none. The idea that the
hearth-stone could be moved from one house to another,
conveying rights of estovers with it, is quite absurd.
Whenever a house is destroyed by fire or pulled down,
the rights which were attached to it, whether of estovers
or turbary, perish with the house, and are ipso facto wiped
out ; nor has this decision ever been contested.
The claims for all Forest rights are to be found in
the record of the proceedings of the last Justice Seat for
the New Forest, held in 1670, and the final register of
them was made in 1858 by a commission which sat under
the presidency of Chief Justice Coleridge as a result of
the Deer Removal Act. A great many claims were
disallowed, some, no doubt, entailing hardship, where the
holders had an honest claim but could produce no
evidence for it ; but the vast majority were claims which
never ought to have existed
One more Forest tradition may be mentioned. No
native is ignorant of the old story of " Bishop's Ditch,"
which runs northward from the low marshy ground between
Denny and Woodfidley, and is visible from the line soon
after passing Beaulieu Road Station. The story (it is
found also at Tichborne and elsewhere) is that the -Bishop
of Winchester obtained from the King a gift of as much
land as he could crawl round on his hands and knees
in a day, and he put in a very good day's work. Wise
erroneously speaks of Bishop's Ditch as a manor belonging
THE NEW FOREST 95
to Winchester College. It really is a purlieu of the Bishop
of Winchester, who probably either had or designed to
have a fish-stew there.
So far, we have spoken only of the Forest since it
became a Royal Forest in Norman times. But there are
evidences of Roman and early British settlements in the
district, the attraction always being the woods, which were
ready to hand for heating the primitive kilns for the most
ancient of all industries — the baking of pottery.
The many barrows which have been opened in the
district have yielded little except some rude burial urns ;
but a pair of flint knives have been picked up on the surface
at Eyeworth, and lately a small flint spear-head of the
barbed kind was dug up in the allotment gardens near
Lyndhurst. Of Roman pottery, a great deal was made
in the extensive potteries at Sloden, Crock Hill, and Island
Thorns, all lying together in the north-west corner of the
Forest, just where the lower Bagshot sands crop out near
a bed of very fine yellow clay. Two kinds of ware were
made — the usual red " Samian," and a dark brown, almost
black ware, the peculiarity of which is that it is always
overbaked, and so made into stone ware. The shapes are
good, and the ornamentation remarkable, consisting either
of interlacing rings or criss-cross lines, surmounted by dots,
conventional fern patterns, and curious geometrical figures
of circles and triangles combined into a sort of Masonic
figure. At Sloden, the pattern was made on both kinds
of ware in a creamy " slip," which is white liquid clay,
painted on the pottery before burning. This seems to
have been imitated from that made at Castor, in
Northamptonshire (Durobrivae). Sloden ware was widely
used by the Romans. A rude imitation of leaves and
ferns is not uncommon, but on none have I so far been
able to discover any impressions made by pressing the
real leaf or frond on the clay when soft, and so making
the nature-printed pictures which have been said to be
the distinctive mark of the New Forest pottery.
96 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Of other Roman traces the Forest has not many. The
large camp at Buckland Rings dominated Lymington, a
town which in the fourteenth century used to contribute
more sea-going ships for foreign invasion than Portsmouth ;
and on the Ordnance Map the words " Roman coins found
here " are marked at Pond Head farm, near Lyndhurst.
This makes it seem likely that a military post was placed
on the sandy knoll at that spot, and that the road from
Southampton to Lymington struck straight across the
Forest from near Lyndhurst Road Station to Pond Head,
and passed up the valley westwards to the great camp.
Another Roman road went from the ford of the Test, at
Nursling (Nutshalling), to the Solent, and apparently
crossed from Lepe to Gurnard Bay, in the Isle of Wight.
The chief historic building was the magnificent Abbey
of Beaulieu, which must have a separate chapter.
The Forests of Alice Holt, Wolmer, and Bere, on the
east side of the county, being under the same adminis-
tration as the New Forest, demand word here.
Alice Holt, Ayles Holt, -or Aisholt, was first peram-
bulated in 28 Edward I. (1300), and the record of the
perambulation is preserved in the Tower. It had been
enlarged by the four previous Kings, but was reduced by
Edward I. In 1800, nearly half of the forest and
Wolmer was in private hands. The amount held by
the Crown is given somewhat differently in the 1790
Report and in the Victoria History. Returns made to
the House of Commons in 1875 put it in round numbers
as : Alice Holt, 2,000 acres ; Wolmer, 6,000 ; Bere, 1,500.
The stiff loam of the Holt produces very good oak, but
mismanagement spoilt the timber, and in 1790 we find
more than half the trees described as " scrubbed and
unthrifty," others as "dotard and defective." Wolmer is
separated from Alice Holt by a considerable slice of
private property.
Alice Holt and Wolmer had officers like the New
THE NEW FOREST 97
Forest, who held Courts of " Swainmote " and " Attach-
ment" The office of Lieutenant or Keeper of the Forest
was usually granted on a lease of lives. He was entitled
to all " windfalls and rootfalls " in the two Forests ; to
"house-bote and fire-bote" (timber for repairs and fuel)
for himself and the Foresters and Keepers ; to " all waifs
and strays, honey and wax found there " ; pasturage for
two horses for himself and one for each Keeper ; liberty
of fishing in the King's waters; all fines levied in the
Wood Court held every six weeks; "the entrails
commonly called humbles and suets" of all deer killed
there, and "one stag and one buck in summer, and one
hind and one doe in winter for his own use " ; and to
have all these privileges " without any account to be ren-
dered to his Majesty, his heirs, or successors, for the same."
But he had to pay all salaries and wages, preserve the
deer and timber, and keep the lodge and fences in repair
at his own expense. A fee-farm rent of £31 2s. lid. was
allowed him towards this, and in 1701 the King added
£150, afterwards reduced to £130. But the Lieutenant
kept back the £20 allowed by Government as wages to
each keeper, and allowed them, in lieu, to make what
profit they could out of the Forest. He was also con-
tinually making fresh claims, e.g., to have for his own a
fifth of the value of all wood felled and sold, and the
right to sell it by auction, instead of sending it to the
dockyards; also the right to all the inclosed pasturage
— some four hundred and fifty-six acres — for his own use
and benefit. This example of rapacity was naturally
followed ; and we find that in 1789, the people of Frensham
claimed the " top and lop " of the felled trees, and boldly
carried off in waggons for their own use 6,365 faggots in
one night! What the Forest suffered may be estimated
from the fact that from a hundred to a hundred and forty
loads of " cordwood " a year were assigned as " fire-bote "
to the Great Lodge, sixteen loads to each keeper's
cottage, and eighty loads of oak timber for " house-bote."
H
98 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
All this came from the Holt, for Wolmer, with its
hungry soil, valued at three shillings an acre, produced
no oak, and the sand was in places too poor even to grow
Scotch firs, which throve in the red sand, but died in
the white. An oak in the Holt, known as " The Grind-
stone Oak," is spoken of as one of the largest trees in
England, measuring thirty-four-and-a-half feet in girth
five feet from the ground, and containing twenty-seven
loads of timber. Gilbert White speaks of the splendid
oaks in the Holt, and says that the fallow deer never
left them for Wolmer, whilst the red deer of Wolmer
never haunted the thickets of the Holt. He also
relates, on the word of a keeper whose father had
been keeper at the time, that Queen Anne, when travelling
on the Portsmouth Road, once turned aside, and taking
up a position on a bank near Wolmer Pond, watched the
whole herd of red deer driven past her in the valley.
Forty years later, this herd had dwindled to seven or eight.
Bere, or Beare, north of Portsdown, is only about
eight miles from Portsmouth, 'so that timber hauling from
the Forest to the Dockyard only cost eight and sixpence
a load. It was perambulated in 1300, and reduced
in size. There are sixteen purlieus, i.e., parcels of
land which have been disafforested, belonging to different
proprietors, and appurtenant to manors or lordships which
extend into the Forest, the King's deer having a right to
range and feed over them. But it is now disafforested,
and there are no deer. There are two Walks, " East "
and "West," and the King has a parcel of land of each.
The soil is very good for oaks, but such was the mis-
management in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
when poachers and squatters did practically what' they
pleased in the Forest and destroyed both vert and venison,
that in 1783 there were on the whole fifteen hundred
acres only two hundred and ten trees " of thirty feet and
upwards, fit for the navy," while the net profit made by
THE NEW FOREST 99
the Crown from the timber in that century was only
£45 2s. a year. The Crown had " an unlimited right of
keeping deer, and to be supplied with venison without
stint," but in 1792 there were only about two hundred
and fifty head of deer, of which none were supplied for
the use of the Royal Household. The Warden, who had
" an antient cottage called the Goat-house " in Bere, also
had a right to deer without stint. Winchester College
also had a purlieu, and the right to be supplied with
" two' bucks, one for the purlieu and one as com-
position deer." This purlieu is described in 1792 as "two
uninclosed coppices containing about eighty acres, full of
large and fine timber, and also about forty or fifty acres
in the open, with some small timber in the open
parts. The officers were similar to those in the other
Forests, with the curious additional title of "Howard"
for Keeper.
The following facts show how great was the con-
sumption of timber for ship-building in the eighteenth
century.
An East Indiaman took eight months to build, and
was held good for four voyages, or if she seemed worth
repairing, she was allowed to go six voyages, after which
she would be broken up or sold. These ships were
usually of twelve hundred tons burden, and one-and-a-half
loads of timber were reckoned to the ton. Repairing
was almost as costly as re-making. An iron vessel will
make a hundred voyages, and is of far greater tonnage.
It is interesting to compare the cost of repairing ironclads,
which we can do from a return issued by the Admiralty,
March, 1905. The Alexandra, between 1889 and 1891.
cost for repairs £90,414. The Simoon (late Monarch),
between 1892 and 1896, cost £143,000. The Tartar
cost £19,564 in 1904, and is now declared obsolete.
WlLLINGHAM FRANKLIN RAWNSLEY.
OLD PORTSMOUTH
BY THE REV. G. N. GODWIN, B.D.
iAS there ever a time when there was not an
" Old Portsmouth " ? and was there ever a
time when that same " Old Portsmouth °
was not the very merriest place in all the
world for " the jolly, jolly sailor-men, a-sweeping in from
sea"? and did not "the Portsmouth girls always get hold
of the towrope " long before the good ships touched
soundings in the Channel? In the first century, Roman
engineer officers of Claudius superintended the building
of the walls of Portchester, whence it is said that Vespasian
embarked for the dread siege of Jerusalem. But,
according to the Rev. Henry Teonge, a naval chaplain in
the days of Charles II., there was an " Old Portsmouth "
long before Vespasian was born. Thus speaks he on
September 1st, 1678: —
After diner I went with our Captaine to Port Caesar (Portchester), an
old ruinous place built by Julius Caesar ; and was his dwelling house.
The wall is very high, and built great part of it of flint. Tis 4 square, and
contayns 7 akers of ground, in one part ; and neare the wall stands an
old castle, with dry moate about it.
Another veracious scribe says that " Old Portsmouth," at
Portchester, was built by Paris, the second son of Sisel,
the founder of Silchester, and goes back to the time of
the building of Rome, in B.C. 753. After this, you may,
of course, give it any antiquity you please.
At any rate, from early days Roman war-galleys and
100
OLD PORTSMOUTH 101
traders in search of a general cargo of tin, lead, hides,
hounds, and corn, came up the harbour, and cast anchor
beneath the gray walls of Portchester, where now torpedoes
are tested in the canal. It is even said that one of these
ancient " tramps " brought in and landed below Portsdown
Hill no less a person than St. Paul himself, whence the
quay is called Paulsgrove. In the " Old Portsmouth " of
the Roman empire dwelt the Count of the Saxon Shore,
who was charged with the protection of the coast from
the -Solent to the Wash, and many a swift galley of
Carausius put out to grapple and capture the Saxon or
Frisian pirates of the Channel, causing thereby the
spending of prize-money at Portchester. But the iron
grip of Rome upon Britain at last relaxed, and in the
year 501 two stout ships came to Portsmouth, from which
sprang ashore a Saxon chief named Port, with his two
sons, Bieda and Maegla. An alarm was raised, and the
governor, " a British youth of very high rank," headed
the whole population against the invaders. As each man
came up, he rushed into the fight in headlong fashion.
But the Saxons fought with steady bravery ; the Britons
were routed, and " the victory remained with Port and
his sons. From him, the place was called Portsmouth"
(Henry of Huntingdon). From " Old Portsmouth " out
darted King Alfred's long ships, which " were both swifter
and steadier, and also higher, than the others," as many a
Dane found to his cost. In noi, Earl Robert landed at
Portsmouth " twelve nights before Lammas, and the king
marched against him with all his forces." Twenty-two
years later, Henry II. "proceeded to Portsmouth, and
stayed there over Pentecost week, and as soon as he had a
fair wind, he sailed for Normandy." In 1133, when the
king had gathered a large fleet at Portsmouth, there was a
terrible scare " when the ships were anchored on the shore,
ready for the king's voyage, the sea being very calm, and
little wind stirring, the great anchors of one of the ships
were suddenly wrenched from their hold in the ground, as
102 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
though by some violent shock, and, the ship getting under
weigh, to the surprise of numbers who tried in vain to
stop her, set in motion the ship next to her, and thus eight
ships fell foul of each other by some unknown force, so
that they all received damage." August 1st, 1140, saw
Robert of Gloucester and the Empress Maud at
Portsmouth; and in May, 1194, the old town saw the final
departure of Richard Lion Heart, who had granted it a
fifteen days' fair; as it did, in later days, that of Lord
Nelson. Archdeacons have done strange things in their
time, but an archdeacon in charge of a dockyard is a
novelty. On May 2Oth, 1213, King John, who used to
embark packs of foxhounds from this harbour, ordered
the Sheriff of Southampton with all speed " to cause our
docks at Portsmouth to be inclosed with a good strong
wall, in such a manner as our well-beloved and faithful
William, Archdeacon of Taunton (William de Wrotham),
will tell you for the preservation of our ships and galleys ;
and likewise to cause penthouses to be made to the said
walls, as the same archdeacon will also tell you, in which
all our ships' tackle may be. safely kept." Edward IV.
began the Round Towers at the mouth of the harbour.
The brief reign of Richard III. saw progress made with
them, and Henry VII. finished them, being urged thereto
by Fox, Bishop of Winchester. Bishops and archdeacons
used to play many parts.
In 1545, the French made a raid upon the Isle of
Wight, and an English fleet mustered to oppose them.
The ports of the huge Mary Rose were open, and she
heeled over and sank, drowning seven hundred men in
the sight of Henry VIII., who was standing on Southsea
Common.
All over, and the cry of mun, and the screech of mun ! Oh, sir !
up to the very heavens ! And the King he screeched right out like any
maid, "Oh, my gentlemen! Oh, my gallant men!" And as she lay on
her beam ends, Sirs, and just a-settling, the very last souls I seen was
that man's father and that man's. Iss ! Iss ! Drowned like rattens!
Drowned like rattens!
OLD PORTSMOUTH 103
And Old Martin Cockrem added, speaking of King
Hal: —
Oh, he was a King ! the face o' mun like a rising sun, and the back
o' mun ! So broad as that there, and the voice o' mun ! Oh, to hear mun
swear if he was merry, oh, 'twas royal !
Five years previously, Leland, the King's Antiquary (a
post that some of us would like to fill to-day), came to
Portsmouth, and found the harbour defended by " a mighty
chaine of yren, to draw from towre to towre " ; as was also
the "case at Plymouth, Dartmouth and elsewhere, the
ancestor of the great twentieth century booms.
About a quarter of a mile above this towne is a great dok for shippes
and yn this dok lyeth part of the rybbes of the Henry, Grace of Dieu, one
of the biggest shippes that hath been made in hominum. memoria. There be
above this dok crekes in this part of the haven . . . There is much
vacant ground within the toune walle. There is one fair streate in the toune
from west to north-east. . . . King Henry VIII., at his first warres into
Fraunce, erected in the south part of the toune three great bruing houses with
the implements, to serve his shippes at such tyme as they should go to the se
in tyme of warre . . . The toune is bare, and little occupied in tyme of
peace.
The whole navy of Edward VI, including galleys,
pinnaces, and rowboats, lay at Portsmouth when he came
to review them in 1552, with the exception of two at
Deptford Strand, and one, the Henry, Grace de Dieu, at
Woolwich. There were but fifty-three in all, manned by
7,780 seamen, marines, and gunners. On October 5th,
1623, all Portsmouth was en fete, for had not " Baby Prince
Charles " and " Dog Steenie " Buckingham returned from
their madcap expedition into Spain, " without the Infanta,"
as Carlyle says, and " there was the greatest applause of
joy for his safety throughout this kingdom that ever was
known or heard of." Charles's 'gilded leaden bust, with
a wreath of oak and laurel, was put up at the bottom of
High Street, and for many a long year no officer, soldier,
or civilian was allowed to pass it without taking off his
hat. Just five years later, there was a hue-and-cry in the
IO4 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
High Street when the Duke of Buckingham was stabbed
by John Felton, "of a gentleman's family in Suffolk
(Playford), of good carriage and reputation." The Duke
was killed at the " Spotted Dog," a house in High Street,
now known as Buckingham House. Felton was executed
at Tyburn, and gibbeted on Southsea Common. When the
Civil War broke out, Portsmouth was "the strongest and
best-fortified town in the kingdom." Colonel Goring, the
Governor, declared for the King, on August 2nd, 1642,
and so hastened the raising of the Royal Standard at
Nottingham (August 22nd). The town was promptly
besieged by Sir William Waller and Colonel Norton ;
whilst the Earl of Warwick blockaded the harbour. The
Parliamentarian guns thundered from Gosport beach, the
tower of St. Thomas's being an especial target The
plundering of Portsea Island was cruel, and there was no
heart in the defence. Desertions were frequent, and, in
spite of the efforts of the Royalists of Chichester and the
Isle of Wight, the besiegers made continual progress.1
On Saturday, September 4th, one Challender, Governor
of Southsea Castle, who had been at Portsmouth, " went
home to the Castle, and his soldiers took horse-loads of
provisions — biscuits, meal, and other necessaries — with
them. They reported he had more drink in his head than
was befitting such a time and service." An attack was
made, and Southsea Castle, which Henry VIII. had built
in 1539, surrendered to the Parliament at three o'clock
next morning, Challender merrily drinking the health of
his new friends. On September ;th, Goring surrendered
Portsmouth on easy conditions, as the Parliament were
afraid that he would blow up some 1,400 barrels of
gunpowder within the town. Before leaving, he threw the
town key into the harbour, from whence it was dredged
up nearly two centuries later, and is now in the
Portsmouth Museum. He began to raise Royalist recruits
1 For further details of this siege, see my Civil War in Hampshire
(Gilbert and Son, Southampton, new ed., 1904).
OLD PORTSMOUTH 105
in Holland, and left his garrison to effect a difficult and
hazardous march to the King's quarters in the west
Clarendon says that "this blow struck the King to the
very heart." There was a tumult at Portsmouth at the
end of July, 1648, as might have been expected, for some
three hundred seamen came ashore, protesting devotion
to King Charles, " and certain persons well affected to
His Majesty placed two hogsheads of beer in the Market
Place," whereof the seamen partook. The whole party
were- turned out by the soldiers of the garrison. In
December, 1659, Portsmouth declared for the Parliament,
and Sir Arthur Haslerig's headquarters were at the " Red
Lyon," on the site of No. 91, High Street. Charles II.
was married to Catherine of Braganza at the present
Garrison Church, on May 2 1st, 1662. Of course, Mr. Pepys
was there. He " followed in the crowde of gallants," and
duly inspected " the present they have for the Queene :
which is a saltsellar of silver, the walls christall, with four
eagles and four greyhounds standing up at the top to bear
up a dish." He " lay at Wiard's the chyrurgeon's in Ports-
mouth." On August 6th, 1668, Pepys did his best to slip
off to Portsmouth without his wife, saying nothing over-
night; but Mrs. Pepys outwitted him. "Waked betimes,
and my wife at an hour's warning is resolved to go with
me ; which pleases me, her readiness." He says that an
important letter sent by the ordinary post took sixteen
hours to reach Portsmouth, and tells a pitiful story.
" Sylvester, of Gosport, is not able to get on with the
chain he is making for the harbour-mouth from the men
being unable to come to work on account of the plague ;
the plague very bad at ye point." He makes mention of
some of the crew of the Cambridge on June I4th, 1667,
as being "the most debauched, damning, swearing rogues
that ever were in the Navy, just like their prophane
commander."
We must here quote the historian of Portsmouth, that
genial antiquary, Mr. William Saunders : —
io6 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Portsea may be said to have sprung into existence about the early part of
the 1 8th century. Anne had always paid great attention to her fleet, and made
great additions to the dockyard. Being on a visit to the Commissioner's
house in the dockyard she was instrumental (in 1707), at the suggestion of her
consort, in saving from destruction the houses in the west dock field which the
workmen had built. They named the street Prince George's Street in
compliment to Prince George of Denmark, their benefactor. Bonfire Corner
commemorates rejoicing over their success. Perhaps Queen Street was named
after Anne. " Pray can you tell me if Queen Anne is dead ? " Most of those
who use this phrase are unconscious of its origin, and our townspeople would,
as a rule, take it to apply to one Alice Melville, better known as "Queen
Anne," who for more than thirty years was notorious for her filthy habits, her
falsehoods, and her abusive tongue.
In 1702, Sir John Gibson was Governor of Portsmouth, Anne was
ruling England, and Marlborough's victories were making Britain triumphant.
The deposed James was a pensioner on the bounty of a French king, and
a bitter spirit of religious and political intolerance was rife. It was as
dangerous to be a papist as it was to be a Jacobite. Portsmouth was at this
time a garrison of great importance, great fleets coming and departing from it,
the gallant Sir George Rooke its representative in Parliament. Now there
was at this time in London a youth who was destined to rise to importance
and honour in the place of his adoption. This young man resolved to turn his
back on great cities, and to seek his fortune in the Hampshire seaport.
Travelling by coach was in those days too expensive for his limited means, the
road waggons were too slow, so with youth and a good pair of legs he started
on his journey on foot. As he wended his way through London he was
attracted by a great concourse of people, and the heralds were proclaiming
in the usual form, " The Queen is dead ; long live the King ! " At the draw-
bridge outside Portsmouth the young man was questioned by the sentinels as
to his purposes and intentions : and in proof of his having come from London,
he tells them of the death of the Queen. This at once aroused suspicion, for
they were unaware of the event, and he was marched off under escort to
Gibson, the governor of the garrison. The governor raved furiously at what
he believed to be a seditious report, for though outwardly professing attach-
ment to the reigning power, causing the bands to play loyal tunes, and sporting
the orange cockade ostentatiously, he was suspected of sympathy, not for the
House of Hanover, but for a King " t'other side of the water." The stranger
was ordered to be kept in military custody. This was scarcely done when a
mounted messenger arrived, bringing with him official confirmation of the
royal decease, and the prisoner was at once brought back and released by the
governor with profuse apologies, and the youth whose first experience of
Portsmouth was of this rough and uninviting character, rose to opulence, and
became the founder of a great and respected family. This young traveller
was Mr. Carter, afterwards Sir John Carter, and Mayor of Portsmouth.
OLD PORTSMOUTH 107
Gibson had at this time become unpopular. His hard nature, harsh
reatment of small offenders, and the cruel punishment of the picquet or
wooden horse which he was so fond of administering to the soldiers under his
command, caused him to be disliked. And though professing toleration in
religious matters, and even going so far as to identify himself with denomi-
national religionists in their deputations, he was suspected of being secretly'
their enemy. A political trimmer and unscrupulous partisan, he had at
election times placed soldiers at the town gates to prevent burgesses who
lived at common, and who were supposed to be adverse to his party, from
entering to record their votes.
An opportunity had now come for resenting these acts, and the townsfolk
would rask one another in the hearing of this Jacobitish governor, " Pray
can you tell me if Queen Anne is dead ? " The saying is common even now,
and Portsmouth people may answer the question in the affirmative, as
applying to Queen Anne, who died at St. James' Palace in 1714, or to the
" Queen Anne " who died in Portsmouth Union House in 1868.
William III. greatly strengthened Southsea Castle,
which Charles II. had surrounded with a star fort. In
1757, Admiral Byng was brought to Portsmouth, insulted
and reviled in every town and village on the road, to be
tried on board the S/. George, and to be shot on board
the Monarque on March I4th, 1757, "to encourage the
others ! " as Voltaire grimly said. Two years later some
soldiers had been filling cartridges at Southsea Castle,
and left a lot of powder lying about, which exploded next
day and did considerable mischief. The dockyard had
been growing by leaps and bounds, and George III. paid
it a visit in 1773. Twelve ladies of Portsmouth asked the
honour of rowing the King from the dockyard to a
man-of-war ; and he afterwards said that his barge had
been manned by twelve of the finest women in
Portsmouth. In 1776, the rope-house was set on fire by
a man known as " Jack the Painter," a political fanatic.
He was captured at the " Raven " Inn at Hook, near
Basingstoke, as he was getting out of a window, and was
hanged at the dockyard gates in 1777, upon the mizzen-
mast of the famous Saucy Arethusa. His skeleton, which
was gibbeted at Blockhouse Point, at the mouth of the
harbour, was afterwards pledged for drink by some
io8 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
sailors ; and one of his fingers, mounted in silver for use
as a tobacco stopper, is in the Portsmouth Museum.
Mr. W. H. Saunders tells the story in Who stole the.
Painter ?
Old Portsmouth seamen were wonderfully skilful.
When Sir Charles! Napier was in command of the Galatea, 4O-gun
frigate, he told the dockyard authorities that if they would have the necessary
masts, sails, rigging, etc., placed at the dock side, he would have the ship
fully rigged and equipped within twelve hours by his own ship's company
He commenced one morning at six o'clock, and at half-past five the same
afternoon she was ready for sea; one hour being allowed for dinner. Nor
were the dockyard workmen one whit less smart. Once, when George III. was
at Portsmouth, a frigate was coppered in twenty-four hours, to shew what the
yard could do. The modern extension of the dockyard has banished the
famous ghost of the " White Rabbit," but they can still do smart things.
It is said that a policeman lately transfixed twelve rats at once whilst
practising with a bow and arrow. But those policemen will say anything !
On Saturday, August I4th, 1782, David Tyrie, a clerk in the Navy Office,
was hanged, drawn, and quartered on Southsea Common for trying to sell
naval secrets to France. A free fight took place for portions of his body :
" the blood spouting over the spectators ; the miscreants cutting oft his fingers
for tobacco-stoppers, and leaving the unburied remains exposed to the seafowl
on the beach. His head was kept as a show for many years by * Buck
Adams,' the keeper of Gosport Bridewell, who publicly claimed it, placed
it in a bag, and carried it home under his arm." Five days later the Royal
George, a ship of 108 guns, whose poop lanterns were so large that the men
used to get inside them to clean them, sank at her anchors at Spithead,
whereby 650 seamen, 250 women, many officers, and Admiral Kempenfelt
were drowned.
Luke Kent, who opened a Sadler's Wells at the " White
Swan" Hotel, afterwards became the first guard ever
appointed to a mail coach. He was buried at Farlington,
and left an annual, bequest to his successors in office, on
the Chichester coach, on condition that they should always
sound their horns as they passed his grave. " On July
30th, 1780, Mr. Bryan, executed for murder at Winchester,
was brought in the afternoon of the same day, and hung
in chains on Blockhouse Beach, near 'Jack the Painter/
in a new suit of black, new shoes, and ruffles."
On May Day, 1797, all Portsmouth was shaken as
OLD PORTSMOUTH* 109
if by an earthquake, when the Boyne blew up at Spithead
after sending shot from her loaded guns in all directions
amongst the ships, and even as far as Stokes Bay. What
mighty fleets have brought up at Spithead! Anson came
back from his voyage round the world, and Peter the
Great said truly that an English Admiral at .Spithead was
happier than the Czar of Russia. Sir Edward Pellew
brought in the Cleopatra, the first French prize captured
in the " old war time " ; and next year Lord Howe
anchored at Spithead with his prizes after " the glorious
1st of June." Three years later, the very existence of
the navy was imperilled by the great Spithead Mutiny.
From this anchorage the Bounty and Captain Bligh sailed
on their tragic voyage. Hawke, Keppel, Boscawen,
Rodney, Howe, St. Vincent, and all the empire-makers
of a hundred years agone, knew every foot of the
anchorage; and Nelson, mightiest of them all, came
hither many a time and oft, leaving Spithead for
Trafalgar amid mingled cheers and sobs, and being
brought back dead on board the stout old Victory. In
the good old times, as hostile frigates or battleships hove
in sight, it was a common saying, " How nice they'll look
at Spithead ! " The Allied Sovereigns held a grand review
at Spithead on June 25th, 1814, and the Czar said that
the men's grog was "very good." Many a grand sight
has been seen in these waters of late years ; but we must
not go beyond " Old Portsmouth."
In 1784, "a blackguard horse" ran away with Nelson
on Southsea Common and nearly killed him, in which
case there might have been no Battle of the Nile or
Trafalgar. On September I4th, 1805, embarked from
Southsea beach for the last time "that one-eyed,
one-armed, pale, shrunken invalid officer," as Mr. Saunders
styles him. " I wish that I had two hands," said he, " and
then I could accommodate more of you." "And so he
passes away from us, never to return; but the memory
of Nelson and of Trafalgar will never be forgotten while
no MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
the crisp blue sea lashes the shores of old England."
Upon the Southsea Esplanade formerly stood one of the
line of ten semaphores which connected London and
Portsmouth. They were erected in 1795, and cost three
thousand pounds per annum to maintain. This Southsea
Common semaphore was generally at work from ten in
the morning till sunset in fine weather. " Fog between
the stations" was the obstacle most to be dreaded. The
next station was on Portsdown Hill, and the seventy-four
miles to London were often traversed in three and a half
minutes. The last semaphore message sped from hill to
hill on December 3ist, 1847. The Portsea Volunteers
often paraded on Southsea Common. "They wore a
round black hat, surmounted by a band of bear fur. On
the top of the hat was a white plume, but, lest they should
be charged, even in jest, with showing the white feather,
the top of the plume was dyed a brilliant red. They wore
a black cockade and a black stock. After they had
frizzed and powdered their hair to their liking, they
manufactured it into a tail, and tied it up with a black
ribbon behind. Their scarlet coats were miracles of
tailoring. But the Portsea National Guard were not
content to be merely scarlet runners — they added a gold
wing to the body of the coat, adorned the top with a
blue collar, and put a white fringe round the skirts, which
had gold rosettes; a white waistcoat, frilled shirt, blue
pantaloons, edged with scarlet cord, and short black gaiters,
completed their outfit. The plumage of the Portsmouth
Volunteers was so unspeakably magnificent as to obtain
for them the name of the " Golden Goldfinches."
At the corner of the Governor's Green stands the Royal
Garrison Church, dedicated to St. Nicholas and John the
Baptist — all that is left of the " God's House " founded
by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, in the
thirteenth century. It has had an eventful history. In
1449, Bishop Adam de Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, a
great statesman, was seized by certain soldiers and seamen,
OLD PORTSMOUTH in
and after a dispute about " the abrygging of their wages,
they fil on him and cruelli there kilde him." For a long
time it was a store for arms! Here, as I said, Charles II.
was married to Catherine of Braganza, May 2ist, 1662.
" They caused the ribbons Her Majesty wore to be cut
into little pieces, and, as far as they would go, everyone
had some." After long decay, the ancient Domus Dei
was well and worthily restored in 1866, with numerous
memorial windows and monuments, and stalls of carved
oak, recalling the memory of many a gallant soldier.
Archdeacon Wright, whose Story of the Domus Dei of
Portsmouth should be read by everyone, says : —
There is another and a very strong reason why the now Garrison Church of
Portsmouth should be dear to the hearts of all Englishmen. It contains and
overshadows the dust of England's gallant soldiers and sailors, the great
Napier, the leader of a thousand battles, the conqueror of Scinde, lying close
to the western door. It is, in good truth, a national monument, dedicated to
the memory of the brave sons of a brave land of heroes, who under God
have fought and conquered in all quarters, and among all nations.
The Governor's Green has witnessed many an
inspection of troops who have done yeoman service for
England, and Penny Street was the way by which Nelson
left Portsmouth to embark for Trafalgar. Many stories
could be told of the old Saluting Battery, and the
neighbouring Hotwalls are eloquent of a hateful time,
which God grant we may never see again, for they are
so called because, in 1797, shot were heated there to fire
upon the fleet then in open mutiny, not without reason,
at Spithead. The York and Pier Hotel at the corner of
the Grand Parade was in old days the Naval Captains'
House, and England's best and bravest foregathered there
full oft.
Of the bust of Charles I. at the foot of the High Street,
cast by Hubert Le Sueur, the maker of the well-known
equestrian statue of the same hapless monarch at Charing
Cross, we have already spoken. The square tower
against which it stands was full of powder in 1642, and
ii2 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Lord Goring threatened to blow it up and ruin Portsmouth
unless good terms of surrender were granted him. Of the
embarkings from the " Sallyport " we could say much.
Here it was that John Duncan, one of the ringleaders
of the terrible Hermione mutiny, was arrested, to be
shortly afterwards hanged on board the Puissant, on
July loth, 1800. King James's Gate, with its associations
with " Johnny Gibson," stood hard by, and now forms
the entrance to the Officers' Recreation Ground. The
sign of the " Circe and Arethusa " recalls two dashing
frigates, both of which made history ; and the " Old Blue
Posts," burnt down about forty years ago, was well-known
to " Peter Simple." Bath Square is picturesque, and has
recovered from the explosion in 1809, when a soldier's
wife knocked the ashes out of her short " dudheen " on
a barrel of powder, and considerably damaged everything
hereabouts except herself. The " Star and Garter " has
memories of Howe, St. Vincent, Sir John Franklin, and the
Duke of Clarence. Louis Philippe, Dickens, and Thackeray
are all familiar ghosts. In Frank Mildmay we read :
" Captain G did not live at the ' George,' nor did
he mess at the ' Crown ' ; he was not at the ' Fountain,'
nor at the Parade Coffee House; and the 'Blue Posts'
ignored him ; but he was to be heard of at the ' Star and
Garter' on the tip of Portsmouth Point." We must read
such books as Jack Ashore and Ben Brace to know what
the old "Point" days were like, with "fiddles and a
dance at the ' Ship,' with oceans of flip and grog, and
give the blind fiddler tobacco for sweetmeats, and
half-a-crown for treading on his toe! '£5 145. od.' for
a day and a night at a ' public ' does not err on the side
of moderation." When sailors' wedding parties returned
from church they used to " swab decks " by washing' down
the tables with quarts of ale, which they swabbed
backwards as fast as the landlord could throw them. Who
knows not the old song ? : —
I've a spanking wife at Portsmouth gates, a pigmy at Goree ;
An Orange Tawny in the Straits, and a Black at St. Lucie.
OLD PORTSMOUTH 113
Every bar had straw laid down, which was carefully sifted
every morning, as seamen usually pulled out handfuls of
gold and notes, dropping some in the process. A " Point "
landlady who wanted to show " marriage lines " insisted .
that one or other of three middies who could not pay
their score should marry her. The poor boys "tossed"
for the honour, and got on board as soon as they could.
Studying a newspaper at Jamaica, the bridegroom
exclajmed, " Thank God, my wife's hanged ! " But the
glories of the " Point " now only shine in " the light of
other days."
Let us walk up High Street. What a crowd of ghosts
is all around us! William the Conqueror, Robert of
Normandy, the Empress Maud, Richard the Lion Heart,
John Lackland, Henry II, John of Gaunt, Margaret
of Anjou, and Catherine of Braganza are all here ; as
are also those two gossiping antiquaries, Leland and
Sam Pepys. Goring, the Earl of Warwick, and Prince
Charles are not far away ; and we may note Charles Kean,
tyrannical "Johnny Gibson," and cursing Judge Jeffreys.
Prince George of Denmark made the old street re-echo
to the sound of his five bells, given to St. Thomas's Church
from Dover Castle, at the request of brave old Sir George
Rooke. Admirals Byng and Kempenfelt, Charles Dickens,
all the great admirals, Wellington, Blucher, the Allied
Sovereigns — everyone has known this Portsmouth High
Street. Here, from 1 191 down till 1846, " Free Mart Fair"
was held for fifteen days every year, and whilst the
glove which legalized the fair remained upon its pole, no
one could be arrested within its area. This custom still
survives at Totnes. Of the York and Pier Hotel,
Mr. Saunders says : —
The Parade Coffee House at the Corner of the Parade was the Naval
Captains' House, and in the olden time when Captains wore red breeches,
three-cornered hats, buckles, and pig-tails, it was not uncommon to see
Captains of the Royal Navy sitting outside this house on forms, smoking long
pipes. " The Early Club " was held here. The man who arrived first after
four a.m. used to boil the kettle, after which coffee and politics were discussed.
I
ii4 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
The noble Soldiers' Institute was the well-known
" Fountain " Hotel. The Museum should be seen by
all lovers of " Old Portsmouth." Opposite to it stood the
" Three Tuns," where the delegates of the Spithead
mutineers kept Lord Howe (" Black Dick ") waiting upon
the stairs whilst they deliberated. Portsmouth Church
(dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury) is full of
interest. It was built about 1 180, having been appropriated
to Southwick Priory in 1 1 10. The monument to the Duke
of Buckingham is said to contain his heart ; the register of
the marriage of Charles II. is here, and colours of those
gorgeous beings, the old Portsmouth Volunteers. Prince
George of Denmark gave the gilt ship weathercock and
five bells in 1703 ; and the organ is by Father Schmidt or
one of his pupils. In the churchyard there is a stone in
memory of Samuel Langtrey and Charity Jolliffe, who
were murdered on March ist, 1829. The old " Crown "
is gone, but the " George " still flourishes. In No. 1 5
Nelson lodged the night before he sailed for Trafalgar,
and the tobacco in the smoke-room made the Duke of
Wellington beat a hurried retreat. Peter Simple's captain,
we read, lodged here ; and Lord Howe's secretary here
left all his friends "under the table."
In Highbury Street lived John Pounds, the founder of
ragged schools, who died January ist, 1839, and is buried
in the Unitarian Chapel, High Street. Sir Frederick
Madden, the antiquary, Sir Walter Besant, Charles
Dickens, George Cole, Vicat Cole, Isambard Brunei, and
Sir Conan Doyle are a brilliant Portsmouth galaxy.
Mr. Vincent Crummies, we may remember, lodged in
St Thomas Street. The Cambridge Barracks stand on
the site of the old Portsmouth theatre, of which Kemble
was manager, and where Nicholas Nickleby and Smike
trod the boards. Garrick and the elder Kean knew it
well ; and it may be noted that Catherington, on the other
side of Portsdown Hill, has memories of the Keans,
Edmund Kean's wife resting in the churchyard. Kemble
OLD PORTSMOUTH 115
and his company once played Richard III. in this theatre
to an audience of one — a sailor, who said that he had
not seen a play for a long time, and would not visit a
theatre for some time to come. He paid five guineas, on
condition that no one else should be present Mr. Folair
was probably one Billy Floyer. Portsmouth servant-girls
used to bargain for holidays when Folair held the stage.
The ancient Landport Gate gives access to the Recreation
Ground that occupies the site of the old mill and the
dam, which, ebbing with the tide, worked the King's mill,
but was filled up in 1876. Oh! the charm of the old
ramparts, where big guns peered at you everywhere, with
their delightful walnut-trees! Are they not written of in
By Celids Arbour? Colewort Barracks tell of the
colewort or cabbage garden of a small alien Franciscan
friary; and Warblington Street, formerly known as the
Hog Market, is said to have been built with the stones of
Warblington Castle near Havant.
Much might be said about the Gun Wharf. " The old
Gun Wharf was begun in 1662. The contractor was
William Shakespeare, and the ' Shakespeare's Head/ in
Bishop Street, was so called, not from the poet, but from
the workmen being paid there." The new Gun Wharf,
divided from the old by a small creek, and the Armoury
date from 1797, and the Great Storehouse from 1811. A
gun from the Mary Rose, sunk at Spithead in 1545 ; one
from the Edgar, blown up at Spithead in 1711; another
from the Royal George, sunk at Spithead in 1782 ; and
yet another from the oft-sought-for treasure-frigate, Lutine,
off the Dutch coast, are to be seen. Thousands of
magazine rifles, " with ancient mail and plate armour ; the
armed buff leather coat ; the helmet and gauntlet of the
cavalier ; muskets with fixed bayonets ranged in rows ;
pikes and halberds grouped into iron pillars. Pistols form
elaborate cornices ; and swords, cutlasses, boarding pikes,
and small arms gleam in various fantastic devices." The
Gun Wharf should not be missed.
n6 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Hard by is St. George's Church, built in 1754, the
" St. Faith's " of By Celia's Arbour. The old Captain of
the story was a good old Captain White, who lived in
St. George's Square, and was very kind to lads. Within
living memory there were but few houses between
St. George's Square and Kingston Church. The retiring
congregation could be seen from the Square, and family
dinners were then promptly dished up. " Portsea streets
are most of them very narrow and quaint, named after
great admirals and sea battles, with old-world, red-tiled
roofs, and interiors almost like the cabins of ships, with
the far-off scent of the sea coming from the harbour, and
every now and then the boom of a cannon or the shriek
of a siren."
At No. 387, Commercial Road, Landport, Charles
Dickens was born. His old home is now made a Dickens
Museum, belonging to the Corporation. At Landport,
then known as " Half-way Houses," just complaint was
made in 1 704 " that the anointing of ratts, and putting
fire to them, is of dangerous consequence, especially in
this Towne, where there are Magazeens of Powder, and
tends to setting the dwelling-houses of the inhabitants on
fire."
For seven hundred years a church has stood on the
site of the great modern church of St. Mary, Kingston.
Its predecessor, in the font of which Charles Dickens was
baptized, was a mean building, but in the churchyard are
monuments to the crews of the Royal George and Hero,
and to one who sailed round the world with Anson.
Brief indeed must be our reference to Gosport, which
is said to mean " God's Port," and to have been so named
by Bishop Henry of Blois, when his brother, King Stephen,
landed there after heavy weather in 1144. On the beach
are remains of " Charles Fort," a relic of the siege of 1642.
In 1645, we hear of " Gosport, a village near Portsmouth,
where were two inns, and some other pretty convenient
houses for a little village town." In the High Street the
OLD PORTSMOUTH 117
" India Arms " reminds us of the days when the West
Indiamen used to lie at the Mother Bank, off Ryde.
Haslar Hospital, begun in 1746, the Clarence Victualling
Yard, and " Gillkicker," all clamour for notice ; but in a
place like Portsmouth we must be hard-hearted. We
will say nothing about the "hulks," which held by turns
Royalists, clergy, and convicts ; we will say no more of
the Victory; the French prisoners shall be left in
oblivion.
Back once more to the " Common Hard," which means
" the landing-place on the Common." It has been styled
a " kind of inland quarter-deck." Hither was brought the
body of General Wolfe ; here were washed ashore the
victims of the Royal George. It is quiet enough now, but
stories of the good old times still linger around the Common
Hard. " The shops here have each and all of them a strong
flavour of salt sea and service, and many a curiosity is
exhibited in their windows. Looking across the harbour,
you see the roofs and chimneys of Gosport, softened in
a mellowing haze. . . . The romance of the past is
symbolised by the stately hulk of the grand old Victory.
The f Keppel's Head/ alias the ' Nut/ recalls a famous
admiral and a great court-martial. The ' Ship Anson/ the
' Bedford-in-Chase/ and the ' Row-barge/ all tell heroic
stories ; whilst the ' Sheer Hulk ' speaks of Charles Dibdin
and of his brother, the original ' Tom Bowling/ Long
may the Common Hard retain its pleasant nautical,
old-world flavour."
Not a tithe has been told; but from no better place
than the Hard can we reluctantly bid farewell to the
fascinating theme of " Old Portsmouth."
G. N. GODWIN.
THE CHURCHES OF HAMPSHIRE
BY THE EDITOR
AMPSHIRE, as regards the comparative rank of
its church architecture, differs from all other
counties. Those who, like many tourists, have
seen none but the four great churches — the
venerable Cathedral, which stands unquestionably in the
front rank of English minsters ; the beautiful Norman
work of Romsey and St. Cross ; and Christchurch Priory,
which combines some of the best work of four centuries
— might naturally imagine it to be one of the richest in
its churches. But the gap below these is much wider than
usual. There is hardly a single parish church, in town
or village, which would call for much attention as to its
architecture in Lincolnshire, or Norfolk, or Northampton-
shire. Of course, there are many charming and valuable
churches dotted about, and still more that are found to
be of considerable interest when examined. But it is
difficult to name any that stand out as even approaching
the second rank of parish churches for size or stateliness.
Basing, East Meon,. and Kingsclere are, perhaps, the best
the county can show in this line.
One marked reason for this is the almost total absence
of conspicuous towers or spires, without which it is
extremely difficult for any church to present the appearance
of a thought-out whole. The parish churches seem as if
they had been afraid to break the example of humility
set them by their overpowering Cathedral. A wooden
iiS
THE CHURCHES OF HAMPSHIRE 119
belfry, or a squat broach-spire, or a wooden fleche is the
common feature, and true spires of any considerable height
do not exist. The tallest is St. Michael's, at Southampton,
which, as if it were not already ill-proportioned enough
to its tower when built in the eighteenth century, was
even further heightened in the nineteenth.
In this volume it has been thought advisable, owing
to the multitude of subjects connected with the county
calling for room, to omit any detailed notice of the
Cathedral, as being fully treated of already in many
works. Romsey, St. Cross, and Christchurch will receive
special notice in following papers. These four, there-
fore, I shall merely instance so far as they are necessary
to illustrate the degree in which the successive
stages of English church architecture affected the county
as a whole. Hampshire, it must be admitted, is sadly
wanting in the older county histories that have amassed
such a store of learning about many counties of far inferior
rank. Certain places, such as Southampton, Portsmouth,
Basingstoke, and St. Mary Bourne, besides the Cathedral
city, have had pretty full separate treatment. Every
church, also, will be fully described in the Victoria County
History, but at present only those in the Alton Hundred,
which is far from the most important, have appeared An
excellent series of popular descriptions of churches — but in
the whole diocese, not Hampshire only — has been
appearing monthly for the last three years or more in the
Winchester Diocesan Chronicle.
It is very difficult in most cases to prove the existence
of any large part of a still surviving church before the
Norman Conquest. Moreover, it is certain that the style
often called " Saxon," that is, the more primitive form of
Romanesque, lingered in country places for a considerable
time after the Norman invasion, and continued to be
employed with an increasing admixture of Norman
features, in buildings erected by native workmen.
120 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
The best-known of these early churches in the county
is Corhampton, in the Meon Valley.1 It has a Saxon
nave and chancel, and shows the characteristic stone ribs
on both in excellent preservation, besides the ordinary
" long and short " work in the quoins. It is also noted
for its ancient stone chair, possibly a frith stool or seat
of sanctuary, like that of Hexham. But even more
important to a student is Breamore, which shows a Saxon
church, of more than average size, and with a central
tower, still practically complete. Its extremely interesting
inscription will be mentioned directly. Boarhunt Church,
under Portsdown Hill, though a little later, much resembles
Corhampton, but it was largely re-built in later Norman
times. It preserves, however, its old external pilaster strips
and probably the old chancel arch. This nave seems once
to have had a western division or narthex. Similar early
work is to be found in portions of Hambledon, Headbourne
Worthy, Hinton Ampner, Little Somborne, Tichborne, and
Warblington. There are a keyhole light and a very early
arch in Eling Church which seem to be Saxon, and the
chancel arch of Brockenhurst may belong to the church
which is named in Domesday. Hambledon is a very
interesting example of the way in which early churches
were gradually enlarged. The very small Saxon tower of
Warblington, with doorways in three places, is exceedingly
curious, and well worth attention.
Headbourne Worthy — a pleasant walk of only two
miles from Winchester — is also well known for its
extremely interesting and very early " rood " (rather, a
painted relief of the Crucifixion, for it is not a rood in the
proper sense) on the original west wall, above a Saxon
doorway, and enclosed by a later annexe built to protect
it. There is a somewhat similar, but apparently rather
later one, on the south wall of Breamore Church. This
has been protected by adding an upper story to the porch.
i The photograph is by the Rev. G. Sampson, of Sheet.
THE CHURCHES OF HAMPSHIRE 121
Another early rood is that at Romsey, described in
Mr. Yarborough's paper. There is also a small stone
crucifixion, apparently of early date, built high into the
west face of the tower of New Alresford Church.
Saxon sun-dials exist at Corhampton, Warnford, and
St. Michael's, Winchester, but as Warnford was re-built
about 1200, and St. Michael's in 1822, only the first can be
in situ, and this is doubtful. One of the most interesting
remains of this period was found at Breamore Church,
already "noted for its rood, in 1 897. It is over the only
one — the southern — of the four central tower-arches still
remaining, and reads (in archaic characters) : " Her
swutelath seo gecwydrcednes the " (" Here the covenant
becomes manifest to thee "). From a fragment still
existing, it would seem that the inscription was carried
round the tower. It is assigned from the lettering to
the middle of the eleventh century.
Another probable and very interesting relic of the
period is a disused font in South Hayling Church. This
was dredged up on the neighbouring coast, and probably
belonged to the earlier church on the site ; it has a ring
of interlaced knot-work.
The headstone of Frithburga at Whitchurch was
found in the wall of the north aisle in 1868, and then
used for a ringer to stand on ! It has a figure of the Lord
with a cruciform nimbus, and the inscription : " Hie corpus
Frithburgae requiescit in pace sepultum" It is evident
that the carver was ignorant of Latin verse, since hie is
redundant, and in must be read by accent, but the
hexameter is unmistakable ; so I think that Mr. Romilly
Allen is hardly justified in doubting whether pacem should
be read for pace, nor is there any need to suggest
requiescat for requiescit.1 It is a statement, not a prayer,
just as it is in the common hie jacet. This stone has,
with some probability, been supposed to be that of a nun
1 Victoria County History, ii., p. 237.
122 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
from the neighbouring abbey of Wherwell, which was
founded in 986 ; but Mr. Minns would assign it to an
earlier date.1
With the Norman Conquest there came a flood of the
new architecture into the county, including before the
period ended some of the very finest examples in England
Everyone who knows anything of architecture knows at
least the pre-Norman work of the stern and profoundly
impressive transepts of the Cathedral, the immense arches
of its central tower, and perhaps the dark and massive
crypts. Some twenty years later, and next in importance,
is the nave of Christchurch, attributed to Bishop Flambard
of Durham, the rapacious minister of William Rufus, and
the exquisite turret of the north transept
From Winchester the Norman style of building soon
spread over the whole county, so that quite a large propor-
tion of the churches have at least a Norman doorway or
perhaps a chancel-arch remaining. The most complete
Norman church is that of Portchester, originally the
church of an Augustinian priory, which, though not begun
till 1133, can scarcely be classed as Transitional work. It
has a striking west front, with a very rich and characteristic
doorway. Winchfield Church is also of considerable
interest, especially for the peculiar cusping of its chancel-
arch. Chilcombe Church is of a very early and
primitive type, though its date is known to be that of
Walkelin. The central part of the fine church of East
Meon is also attributed to Bishop Walkelin, the great
cathedral builder. Other churches with more or less
important Norman remains (these lists are not exhaustive)
are Ashley, Bishop's Sutton, Brockenhurst, Compton (very
attractive), Droxford, Fawley, Hamble, Hartley Mauditt
(notable chancel-arch), Hinton Ampner, Monk's Sher-
borne, Mottisfont, Nately Scures, Newnham, Tichborne,
1 Hants. Field Club Papers, iv., p. 171.
NORMAN TOWER, CHRISTCHURCH PRIORY
THE CHURCHES OF HAMPSHIRE 123
Titchfield, Warnford (tower), and Wootton St. Lawrence.
A Norman doorway of the old church at Andover still
forms an entrance to the churchyard. The very curious
bisected chancel-arch at Upper Clatford is now found to
be an invention of the last century, made by using a pier
and two arches from the destroyed arcade. The tower of
St. Michael's, Southampton, curiously left standing amid
Perpendicular work, is well worth notice.
The glorious abbey church of Romsey, which is of
exceptional interest to an architectural student, combines
the varieties of Norman, the choir, transepts, and tower
being of the purest style, while the nave is of Transitional
work, passing gradually into Early English. The
interesting church of Kingsclere is also of both periods.
The beautiful church of St. Cross, on the other hand, is
almost wholly of Transitional date, having been built
by Bishop Henry of Blois.1 The chancel arch of Peters-
field with three tall slender openings above it is
remarkable, and from a springer on the south side
discovered in the wall it looks as if a central tower
had been projected. There are several important
remains of later Norman work about the county, as for
example in the churches of Alton, Ashley, Binsted,
Crondall (nave), Easton, Goodworth Clatford, Hambledon,
Milford, Mottisfont, Warnford; and St. Bartholomew,
St. Peter, and St. John at Winchester. The chapel of
God's House at Southampton, one of the earliest hospitals
in England, is of this date.
A feature more specially characteristic, however, of the
county is to be found in the remarkable series of black
fonts. There are four of these — in the Cathedral, and at
St. Mary Bourne, East Meon, and St. -Michael's, Southamp-
ton, while there are only three others in all England — at
Lincoln Minster, Thornton Curtis, Lincolnshire, and
St. Peter's, Ipswich. There are also a few instances
1 See for his work the Introductory Sketch, p. 14, and Mr. Nisbett's
papers on " Wolvesey " and " St. Cross."
124 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
in churches in Belgium and France, and one from a French
church is in the Musee Cluny at Paris. From the extreme
rudeness of the carving of figures, due not so much to the
date as to the intractable hardness of the material, they
used formerly to be supposed to be very early, and all the
old guide-books call them " Saxon." The first real inquiry
into them was made by Dean Kitchin,1 who established
the facts that the peculiar black limestone of which they are
made is Belgian, from quarries in the neighbourhood of
Tournai, on the banks of the Scheldt, and that the legends
of St. Nicholas did not become current till the middle of
the twelfth century. These fonts, therefore, belong to the
episcopate either of Henry of Blois (1129-1171) or Richard
Toclive (1174-1188). The one in the Cathedral is
the most interesting, from its quaint representations
of the Nicholas legends — saving a nobleman's only son
from drowning, portioning a poor noble's three daughters,
and reviving three murdered boys out of an innkeeper's
sausage tub. It is from this last story that St. Nicholas,
under the curious corruption of " Santa Claus," has become
the patron saint of children. The font at East Meon has
scenes from the beginning of Genesis — the Creation, the
Fall, and the Expulsion from Paradise. St. Mary Bourne
font, the largest of the series, has only clusters of grapes
and two doves drinking. The one in St. Michael's has
three of the Evangelistic symbols and some fearsome
griffins. There are also black fonts at Meon Stoke
(painted over), Leckford, Stockbridge, and Warnford. A
fine late Norman font of a different kind is at Portchester,
but only the upper. part is ancient.
Apart from the Belgian series, Hampshire would be
very undistinguished in fonts. In Van Voorst's volume
not a single illustration is drawn from this county, though
the black fonts should have been represented. While on
of British Archaeological Association, I. i. The Hampshire
ones are fully described and illustrated by Mr. Romilly Allen in Victoria
County History, vol. ii.
THE CHURCHES OF HAMPSHIRE 125
the subject, I had better mention the few other fonts that
seem to require special notice. The Transitional one at
King's Somborne has triangular shafts round the stem.
At Barton Stacey, Littleton, and Sherborne St. John
there are Transitional or Early English fonts of Purbeck,
with plain arcading. At Odiham, the late Decorated font
has a projection, with holes in it, for letting the
water after Baptism by affusion fall through. Of this there
is only one other in England — at Youlgreave, in Derby-
shire.1
The Early English style also greatly affected the
county. The whole of the eastern portion of the Cathedral,
except the east bay and the vaulting of the Lady Chapel,
is by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy (1189-1204), and is con-
sequently a very early as well as a very fine example.
St Cross, though a good deal of it really falls within the
recognised Early English period, is rather valuable as
showing the transition from Norman. The same is true
also of Romsey, but the latter is almost equally valuable as
showing the transition from Early English (First Pointed)
to Early Decorated (Middle Pointed) in its eastern
terminations. But Christchurch has one of the most
beautiful specimens of pure Early English work to be
found in all England in its grand north porch, one of
the largest existing, and almost inviting comparison with
even the famous Galilee of Lincoln.
In the early thirteenth century there seems to have
been such extensive building or re-building of churches
all over the county, that there are comparatively few old
ones which have not some considerable remains of Early
English work, especially in the arcades. Early English
windows were often enlarged or rebuilt in the later styles,
but the arcades did not so easily invite a change. Barton
Stacey and East Meon are good specimens of cruciform
l Hants. Field Club Papers, i. iv. 84, by the Rev. G. W. Minns, F.S.A.
126 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
churches mainly in this style, and the way in which in the
former four arches are made to spring from the pier of the
chancel arch is unusual and singularly light Ringwood
Church has been almost rebuilt from a very dilapidated
state, but the tower, transepts, and chancel still externally
preserve much of their original appearance. The eastern
portion of Portsmouth parish church is of considerable
interest, among other things, as having been dedicated
about 1 1 80 to the Martyr of Canterbury by Bishop Toclive,
who had been one of Becket's strongest opponents in his
lifetime, and thus testified his repentance. The church
now used for the garrison at Portsmouth is a beautiful
Early English building, once the hall and chapel of the
Hospital of St. Nicholas. It has suffered much in interest
by a drastic restoration under Street, but it must be borne
in mind that this had been made necessary by the grossest
ill-treatment before. Cheriton, a village with other
claims to notice from its rather important conflict in the
Civil War,1 has a fine large Early English chancel. The
church at Beaulieu, which was the refectory of the abbey,
is really a noble hall, belonging to the very latest part
of this period, and is well known for its exquisite stone
pulpit in the wall.2
The churches with Early English portions are too
frequent for enumeration, but, besides those named, the
eastern portion of the Cathedral, and parts of Ellingham,
Fareham (the old chancel, now made a side chapel),
Grateley, Hambledon, Havant, and South Hayling, may
be mentioned.
The later Pointed periods — the so-called Decorated
and Perpendicular — had far less effect on the Cathedral
(with one reservation as to this) and the parish churches.
The four great churches, indeed, have but little that is
structural of the Decorated period, except the presbytery
1 See p. 15. 2 See the Beaulieu Abbey for illustration.
THE CHURCHES OF HAMPSHIRE 127
of the Cathedral and the windows of the south aisle of
Christchurch ; while in parish churches the style is quite
rare. Almost all that seem to call for mention are
Thruxton (early in the style), Meon Stoke (chancel),
Fordingbridge, Amport St. Mary (late), the aisleless nave
of Wickham, the south chantry chapel of Titchfield, and
the beautiful Flowing Decorated windows of Penton
Mewsey. But the superb choir stalls of the Cathedral,
dating from about 1300, are a grand memorial of what
is in some other counties the most perfect period of
English architecture.
The singular absence of important Perpendicular work
is even more surprising to visitors fresh from the archi-
tecture of either the eastern or the south-western counties.
Of course there are but few churches that have not had
a window or two inserted or rebuilt, when the desire sprang
up for more light and more stained-glass memorials. But
there are few Perpendicular churches, and, as I have
already said, hardly any of the characteristic towers and
spires. The western tower of Christchurch Priory would
have been a very good one at the west end, say, of
Basingstoke church, and, indeed, it looks well even here as
seen from the south-west, when much of the church is
hidden in trees ; but for that grand building, seen at its full
length, it is hopelessly inadequate. It would have been
not unsuitable, indeed, had there been a massive central
one, as there was at its smaller neighbour, Wimborne
Minster.
Perhaps the most interesting tower in the county is
the very late flint one (about 1525) at Soberton, on the
Meon, which is said to have been built by a legacy from
a butler and a housekeeper of the Anson family. Barton
Stacey and Micheldever have fairly good west towers. The
wooden belfries, however, that often take the place of
towers are far from uninteresting, and show a good deal
of variety in shape. Sometimes, as at Hartley Wespall
128 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
and Mattingley — a chapel which belonged to Merton
Priory — the whole shell of the church itself was of wood.
The Cathedral, however, as is well-known, can show
one of the finest memorials of the Perpendicular period in
existence; its magnificent nave, transformed — not rebuilt
— by the great William of Wykeham. The immense
superiority of this nave to that of Canterbury, which was
being rebuilt at the very same time by Prior Chillenden,
is better testimony than even his two Colleges to Wyke-
ham's surpassing genius. The commonplace west front
and the western part of the nave (marked by the deep-
splayed windows) had already been rebuilt by Wykeham's
predecessor, Bishop Edyngdon, and it is fortunate that
death removed him before he proceeded further. The
rood-screen, choir, and Lady Chapel of Christchurch are
noble works of the date ; and the grand reredos screens
at Christchurch and in the Cathedral belong respectively
to the beginning and the end of this period.
The fifteenth century parish churches are of little
importance as a whole. Basingstoke has what would be
a good town church, if it could only borrow a tower from
Suffolk or Somerset. The outer shell of Basing Church,
hard by, is spacious and warm-looking with its red tiles ;
and the picturesque ruin of the very late Holy Ghost
Chapel, just above the north-west platform of the station,
catches the eye of even hurried travellers. The churches
later than this are hardly worth mention, but the cruciform
red-brick one at Wolverton, near Basingstoke, may be
mentioned as attributed to Wren himself.
We may pass on now to notice more briefly the
furniture, etc., of the churches, though this has already
been partly touched upon. Here, again, Hampshire can
claim but little distinction. There are no stone screens,
as in Devon and Somerset ; hardly any fine woodwork,
as in Norfolk and Suffolk ; little stained glass, as at York.
The wall-paintings, which are of some interest, will
REREDOS SCREEN, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL.
THE CHURCHES OF HAMPSHIRE 129
•
be described further on by our greatest expert,
Mr. Keyser.
The churches that are richest in monuments — apart,
of course, from the magnificent chantry chapels of the
Cathedral and Christchurch Priory — are Basing, Stoke
Charity, Titchfield, and Thruxton. Basing has the tombs
of the Paulets, including the first two Marquises of
Winchester, but not the famous Marquis of the siege,
who is buried at Englefield, in Berkshire, and tablets
(uninteresting) to the six Dukes of Bolton. It is seldom
that a village church serves as the resting-place of two
great houses. Those at Titchfield — a church exhibiting
almost every style of architecture — are much finer, and
the great tomb of the second Earl of Southampton and
his father and mother (1581) is one of the finest in the
kingdom. The little church of Stoke Charity, near Sutton
Scotney Station, is almost filled with monuments, including
the fine tomb of Thomas Hampton (1483), John Waller
(1527), and several seventeenth century ones of the Phelips
family; besides two brasses, a fourteenth century tomb
without a name, and what was perhaps a sepulchral
memorial — an extremely interesting piece of sculpture,
representing " St. Gregory's Mass " or " Pity " (i.e., Piety).
The monument in Portsmouth Church of the Duke of
Buckingham, who was murdered by Felton, is well
known, but only notable for the trumpet-blowing cherubs.
Less known, but more interesting, is the plain tomb
of Lady Alice Lisle, the victim of the fright and fury
of James II., outside the south wall of Ellingham Church.
It merely says, with striking reticence, that she " dyed
the 2nd of Sept., 1685." The burial slab of the Slavonian
Sailors' Guild at Southampton, 1481, in North Stoneham
Church, is a monument of quite unique interest.1
The earliest effigy remaining is of William Briwere,
1 1 86, at King's Somborne. A curious little slab, with a
1 Archczologia, liv., p. 131 (Dean Kitchin) ; Hants. Field Club Papers,
"•» P- 357 (Rev. G. W. Minns) ; " Southampton," in this volume, p. 59.
K
130 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
peculiar cross, at Farlington, is probably a heart shrine,
said to be of a Knight Templar. There are early effigies
at Binsted, Droxford, Michelmersh, North Baddesley (see
Dr. Bourne's paper), St. Mary Bourne, Sherborne St. John,
Sopley, and Thruxton, the last of which is the most
important. Sixteenth or seventeenth century effigies of
some interest are to be found at Andover, Catherington
(Sir Nicholas Hyde), Chawton, East Tisted (a curious
series of busts), Farley Chamberlayne, Hurstbourne Priors,
Kingsclere, Laverstoke, North Stoneham, Nursling,
Soberton, St. Michael's at Southampton, Stratfieldsaye,
Tichborne, Warnford, Wickham (the last two injured),
and Wield (a fine alabaster one of William Wallop). A
monument of Thomas White, 1720, in the porch of Milton
Church, has a sixteenth century sword and a Tudor tilting
helmet !
The brasses of the county are tolerably numerous, but
only a few are of any importance. They have been further
diminished, also, by the carelessness of the Winchester
College authorities, who, during the restoration of the
chapel in 1877, allowed the whole of theirs to disappear!
Haines enumerates no less than twenty-eight, ranging from
1413 to 1658, and their loss is a downright national
disaster. Two of them, at least, Robert Therburn, the
second Warden, 1450, and John White, Warden, afterwards
Bishop of Lincoln, c. 1548, were large and fine, and several
others were interesting. What makes the loss greater is
that the Cathedral and the parish churches of Winchester
have not saved a single brass.
There are not many of the brasses that it seems worth
while to describe in detail. The oldest is a fine but
mutilated one of a priest at Crondall. Next is the. very
large one of John of Campden at St. Cross, of which he
was Warden about 1400. Not much later are Thomas
Aylward, 1413, at Havant, who was Rector of Havant, and
also chaplain and biographer of the great Bishop William
THE CHURCHES OF HAMPSHIRE 131
of Wykeham ; a fine but mutilated one of John Prophete
(if that be the correct form of the name), Dean of York,
at Ringwood, 1416; and John Lisle, with a fine canopy
of about the same date, at Thruxton. At Headbourne
Worthy there is a touching one of a boy — John Kent,
of Reading, a scholar of Winchester College, about 1430.
This is very valuable for the dress, and it is most fortunate
that it was not set up in the College cloisters, when it
would have been lost. Why it is at Headbourne Worthy
does not appear. The father may have left Reading to
be near a son intended for the priesthood. The brass at
Church Oakley of Robert Warham and his family, 1487,
is interesting, because the eldest son, William, a priest,
afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury. A small
brass at Week (or Wyke), just outside of Winchester, to
William Complyn, 1498, is noticeable for a figure of
St. Christopher bearing the Saviour ; and a large and
remarkable cross to Richard Pendilton, in the service of
Lord Daubney, Chamberlain of Henry VIL, is in the
church of Eversley, best known to most people as Charles
Kingsley's rectory. Other brasses with effigies are to be
found in Alton, Basingstoke, Bishop's Sutton, Bramley,
Brown Candover, Heckfield, Itchen Stoke, Kimpton,
Kingsclere, King's Somborne, Monkston (the spelling
" Monxton " is beyond bearing), Odiham, St. Cross
(several), Preston Candover, Sherborne St. John (several),
South Warnborough, Southwick (very interesting, set on
a tomb brought from the Priory), Stoke Charity, Whit-
church, and Yateley (several). There are incised slabs also
at Nether Wallop, Sherborne St. John, Warblington, and
Warnford.
Old stained glass is sadly to seek By far the largest
remainder is the great kaleidoscope west window of the
Cathedral, which is said to be made up of the fragments
swept up after Cromwell's destruction. Most of it is,
however, of the same date (c. 1360) as the window, and
132 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
probably a not inconsiderable part of it is in its right
place. The east window of the choir and the heads of
some of the aisle windows have some later Perpendicular
glass, of the time of Bishop Fox. The west window at
St. Cross is also partly made up of fragments, but there
were not enough to fill the whole window. The glass in
the College Chapel is curious, as having been made in
1824, one of the worst of all possible periods, but from
the old designs, and therefore very interesting. At
Grateley, on the Exeter main line, there are a few good
pieces of Early English glass, saved somehow from the
wreck, in 1790, of Salisbury Cathedral by Wyatt, who
is recorded to have flung cartloads of glass into the city
ditch. At Mottisfont, besides some remains of its own
glass, there is a beautiful east window of the early
sixteenth century, which came from the Holy Ghost Chapel
at Basingstoke. In Deane Church there is an old Belgian
window representing the Crucifixion. This is all, save a
few fragments in window heads, that the county can
boast
It is remarkable that there are not more and better
rood screens and other examples of woodwork in a county
where wood is so abundant. I have already mentioned the
great stone reredos-screens at Christchurch and in the
Cathedral, and the grand Cathedral stalls. The Cathedral
rood-screen is modern. The screens of the eastern chapels
are rich, but very late work, about 1500. There are some
good screens in St John's, Winchester, and a canopied
pew, belonging to Moyles Court, in Ellingham Church,
which deserves notice. The screen at Baughurst is said to
have been given by Archbishop Warham, who was born
at Oakley, in the neighbourhood. There is a Jacobean
screen with a Restoration cornice at Warnford. Some fine
late stalls in Holy Rood Church, Southampton, as well as
the brass eagle lectern, are said to have come from the
priory church of St Denys, but this seems hardly possible.
THE CHURCHES OF HAMPSHIRE 133
Lastly, one cannot but mention the churchyard yews,
because they are neither so numerous nor so large in any
other county. It would need a special commission to
classify the oldest and largest. The finest is perhaps at
South Hayling, and there are good examples at Boarhunt,
Breamore, Corhampton, Hound, Hurstbourne Priors,
St. Mary Bourne, and Twyford, as well as the one at
Selborne described by dear old Gilbert White.
This detailed examination will probably be held by
those few who may care to verify it to justify the general
verdict on the ecclesiastical architecture of the county
which was stated at the beginning of this chapter. Four
superb churches force it almost up to the first rank.
Without them, it could hardly aspire even to third-rate
honours. Yet in every part of the county, except the
north-western strip which belonged to the central forest
reclaimed later than almost any part of England, there is,
or was, a church in the great majority of villages fit to
repay the notice of any intelligent observer.
G. E. JEANS.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE
CHURCHES1
BY CHARLES E. KEYSER, M.A., F.S.A
HE most interesting examples of painted mural
decoration still or till recently remaining in
Hampshire, are in the Cathedral ; at St. Cross,
the Chapel of Magdalen Hospital, and the Church
of St. John, at Winchester ; the Abbey Church of Romsey ;
and the Churches of Ashmansworth, Bramley, Breamore,
Catherington, Corhampton, Durley, Farnborough, Hurst-
bourne Tarrant, Idsworth, Tufton, Wellow, and Winch-
field. This list is sufficiently, comprehensive to establish
the assertion that even in the humblest and most out of the
way churches, it was the universal custom to embellish
the walls, and even the architectural details, with
colour, not only for the beautifying of the edifice, but for
the dissemination of the religious doctrines which were
so vigorously expounded during the middle ages. To an
uneducated audience, these paintings would appeal more
1 The most complete authority for general reference on Wall-paintings in
Churches is A List of Buildings in Great Britain and Ireland having Mural
and other Painted Decorations, etc. , published by the Science and Art Depart-
ment of the Committee of Council on Education, 1883, and sold at the South
Kensington Museum (price 2s. 3d.). An elaborate introduction by the author
of this article furnishes an exhaustive treatise on this» subject up vto the
date of the publication, and supplementary articles by him in the 53rd
and 58th vols. of the Archaeological Journal bring the record up to 1901.
Numerous examples have been found since, but no important ones in
Hampshire have been noted. For all general information as to the decoration
of our churches, the nature of the material used in the colouring, and the best
method of preserving the painting when brought to light, the reader may be
referred to this work.
134
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES 135
forcibly than the language of the preacher, and many of
them, if properly interpreted, would convey to the more
cultured congregations of the present day, lessons in
religion, as instructive and appropriate now as when,
centuries ago, they were executed. Such a subject, for
instance, as that of St. Christopher, which we so com-
monly find, if simply treated as one of the religious
moralities, contains many impressive lessons when
so explained.
'The chief idea intended to be conveyed by the repre-
sentation of the various subjects, seems to have been to
keep constantly in view the eternal future, to emphasise
the reverence due to the Almighty Creator, and to exhibit
the self-sacrifice, purity, and humility of those who had
been adopted as saints and ensamples to the church.
Even the introduction of so much colour into the churches
implied that nothing could be too costly or magnificent in
connection with the worship of God in the temples con-
secrated to His service. Thus it may be asserted that it
is from mistaken ideas and motives that so many of
these mural paintings have been discovered and destroyed,
since they convey many lessons in full accordance with
the doctrines of a Reformed Church.
As regards the beauty of our churches, it cannot seriously
be argued that layers of whitewash or coloured plaster are
the most fitting methods of adorning the walls. It is
astonishing to find this practice still persevered in by many
architects in preference to simple masonry and decorative
patterns, which could be used almost as cheaply, and would
remove the barn-like appearance of too many of our
ancient edifices.
Of course, in applying colour,. taste and care should be
displayed, and the glaring and brilliant decoration so much
in vogue in foreign churches should be studiously avoided.
An unhappy instance of this is undoubtedly the restoration
of the old colouring at St. Cross ; but this was probably
due to the difference in the composition of the pigments
136 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
employed, and the substitution of oil for the subdued
and delicate earth-colours of earlier times. Such extremes
can easily be avoided, and it is hoped that by the preserva-
tion of any ancient decoration, or by a judicious application
of the old method of distemper, a warmer and pleasanter
appearance may be given to the interior of our churches,
in lieu of the whitewashing which the majority of church-
wardens delight in.1
In a county like Hampshire, teeming with interesting
churches, and not behindhand in the tide of restoration
which has swept through the country with such violence
in the past fifty years, it is impossible to assert that all
the discoveries of mural paintings have been recorded ;
indeed, the compilation of only forty-nine separate build-
ings in the Mural Paintings List of 1883, supplemented
by some twenty-six more examples now, is necessarily
incomplete.2
Amongst the earliest are the decorations in the
north transept of Winchester Cathedral. The plain early
Norman arch has been richly embellished, and we find
round the arches and on the soffits various decorative
designs, such as the beaded lozenge or scroll, as well as
medallions containing roses, etc.
In the Priory Church at Christchurch remains of early
decoration are still visible on the vault of the crypt, and
on the arch opening to an apsidal chapel in the south
transept, and there are traces of red colouring near the
east end of the south side of the nave, and on parts of
the triforium.
1 Great difficulty is often experienced by those who are anxious to
uncover and preserve the paintings, in removing the various washes
without destroying the pictures themselves, and in preventing the subjects
from fading, or more properly speaking, the coloured surface from
disintegrating. Valuable hints on these points are given in two supple-
mentary portions of the I introduction to the List of Buildings, etc., by
Mr. J. G Waller, F.S.A., and Prof. Church, and in a paper by Mr. P. H.
Newman, F.S.A., in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, xx., p. 41.
2 One or two instances have been noted about which information has been
carefully withheld or suppressed, and it will not be possible to refer to them in
this article.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES 137
At Monks Sherborne, the original colouring still
remains on the capitals of the Norman chancel-arch, and
a consecration cross has also been noted The tympanum
of the fine Norman north doorway is decorated with red
lines forming a trellis pattern.
On the exterior west wall of the tower -of Winchfield
is a faint representation of a dragon, or salamander, with
a label moulding below, said to be of about 1 160.
An early painting at Compton Church is mentioned : —
On the interior splay of one of the Norman arches discovered behind
the monuments in the north wall was a fresco of an ecclesiastic with a
crozier in one hand and a book in the other. 1
In the north aisle of St. John's, Winchester, two con-
secration crosses were discovered on the north and one
on the east wall. They are of the usual Maltese type, in
red, within a circular border; and as remains of Norman
windows were also found in these walls, the crosses no
doubt belong to the church erected in the twelfth century.
On the jambs of the Norman chancel-arch at Newnham
is a bold scroll pattern, and colouring was also found above
the Norman chancel-arch at Brockenhurst.
The Abbey Church at Romsey has also preserved some
of its early painting. On the west arch of the south side
of the choir is some late twelfth century decorative
colouring, and in an apsidal chapel east of the north
transept is a cable pattern of red and white spiral bands
on the responds of the arch opening to the transept, and
red colouring on the capitals, and masonry patterns on
the jambs. There is a powdering of four-leaved roses on
the vault, and colouring on the splay of the window. On
one of the piers opening to the Lady chapel are various
subjects within medallions. They seem to represent the
seven sacraments ; the Holy Eucharist, Baptism, Marriage,
and the Consecration of a Bishop can perhaps be identified.
Below are the folds of a curtain, similar to other late
1 Winchester Diocesan Kalcndar, 1881, p. 94.
138 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
examples of the Norman period of the latter part of the
twelfth century.
A painting on a nave pier, north side, of St. Bar-
tholomew's, Winchester, has been noted as " A full length
painting of a bishop in pontificalibus^ with the low pointed
mitre of late Norman times." 1
At Corhampton some early painting has just been
brought to light On the north nave wall are the outlines
of two consecration crosses, and there are traces of colour-
ing in several places. The chief decoration has been in
the chancel, and probably the vault and walls were
embellished with some important subject, such as at
Kempley, Gloucestershire, and Copford, Essex. Unfor-
tunately the old roof has been destroyed, and only a
portion of the decoration on the walls remains. There has
clearly been a series of figures or subjects in the upper
tier, but it is not possible to identify them. The most
distinct portion is on the south wall, where a figure
reverently beholding another holding a pastoral staff, and
at least two more, one rather peculiarly vested, can be
discerned, but there is nothing to give a clue to the design.
Below the figures is a good border in red and yellow, with
two intersecting zigzag lines on the south, and a series
of half diamond-shaped figures in red and yellow alter-
nately on the north side. Below these, and on the west
wall on either side of the massive Saxon chancel-arch, are
depicted the folds of a curtain. On the north and south
side is a large circular medallion surrounded by lattice
work in red, breaking the continuity of the curtain decora-
tion. Some wings (of two angels?) can be made out on
the south wall. The date appears to be late twelfth cen-
tury.
At St. Cross very considerable remains of early decora-
tion were found on the arches and walls of the choir. This
was unfortunately mainly renewed in a brilliant colouring
1 Gentleman 's Magazine , 1860.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES 139
which does not harmonise with the severe architectural
character of this most interesting building. In the north
choir aisle, the ceiling between the groining ribs, and on a
cross arch, are remains of foliage and decorative colouring,
of late twelfth century date. Several consecration crosses
have also been found.
At the old chapel of Magdalen Hospital, Winchester,
which was pulled down in 1/78, a most interesting series
of. paintings was found. Fortunately drawings of them
are preserved in the Society of Antiquaries' Library, and
illustrations have been published in Vetusta Monumenta,
vol. iii., plates I, 2, 3. They mostly date about 1300, and
will be described later on ; but there were considerable
remains of the end of the twelfth century. Several conse-
cration crosses in blue were noted on various portions of
the walls, and the mouldings of the arches were decorated
with a variety of patterns in black and brown, such as
running sprigs, flowers, stars, birds, quatrefoils, and zigzags,
mainly of this early date.
In the very ancient church of Little Somborne, traces
of decorative colour were found on the chancel-arch and
other additions made to the church in the transitional
Norman period. Remains of decoration still exist on the
great western tower-arch and on another fine arch also of
transitional Norman date, opening out of the former south
transept of Mottisfont Priory Church. Some were also
found on the chancel-arch of Bramdean of about the same
date.
At Ashmansworth numerous paintings were brought to
light in iSgg.1 Some early painting had been previously
found on the west splay of the Norman window north
of the chancel. The subject appears to portray an
ecclesiastic stooping down towards a figure of the Blessed
Virgin. There were the outlines of two consecration
crosses on the south wall of the nave, and one more on the
1 See Hants. Field Club Papers, Vol. iv., pt. 3.
140 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
north. But the most interesting subjects are those on the
east wall of the nave, above and on either side of the
chancel-arch. On and above the arch is a trellis pattern,
formed by pale red intersecting lines, and there have been
two tiers of subjects divided by a deep red border enclosing
scroll foliage. Above has been a similar border mixed
up with later paintings. On the lower tier, separated by
a red groundwork, are four circular medallions. The
subject within the northern one is obliterated, but in the
next is a very spirited representation of the Descent into
Limbus, or the Harrowing of Hell, as it is often designated.
Within the next the subject is somewhat uncertain, but
probably depicts the women at the sepulchre, while that on
the south side represents the Day of Pentecost — a dove
with extended wings hovering above several nimbed
figures. This is the earliest representation in England
of the subject. On the tier above are several large
figures, those in the centre nimbed. They appear to have
formed part of the subject of the Doom, a later fifteenth
century representation of which has been painted over the
upper part. There are traces of the earlier decoration on
the north wall of the nave. The principal pictures were
probably executed quite at the end of the twelfth
century.
Of thirteenth century paintings there are several
examples. The earliest and most interesting are those in
the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in the Cathedral, which
have been fully described and illustrated by Mr. J. G.
Waller, F.S.A.1 Here, on the vault, we find a demi-figure
of Christ, and within medallions the Annunciation,
Nativity, Raising of Lazarus, Triumphal entry into Jeru-
salem, Descent from the Cross, Lamentation over the
Tomb, Descent into Limbus, and the appearance to Mary
Magdalene. There are also traces of the Crucifixion and
the murder of Abel below.
1 British Archceolog. Assoc., Winchester vol., p. 264.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES 141
On the north wall is probably a representation of the
Last Judgment and some of the apocalyptic visions, and
there are also the scanty remains of a composition,
apparently the suffering's of martyrs and saints. Three
scenes seem to refer to St. Catherine, viz., her being
fastened to wheels attached to several horses, decapitation,
and entombment by angels. Although these paintings are
nearly coeval with the chapel, they have been executed over
an earlier series, which must, in Mr. Waller's opinion, have
been of inferior workmanship, and therefore condemned
as unworthy of the chapel. Mr. Waller writes thus more
than sixty years ago, in praise of the existing paintings : —
The whole arrangement is effectively contrived. The subjects are
told forcibly, evincing a vivid perception of the story in the mind of the
artist. There is appropriate action in the figures ; an earnest attempt
at expression, in some instances, by no means unsuccessful, and only
controlled by the want of technical skill.
The Chapel of the Guardian Angels, or Bishop Orleton's
chapel, " presents us with a very perfect example of the
application of polychromy to architecture ; the colour being
introduced to give effect to the mouldings and hollows." *
This also dates from the thirteenth century. There was
formerly a painting of St. Christopher in the north transept,
and in one corner a boldly-outlined figure of a king remains,
of late thirteenth century work.
In the fine hall of Winchester Castle, traces of the
original early English decoration are still decipherable on
the west wall.
St. Cross seems to have been embellished with a great
variety of pictorial subjects, many apparently of the thir-
teenth century, but almost all have been destroyed. Some
pretty decorative designs of this period still remain. On
the east wall of the north transept, within an arched recess,
a painting of the Crucifixion was found, and above, under
a series of trefoil-headed arches, the life and martyrdom
iMr. Waller.
142 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
of St. Thomas of Canterbury. On the east wall of
the south choir aisle was the Crucifixion, with the Virgin
and St. John, while in the north choir aisle was a figure
of St. John the Evangelist in the splay of the east window,
St. Simeon in the south-east corner, the Crucifixion with
four other subjects on the east wall, and round the walls,
figures of saints and bishops under canopies. Drawings of
some of these subjects have been preserved.
At Winchfield some very interesting paintings were
discovered about fifty-five years ago, but no longer exist.
Those on the north and south walls of the nave were of
thirteenth century date ; on the north the subject is
described as Christ walking on the sea, while on the south,
in several scenes, was the parable of Lazarus and Dives.
Both are uncommon subjects in England, and their loss is
regrettable.
At East Meon are faint remains of paintings. A
crowned head on the east pier of the south tower-arch,
and the Crucifixion under a trefoil-headed canopy on the
east pier of the north tower-arch, are of thirteenth century
date. A St. Christopher, discovered and whitewashed over
again, is probably later.
In the nave of Titchfield Abbey Church (now Place
House) the remains of the original decoration, namely,
a masonry pattern in double red lines, are still visible on
various portions of the walls. At Bramdean some diaper
patterns were found in the chancel of a very rich design,
which have unfortunately been renovated.
At Colmer thirteenth century decoration was found in
the splays of the east window and piers of transept arch.
At Upton Grey, on the north side of the west face of
the east tower-arch, is a pattern of cinquefoils in red within
a masonry pattern, and on the east wall of the nave is
an inscription in capital letters, also in red. All this is
probably of the thirteenth century. At Silchester is some
decoration of a similar character within the splay of a
lancet window on either side of the chancel.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES 143
At Havant a painting was found in the south transept
with some decorative colouring of the thirteenth century.
It represented a nimbed figure in a cauldron with flames
beneath — no doubt St. John the Evangelist cast into the
cauldron of boiling oil. This unique subject has unfor-
tunately been destroyed.
In the beautiful early English chancel of Sherborne
Priory, now called Pamber Church, there is some painting
on the north wall, viz., a consecration cross and a series of
angels with outspread wings.
At Wellow, two crowned heads and some scroll orna-
ment in red were found some time ago in the splays of
the east window, and during the restoration in 1895 further
discoveries were made. On the south splay of the east
window is a figure of St. Thomas of Canterbury, rather
faint, but with the name plainly discernible above. On
the east wall is a masonry pattern with five-leaved roses on
stems in red, and two very fine crosses of the Maltese type,
also with red colouring. On the south chancel wall near
the east end is the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canter-
bury. On the east splay of the east window on the north
of the chancel is a crowned head, and on the east splay of
the west window on the same side a figure with the name
of St. Edmund of Pontigny, Archbishop of Canterbury.
His only other portraiture in England is at Frindsbury
in Kent On this wall is another consecration cross, and
in the nave are others — two on the north, one on the west,
and one on the south. A very pretty decorative pattern
with roses and lilies on the north wall seems also to be
of the thirteenth century.
At Bramley, a considerable amount of decoration
remains, chiefly of the thirteenth century. On the east chan-
cel wall is a bold foliated design, and the masonry pattern
with double red lines enclosing roses on the east and
north walls. A scroll runs along on the level of the
former reredos, and on it are several small figures under
trefoil-headed arches. A hand raised in benediction
144 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
indicates the Lord in glory, and there seem to be other
small figures in adoration. On either side of the east
window are large figures — the Virgin and Child and
St. James the Greater. Copies of the originals on paper
have been pasted over these. On the south wall of the
nave is the martyrdom of Becket ; the four knights with
swords and shields attacking the archbishop, while the
deacon holding the cross stands behind. East of this are
two other scenes mixed up with later paintings. All these
seem to have been executed in the thirteenth century.
There are two consecration crosses, which may be earlier,
and paintings of St. Christopher and St Michael of
later date.
At St. John's, Winchester, a most interesting series of
paintings uncovered in 1852 is mostly of the late
thirteenth century.1 The first revealed were those on
the north wall of the north aisle, and are of the
highest interest. Two blocked-up lancet windows were
found in the wall with broad curved lines in yellow
on the chamfer of the arch, and alternate leaves in
red on the flat soffit. The first painting from the
west is an elaborate representation of the Doom, and
is divided by yellow bands into three compartments. In
the centre of the upper one is our Lord seated and show-
ing the wounds, while the Blessed Virgin kneels at His
right hand in intercession. On either side is an angel
holding two of the implements of the Passion. Six saints
or elders are seated on each side, and a large angel blowing
a trumpet flanks this portion. The eastern part of the
next compartment has been destroyed, but St. Michael
weighing souls occupies the centre ; on the west a Francis-
can Monk (St. Peter?) is conducting a company of nude
figures of the saved to the gate of heaven, while 'on the
east, a huge demon is dragging the damned, whose feet
only are visible, to the jaws of hell. In the lower tier a
* Journ. Brit. Archaolog. Assoc., vols. ix., x. (fully illustrated).
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE -CHURCHES 145
number of figures, three crowned and one with a mitre,
are in the act of rising from their coffins. Adjoining the
Doom, within the centre medallion, is the figure of our
Lord seated, giving the benediction and holding in His
left hand the book of the Gospels. Within smaller
medallions are the Evangelistic symbols. A censing angel
fills up the lower part of the picture. Next to this, within
a yellow border, with sprigs of foliage at the upper corners,
is the Crucifixion, with blood streaming from the wounds.
On the right stands a monk holding a large scroll, and on
the left another monk, nimbed and holding an open book,
with the text Gal. vi. 14. Apparently the blood from
Christ's left hand is being poured upon his hands, and the
figure is therefore alleged to be St. Francis of Assisi
receiving the stigmata. The figure on the other side has
been interpreted as Isaiah, and the scroll to have referred
to the sacrifice of the Messiah foretold in his work. Above
the border are the sun and moon. Immediately east of
this is the martyrdom of St. Andrew, a large figure of the
saint extended on the saltire cross, a somewhat rare
subject in mural painting in England. Over the eastern
lancet is an angel rising from a cloud and holding a crown
in either hand. Next is a Virgin and Child, and beyond
to the east a large angel swinging a censer. This seems
to have been the termination of this most interesting series.
There is a diaper of the cross fleury in red on various
portions of the wall. The date of the paintings is stated
to be late thirteenth century.
In 1853 another series was uncovered on the south wall
of the same aisle. These were not so perfect as those
already described, and one of great interest had been
concealed by a later series of saints painted over it early
in the fifteenth century. This was a representation of the
once popular subject of the martyrdom of St. Thomas of
Canterbury on the eastern portion of the south wall,
between the eastern arch of the arcade and the east wall,
displaying the four knights in link mail, with armorial
L
146 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
bearings on their surcoats and shields, and having drawn
swords, in the act of murdering the archbishop, who, with
the upper part of his head cut off, is falling forward, his
right hand extended, his left grasping the book. His
faithful attendant Grim stands behind him, holding the
archiepiscopal cross in his right hand, and warding off
one of the blows with his left Above is an angel waiting
to receive the expiring soul. The door to the Cathedral,
forced open by the conspirators, and the roof of the build-
ing, with gables of Norman character, are well represented.
The subject to the west of this was the Seven Acts of
Mercy, but much has been destroyed, and only portions of
visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, and " harbouring the
harbourless," remained.1 Remains of a masonry pattern
were also found on the south wall of the north aisle, and
the north wall of the nave, of thirteenth century date.
Of fourteenth century paintings we have some
important remains, and records of examples which have
ceased to exist, in the county. At Magdalen Hospital,
Winchester, on the north side of the altar were St. Peter
in pontifical robes holding a church, and two other figures,
one in pontificals, the other in mail ; on the south,
St. Paul and an archbishop. The date 1300 is assigned to
these. On the south side of the nave of Winchfield was the
head of a queen of early fourteenth century date, and some
good decoration of this period still remains at Silchester.
At Farnborough three figures of female saints were un-
covered on the north wall of the nave. They had their
names above them — Eugenia, who does not appear else-
where in England, Agnes, and Mary Magdalene, and
seem to have formed part of a procession. Their date is
about 1300. Two consecration crosses on the north and
west walls are probably earlier.
At Warblington an interesting series was brought to
light in 1852 and again whitewashed over. They illustrated
1 Admirably illustrated, together with later ones to be mentioned
further, \njoum. of Brit. Archaolog. Assoc.> vol. x.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES 147
a number of our Lord's miracles, one His intervention on
behalf of the Three Children in the Fiery Furnace. He is
also twice depicted bearing the Cross. There was a
powdering of crimson stars and a coat of arms, all stated
to have been of fourteenth century work. At Yately were
a royal figure whitewashed over and some rude paintings
of the fourteenth century, " too mutilated to be preserved."
In Prior Silkstede's Chapel, in the south transept of
the Cathedral, a very interesting subject with a series of
figures under canopies of the time of Edward III. was
uncovered in 1847, and found to portray Christ walking
upon the sea and St. Peter leaving the ship to meet Him.
At Hurstbourne Tarrant two paintings of the same
period were discovered on the north wall of the north aisle,
viz., the popular " morality " of the three kings living and
the three kings dead (an early example of this subject),
and the wheel of the seven deadly sins. There is a good
scroll border, and on the east wall a considerable amount of
decoration. At Idsworth Chapel the walls were found to
be covered with paintings of about the middle of the four-
teenth century. On the splays of the east window are large
figures of SS. Peter and Paul. On the north wall of the
chancel is a subject in two tiers. On the lower is what
has been described as the Conversion of St. Hubert,
though this interpretation is more than doubtful. There
is a hunter on horseback with horn and hounds, and three
nimbed figures, one of whom has his hand on the back of an
animal with human head, apparently performing a miracle.
A rich zigzag border in red and white on a yellow ground
separates this from the upper tier, on which in three scenes
is portrayed the decollation of St. John the Baptist. At
the east end a king and queen are seated at a table, while
the daughter of Herodias is here, as in other instances, in
the act of turning a somersault. In the next scene two
ladies and another figure are seated at a table, and a
servant is presenting the head of John the Baptist on a
charger. The third scene shows indistinct forms of the
148 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
'saint kneeling, and the executioner in the prison. Close
by, at Catherington, some paintings were discovered and
brought under the notice of the Society of Antiquaries in
5884. One on the north wall of the nave, probably of
fourteenth century date, is vigorously treated and the
painting of unusual merit. It represents St. Michael
weighing souls and the Blessed Virgin interceding on
their behalf.
St. Michael, with outspread wings, is habited in a long tunic powdered
with crosses down to his ankles. He grasps a sword in the right hand,
while the left is held over the balance on the condemned side of the scales,
which are suspended from a girdle round the waist. To the west is the
blessed Virgin crowned and interceding in a practical way on the soul's behalf.
She holds the beam in the left hand, while with the right she has unhooked
the scale containing the soul. In the other scale are several demons, and one
is crawling along the beam.l
At Rowner Church much decoration of the time
of Edward III was discovered and destroyed. Within
the splay of the east window was perhaps the subject of the
Ascension, and a portion of another picture alleged to
portray the offerings of the Magi was on the north chancel
wall. Traces of diaper patterns were also found in the
chancel, and some lettering over the chancel-arch
On the north wall of the nave of Bramley Church is a
very large representation of the popular subject of
St. Christopher. It has all the usual accessories to this
legendary morality. A large figure of the saint with red
cloak and bare legs is crossing the river from west to
east. He holds a tree with several branches at the top in
his hand, and supports the Infant Saviour behind his
head. Our Lord is giving the Benediction, and holds a
large orb and cross in the left hand. On the east bank
is a chapel, and a hermit holding a lantern. A youth is
seated on the east bank angling with rod and line, and
apparently has hooked by the tail a mermaid who is
disporting herself in the water, another mermaid being
1 ArchcEol. Journ.j liii., 170.
'«il£
•^ *«y . 1 • i
I
BRAMLEY : ST. CHRISTOPHER.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES 149
also portrayed behind the saint. Numerous very quaint
fishes of remarkable shapes are swimming about, and the
masts and spars of several ships are also represented.
A very similar example was uncovered in the south aisle
of St. John's, Winchester. Both these are of the fourteenth
century, and are somewhat early instances of a legend
which in the fifteenth century was depicted in almost every
Church in England.
The remains of paintings of the fifteenth century are,
with one or two exceptions, of no great importance. At
St. John's, Winchester, on the south wall of the north
aisle, several figures of saints were painted over the earlier
series. Two of these are identified as St. Walburge, who
does not occur elsewhere in England (but may it be
St. Mary Magdalene ?), and St. John the Evangelist. They
are said to belong to the early part of the fifteenth century.
At St. Cross, in the north transept, was a very interesting
representation of St. Nicholas restoring the three children
to life.1 At Alton we have a record of a series with
scenes in the life of Christ and portraits of King
Henry VI., and several bishops. At Ashmansworth, over
the chancel-arch is part of a picture of the Doom, painted
over a much earlier one of the same subject, and on the
north wall is part of a fifteenth century St. Christopher.
At Headbourne Worthy, within the Galilee at the west end
of the church, is preserved the very ancient Rood, with
Our Lord on the Cross and the Blessed Virgin and
St. John on either side. These are in a mutilated condi-
tion, but remains of colour could be discerned upon them,
and the wall between and above them had been decorated
with the sacred monograms: " I.H.C." "X.P.C.," no doubt
in the fifteenth century.2 The same thing occurs at
Breamore, where the ancient Rood has been placed over
the south doorway within the porch. The intervening wall
spaces have been decorated with a church, trees, etc., and
1 See p. 124. 2 p. 120.
i$o MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
the sacred monogram and other decoration is introduced
on the east and west walls.1 A similar diaper of the sacred
monogram of fifteenth century date was found at
St. Swithin's, Winchester. At Ellingham, on a plaster
partition over the chancel-screen, are two angels, parts of
a large subject, perhaps the Doom, as at Wenhaston in
Suffolk, Dauntsey in Wiltshire, etc., and various remains
of paintings were found elsewhere in the Church.
At Catherington, on the east wall of the north chantry
chapel, has been a very beautiful representation of the
Holy Trinity, now much faded. As in other fifteenth
century examples, the Almighty holds the crucified Saviour
between His knees, but here the Holy Dove is not
discernible. There are two censing angels above, and two
others above them, one playing a harp, the other (effaced)
a lyre. The surface of the wall is diapered with cinque-
foils ; only two shades of red are used to decorate the
picture.
On the panels of a tomb in the north chantry chapel
at Stoke Charity are a beautifully designed figure of an
archbishop holding the cross and a sword, said to be
St. Thomas of Canterbury, and the Virgin and Child, or
St. John the Evangelist. But the most remarkable late
fifteenth century paintings are in the Lady Chapel of
Winchester Cathedral, representing the miracles of the
Blessed Virgin Mary.2 They were painted for Prior Silk-
stede about 1489. A similar series, of which drawings have
been made, was found on the walls of Eton College Chapel.
On the south wall is a portrait of Bishop Langton (1493-
1500), and within a piscina recess a portrait of Prior
Silkstede, the donor.
Numerous other paintings have been noted in the
county where no details are available as to the probable
1 See p. 121.
2 These are fully described and illustrated in the Winchester vol.
(1845) °f the British Archaeolog. Assoc., and in Carter's Specimens of
Ancient Sculpture and Painting.
A
CATHERINGTON: ST. MICHAEL WEIGHING SOULS.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES 151
date of their execution. On the walls of the north transept
of the Cathedral were two male figures, probably prophets,
SS. Catherine, Agatha, and other saints, and on the east
wall St. Christopher, with the Adoration of the Magi above.
At St. Cross, on the south side of the choir, was St. Anne
instructing the Virgin ; on the west face of the N.W. pier
of the tower, Christ with the Doctors; on the south wall
of the transept, a Pieta ; in the nave clerestory, in the splay
of a south window, the Virgin and St. John, and on one on
the north, SS. Swithin and Catherine. At St. Lawrence's,
Winchester, a St. Christopher was discovered and
destroyed. On the north wall of the nave of Tufton a
good picture of the same saint has been carefully preserved.
Early mention is made of another St. Christopher on the
north wall of Tichborne Church. At Ibsley a painting is
recorded of Heaven and Hell, parts of a Doom. At Kings-
clere some interesting decorations were found in the
clerestory windows of the nave, and at the old Church at
Burghclere numerous paintings were discovered and white-
washed over; one is said to have been the Martyrdom of
St. Sebastian, but may have been St. Christopher. At
Durley considerable remains were brought to light, but
most of them were re-covered with whitewash before notes
could be taken. Only two figures within the splays of
windows on the north of the chancel and in the north
transept were visible in April, 1888, but information was
obtained as to the existence of numerous figures of saints,
masonry patterns, etc., on various portions of the walls,
and a Doom on the south side of the nave.
We read in Collectanea Archceologica, ii., 91, that
" when the walls are damp the traces of ancient paintings
appear " at Hound Church ; and . in the Gentleman's
Magazine for 1829, "a series of ancient paintings" (since
whitewashed over) at Upham are referred to. At Netley
Abbey, in various portions of the ruins, traces of decoration
can still be discerned.
In The Ecclesiologist, ii. 25, mention is made of wall
152 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
paintings of figures under canopies, since covered up, at
Hartley Wintney, and discoveries are said to have been
made at Mattingley, Kimpton, and elsewhere. At Basing
a black letter inscription on one of the Poulet monuments
is dated 1488, and at Basingstoke decorative patterns and
mottoes of the Elizabethan period were found, and copies
are still preserved Remains of later texts need not be
enumerated
Of decorated sculpture we have a few remains. In
Winchester Cathedral, above the "Holy Hole," are frag-
ments of a stone on which was painted the Coronation of
the Virgin, of thirteenth century date. At Stoke Charity is
a richly-coloured sculpture representing St. Gregory's Mass.
The great stone altar-screens at Winchester Cathedral and
Christchurch retain traces of their polychrome, and that
at the College Chapel, Winchester, was similarly decorated.
At Amport is preserved one of the stone movable altars
called St. Johns Heads.1 On it is the sculptured head of
St. John the Baptist in a charger with inscription, " caput
sancte istorie " ; above are two angels holding a napkin
enclosing a soul, and below the Saviour rising from the
tomb, with, on either side, St. Peter and St. Margaret, and
an archbishop and St. Catherine, all richly painted and gilt,
of about 1500. At Micheldever part of a large stone
reredos is enriched with colour and gold. In the Cathedral,
on the reredos of Bishop Langton's Chapel, on the south
side of the Lady Chapel, are paintings of saints and
remains of colour and gilding, and on the east wall of the
south transept of St. Cross are fragments of a richly-
painted reredos of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth
century. Here is also a stone screen on the north side of
the choir with outlines of figures on the panels. On the
fine stone chests containing the remains of the early Saxon
kings, placed on the top of the side-screens of the choir
of the Cathedral are remains of the original gilding, c. 1520.
1 See Archceologia.) Hi., p. 669.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMP&IIRE CHURCHES 153
Remains of decoration of various dates have been
noted, too, on the stone roofs of the Cathedral, St. Cross,
Christchurch, and Romsey. In the Countess of Salisbury's
Chantry at Christchurch are three very richly-sculptureg1
and coloured bosses, the central one having a representa-
tion of the Coronation of the Virgin. At. ElKngham are
some large bosses from the former nave roof, with the
heraldic bearings of the Lisles emblazoned in their proper
colours. In Bishop Fox's Chantry in the Cathedral are
the arms of Tudor and the bishop properly blazoned.
Of decoration on stone monuments the list is very
meagre. In the Cathedral the effigies of Bishop Waynflete
and Cardinal Beaufort have been re-painted. At
Christchurch, in a chapel east of the north choir aisle,
the effigies of Sir John Chydioke and his Lady retain
traces of their original early fifteenth century colouring.
At Stoke Charity, on the cresting and spandrils of a
monument in the north chantry, is the original gilding,
and on two panels of the tomb already referred to are
figures of St. Thomas of Canterbury and the Virgin and
Child. On the back of a monumental recess in the south
wall of Silchester are remains of a picture of the lady
whose effigy is below. At Sherborne St. John there is
colouring on the shields, etc., of the tomb of Sir Ralph
Pexsall and his Lady in the chancel, of early sixteenth
century date. On the monument of Sir Richard Lyster,
1567, in St. Michael's, Southampton, are remains of colour-
ing ; and on the magnificent monument of the Countess
of Southampton, c. 1581, in the south chapel of Titchfield
Church, the effigies, shields, and other details have recently
been re-coloured and gilded.
Of painted woodwork the remains in the County are
remarkably few and far between. There is not a single
rood-screen on which the original colouring is now to be
seen, or has been noted as existing in recent times. Of
154 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
painted roofs there are few records. On the east beam of
the nave roof at Fordingbridge are chevrons in several
colours. A chantry chapel on the north side of the choir
of Christchurch has a flat wooden roof with panels painted
blue, and on the alternate ones large red and white roses,
the mouldings dividing the panels being gilded. In the
Cathedral is preserved
A panelled piece of wood (?) a retable, on which are depicted SS. George »
Peter, James (Major), a Bishop, a Majesty with the four Evangelists, four
angels holding the instruments of the Passion, the Virgin and Child, the
Coronation of the Virgin, Crucifixion, St. John the Baptist, kneeling figures
of knight and lady, and several armorial shields. I3th century. 1
In Romsey Abbey is a panel with the figure of a Bene-
dictine monk kneeling, and a number of small golden
objects, perhaps fiery tongues, around him ; on a scroll is
the inscription, " Ihu fili dei miserere mei" of fifteenth
century date. There is also part of a large wooden panel,
which was discovered behind the high altar. On this are
SS. Jerome, Francis, Sebastian, a bishop, (?) St. Augustine,
a nun, (?) St. Scholastica, a black monk, (?) St. Benedict,
SS. Roche, Anthony, and Ambrose. Below is the Resur-
rection, our Lord holding the Cross and Banner, with a
soldier on either side, and a censing angel. In the left-
hand corner is a kneeling figure of an abbess, no doubt
the donor, with a scroll from the mouth : " surrecssit
dominus de sepulchre!' Some Italian ornamentation
between the saints proves this to be not earlier than 1500.
There were formerly two tiers of paintings above these,
with the Almighty or Christ in Majesty seated in the upper,
and the choir of angels in the lower.
Such is a brief description of the mural and decorative
painting still or till recently remaining in Hampshire. ' The
record must inspire feeling of regret that so much has
been destroyed, so little allowed to remain. But it is
1 A List of Buildings, etc., p. 280.
WALL-PAINTINGS IN HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES 155
probable that a more tolerant and sensible view with
regard to these methods of early education and reverence
now prevails, and that the custodians of our venerable
churches are glad to preserve and not to obliterate the
evidences of the system of imparting religious knowledge
which prevailed throughout the Middle Ages in all the
Christian countries of the world.
CHARLES E. KEYSER.
ADDITIONAL NOTE. — Of the saints mentioned at
Alton (p. 149) three still remain on the north face of one
of the pillars of the nave. They are painted one above
the other on red and grey grounds, and under flat canopies.
Each figure is about two feet high, has a red nimbus and
is richly vested, and has had the name inscribed on a scroll
below. The upper one exhibits a pope with scarlet vest-
ments and the papal tiara. He holds the patriarchal cross
in the right and a book in the left hand. No emblem is
visible, but the name " Sac Cornelius " is plainly depicted
on the scroll below. He is a rare saint, and seldom
portrayed in our English churches. The next figure is
crowned, with ermine cloak and red robe. He holds a
sceptre in the right and book in the left hand. The name
on the scroll is nearly obliterated, but looks like
" Henric V.," and therefore is probably for " Henricus VI,"
as previously recorded. The lower figure is an arch-
bishop, with rich mitre, red chasuble, and alb, holding
a jewelled cross. No emblem is visible, nor is the name
discernible, so that it is impossible to establish his
identity. The pavement on which he is standing is
clearly represented. The date of- these paintings is of
the time of King Henry VII.
CHARLES E. KEYSER.
ROMSEY ABBEY
BY THE REV. J. COOKE YARBOROUGH
jF you want to see Romsey Abbey at its best, you should
visit it some bright afternoon in autumn, and, if
possible, approach it by the road from Salisbury.
As you near the town, the road, which has hitherto
been fairly level, suddenly dips down towards the valley of
the Test. Just as it begins to descend, you will see a
gateway on your right hand. Stand in the gateway, and
look across the green slope below, and you will certainly
see one of the fairest sights in Hampshire. The valley
of the Test at this point is about a couple of miles across.
Northward, a silver streak, visible here and there among
the deep pastures and misty meadows, marks where the
river flows. Beyond the valley, low hills, crowned with
woods, rise gradually to the distant downs, while in the
level plain between, half hidden by trees, stand the gray
abbey church and the red-roofed town.
The church itself crowns a gentle eminence beside the
stream. Its walls are backed with lime trees, now dressed
in their autumn hues, and dark yews and holm-oaks
nestle close in to the southern side, while catching the glow
of the already sinking sun, the lofty battlements and mas-
sive tower stand out against the wreaths of smoke and the
dusky roof-tops of the town. It is a view homely and
England-like. Side by side are the busy little town —
mills and shops of yesterday — and old gray walls that have
seen many centuries pass by. Shorn of much of its ancient
splendour, the passing years have touched the abbey church
with a beauty that even its noble architecture cannot give
156
ROMSEY ABBEY , 157
by itself. It stands as the expression of a venerable past,
which breathes its living charm upon us still. It has
had its trials, it has survived them all. Like the belfry of
Bruges : —
Thrice destroyed and thrice rebuilded,
Still it watches o'er the town.
The road then makes a sharp turn at the foot of the
hill, and crosses the river. Here we begin to tread historic
ground. You catch a glimpse from the bridge of Broad-
lands, * once the home of the great Lord Palmerston.
Along this street, which leads into the town, once went a
straggling fight of Roundheads and Cavaliers, when Colonel
Norton's troopers beat in the Royalist guard at the bridge
by a night attack, and roused the sleeping townsmen with
shouts and pistol shots. For a moment, the Cavaliers
rallied in the Market Place, then broke again and fled,
leaving the town in the hands of the Parliament, and many
dead all along the street. The names are given in the
abbey register, December 1 2th, 1643, as "Slain at the
Routing of the King's force at Romsey." The tradition
of the town is that they were all carousing, when the
Roundheads took them by surprise.
Along this road, too, only some six years after, came
the pathetic figure of a discrowned King, escorted by grim
Puritan soldiers, on his way to the last scene at Whitehall.
Up it, too, centuries before, rolled heavily the charcoal-
burner's cart which brought the body of another King,
for whom " no bell was tolled, no prayer was said, no
alms were given," on its way to burial in the Old Minster
at Winchester.1
So, amid memories that meet us at every corner, we
come to the Market Place, but the old houses that
once stood round the square are gone. A statue of
Lord Palmerston occupies the central space. All is
modernised, except one old hostelry, now the Conservative
Club, whose sign-board still swings on an ancient twisted
1 See p. 88.
158 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
bracket of hammered iron, on which, as the Parish Register
again records, disorderly soldiers of the Parliament were
hanged "when General Fairfax was in ye towne."
Where the line of shops now stands, on the west side
of the Market Place, was a stream. Across it rose the
convent wall ; the gateway of the Congregational Chapel,
on the left, now marks the site of the abbey gate. Behind
the wall, from among the trees and shrubs of the abbey
garden, once rose the roofs and gables of the nunnery
buildings, and beyond them, sheltering them by its solid
mass, was the abbey church. The conventual buildings
are all gone, except the refectory, which, though almost
indistinguishable among the other buildings, and now
forming two dwelling-houses, can still be traced.
A turn to the left now brings us to the abbey.
You may be disappointed at the first sight. The exterior
gives rather an impression of strength and solidity
than of beauty. " The city lieth foursquare." Its tower
is low, its transepts rise sheer, with shallow buttresses.
There is comparatively little attempt at ornament, only
simple mouldings to the windows, and some fantastic forms
and faces which peer out from under the corbel-table.
Externally, it is like a big cruciform parish church ;
and it has lost three features which must have
added greatly to its beauty. The Dedication Chapels1
at the east end, and the Chapel of St. George on the north
side of the nave, were all pulled down after the Reforma-
tion ; and the old belfry tower of St. Laurence, which stood
near the church on the north-east side, is gone too. It
was pulled down in 1624.
But on entering the church, you will be surprised
at the grandeur and nobleness within. Those old builders
built for all time, and with a keen sense of proportion
and effect. It is a perfect Norman church, with
l Romsey had, instead of the usual Lady Chapel, a building at the east
end with two altars side by side, apparently dedicated to St. Mary and
St. jEthelflaeda, its patron Saints.
ROMSEY ABBEY 159
only the two east windows and the three western bays
added by later hands (thirteenth century). The massive
piers of the nave arches remind one of Durham, the lofty
triforium rather of Norwich ; the perfect Norman clerestory
has nothing quite like it in England. There is just enough
of ornamentation to give richness without decreasing the
feeling of breadth and stateliness ; while the great height
and fine proportions convey the impression of a far larger
building than it really is. Go eastward to the chancel
aisles, and notice the carving of the Norman capitals, the
curious " classical treatment," the quaint variety of the
mouldings, some of them (those in the ambulatory) recalling
Norman work in the mosques of the tenth century at
Cairo ; and then go back again, and contrast the exquisite
delicacy of the Early English capitals near the north-west
corner. The stone is of a soft dove colour. It came from
Binstead, in the Isle of Wight, brought, as the general
tradition tells, in carts across the Solent at low tide, by a
causeway which ran from Yarmouth to near Lymington.
The church, to give more precise details, is 263 feet
long, and at the transept 1 3 1 feet wide ; the width of the
nave is 86 feet, and the height of the chancel arch about
55 feet The Dedication Chapel, now pulled down,
extended about 40 feet further to the east.
Now that we have taken in some of the general
character of the building, we may begin to trace out its
history. How deep these ancient foundations drive their
roots into the history of our land ! Under our feet, as we
stand in the centre of the nave, lie the remains of a Roman
villa, ruined and forgotten before ever the first stone of
the abbey was placed here. Possibly one other relic of
that time is preserved in the church. In 1839 a grave
was being dug in the side aisle, near the Abbess's door ;
at four feet deep, the sexton came upon masses of
masonry which were believed to be the foundations of
an earlier church than the present Norman Abbey.
Underneath these again was a leaden coffin, apparently
160 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
of extreme antiquity, lying north and south. It contained
the skeleton of a girl which the first breath of air crumbled
into dust, leaving only a heavy plait of brilliant auburn
hair (still preserved in the church) almost as bright and
shining as when the body was first laid to rest, perhaps
1,500 years ago. A coffin lying north and south points
to pre-Christian burial. Did the girl live in that Roman
house ?
When the floor was relaid a few years ago the
foundations of most of a previous Saxon church were
found, evidently left by the Norman builders to secure
a solid base for their columns in the gravel bed on which
the abbey stands. You can still see, by lifting a trap-door
in the floor near the pulpit, a part of the apse which
formed the east end of the Saxon church. The earliest
Christian building was, no doubt, a wooden one, built, as
the chronicler tells us, by King Edward the Elder. This
was replaced in 967 by the first stone church, and this
church in its turn was pulled down about 1130, to make
way for the Norman building in which we stand. Happily,
those Norman builders did not destroy all that they found.
In the east wall of the south chancel aisle, over
the side altar, is a Saxon carving in white stone
representing the Crucifixion, and done in high relief.
There are many indications of an early date for
this. The figure of our Lord has a beardless face ; the
limbs are unbent ; two attendant angels are placed on
the limbs of the Cross ; below are the Virgin and St. John,
the soldier with the sponge and vessel of vinegar, and
Longinus the centurion with the spear. We are told that
King Edgar gave a gilt crucifix to the abbey. It may
be this one, despoiled of its jewels, of which some of the
lead sockets remain ; and, if so, we still have that crucifix
in wonderful preservation. There is yet another
memorial of those Saxon times. Go out by the Abbess's
door in the south wall of the church, and you will
be standing where once the nuns' dormitory looked
ROMSEY ABBEY 161
out upon the cloister-garth. There you will find, built
into the west wall of the transept, an almost life-sized
figure of our Lord upon the Cross. The exact date is
uncertain, but the treatment is distinctly Byzantine in
character, resembling the roods of Headbourne Worthy
and Breamore, and no example of a crucifix treated exactly
in this style is found later than the eleventh century.1 It
is worth while to notice here the difference between the
earlier and later types of crucifixes. The modern type
presents us with the figure of the Saviour dead or dying.
It is an appeal to our pity, our gratitude. " Behold and
see," it seems to say, " if there be any sorrow like unto My
sorrow." This represents the living Christ. The head
is erect, the eyes are open. There are no nails, only
wounds in hands and feet The arms are outspread to
call the wanderers home. Still there is the Cross, and from
above the Father's hand is outstretched from the cloud as
if to point — " This is My beloved Son." It is Christ risen
and glorified, yet " reigning from the Tree."
Let us go back a thousand years. It is in the year of
grace 907. Romsey is as yet, what its name implies,
" the island among the marshes,"2 the gravelly soil among
the streams and marshes of the Test. There are but the
ruins of the Roman villa, perhaps a few huts of half -wild
tribesmen, and all around the thick woods and open downs.
Here the Princess ^Ethelflaeda, the eldest grand-daughter
of the great Alfred, comes with her twelve companions to
devote herself to the worship of God, and the care of His
poor. And so her father, King Edward the Elder, builds
for her a church; and here she lived, and lies somewhere
close beside us, though in an unknown grave. The years
roll on, and once again a king is at work here, this time
rebuilding Romsey. Edgar the Peaceful restores the
church which his grandfather had built. It is consecrated
1 See p. 1 20, and Victoria County History, ii., p. 240. The Hand coming
from the cloud is found on coins of Ethelred II., 990.
2 Ruimne (Celtic), marsh ; eye, island.
M
162 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
with great state on Christmas Day, 974, in the presence
of the King and many of the chief nobles. Peter de
Langtoft sings his praise in somewhat uncouth verses : —
Mikille he worschiped God and served our Lady,
The Abbey of Rumsege he feffed richly ;
With rentes full gode, and kirkes of pris,
He did [place] therin of nonnes a hundred ladies.
But only thirty years later all the labours and promise
of that re-foundation are swept away. It is a time of
misery and fear, by reason of the invasion of the Danes.
Elwina, the abbess, is praying at the High Altar. To
her there comes a Divine voice, which warns her that the
sea-wolves are on their march from Southampton to burn
and destroy, so she gathers her frightened nuns, and
seeks refuge within the walls of Winchester. The next
night Swegen, over whose brow the crown of England
is already hovering, and with him King Olaf, in after years
the Evangelist- Saint of Norway, swoop down from their
camp on Toot-hill, and the abbey goes up in flames to
the wintry sky, while Ethelred of Ill-rede and his troops
camp in cowardly indecision twenty miles away at Andover.
Twenty years more and the church rises again from
her ashes. Cnut, Swegen's son, has become a Christian,
and is busy building again the shrines his father burnt.
His Queen, Emma ^Elfgifu (the fairies' gift), gives bene-
factions to the church at Romsey.
It is almost a new England which meets us when we
look at Romsey again. Only seventy years have passed,
but the Norman holds the land, and the royal race of the
Saxon line is scattered far and wide. The ^Etheling has
gone with his two hundred knights into voluntary exile in
Apulia. Margaret, the saintly maid of Norway, has
become the wife of Malcolm III. of Scotland. Her sister,
Christina, is either the abbess or a nun of high degree at
Romsey. To her care St. Margaret sends her two fair
daughters, Eadgyth, whom we are to hear of afterwards
as Matilda the Good, and Mary. And so Romsey becomes
ROMSEY ABBEY 163
the home of the last hopes of the Saxon race.1 So Romsey
becomes a place of interest to the great Norman barons.
The man who should wed Matilda would secure a strong
position in the realm, for the King seems unlikely to
marry, and his brothers are provided for under the
Conqueror's will. Good Abbess Christina has much ado
to keep these suitors off from her fair ward, who in the
meantime, the old chronicler (William of Malmesbury) says,
" exercised her female breast with scholarship of every
kirtdr One day, however, Aunt Christina has genuine
cause for alarm. The cloisters resound to the rattle of
arms and the ring of spurs upon the stone ; the King
himself has come to see Eadgyth. Did the Abbess know
that she was already in love with Henry Beauclerc, the
Red King's brother? In any case, every effort must be
made to keep her from the eyes of Rufus. One chronicler
in his account even hints at fear of the Red King's
violence. The abbess is equal to the occasion. Into the
church with the dark robed nuns, clothed like them in
conventional garb, Eadgyth goes, and the day Office is
begun. " The Princess is at her devotions ; she cannot
see you," says the brave abbess, quaking, no doubt,
inwardly the while. " Come into the cloister, and I will
show you my roses." So the evil King goes on to his
sudden death in the forest, only eight miles away, and a
few months later, the joy bells ring out at Westminster for
the marriage of Matilda and King Henry I.
Henry wedded Dame Molde, that kyng was and sire,
Saint Anselme, men tolde, corouned hym and hire,
The corounyng of Henry, and of Molde that may-
den at London was solemply, on Seynt Martyn's Day.
— Langtoft.
And now a pathetic figure flits across the scene.
Mary, daughter of King Stephen, becomes Abbess of
1 This accounts for the late Norman of the architecture. Other cathedrals
and abbeys were by this time in full process of re-building, but Romsey, with
its Saxon sympathies, would be passed by. The rising tide only reaches it
after the marriage of Matilda.
164 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Romsey in 1160, and many a busy month goes by while
the new abbey rises in place of the old Saxon church, under
the superintendence of her uncle, the great Prince, Bishop,
and Architect, Henry of Blois.1 She is abbess for just five
years, and then disappears. Her name is blotted out of
the abbey register. She has renounced her vows, and,
perhaps swayed more by the political aims of Henry II.
than by her own inclinations, has married her cousin,
Matthew of Alsace. Ten years of stormy married life
appear to have been her lot, and then once more the cloister
receives her, and she dies in the abbey of Montreuil.
So the years roll on, and round the abbey grows up the
town. Domesday Book pictures it for us as a little settle-
ment, comprising some two thousand acres of cultivated
land, and inhabited by about a hundred people, and " the
abbey of Romesyg holds the whole township in which the
church is placed." By the thirteenth century, it has grown
to a good-sized town, and the life of the abbess of Romsey
is indeed a busy one. She has some twelve estates to
manage, and the patronage of many churches. She prac-
tically owns the town of Romsey and its trades. She
dispenses justice through her courts of law. She has the
right of hanging criminals in the market place, and,
perhaps greatest of all, the task of order and discipline
among her hundred nuns, her singing priests, her servants
and retainers, and the many guests who found shelter and
hospitality within her walls.
The fifteenth century draws on apace. The story of
the great abbey gets dark and sad. One abbess quickly
succeeds another. The Black Death takes its awful toll
alike of nuns and clergy and people. The Bishop comes
from time to time to hold enquiries as to scandals, and
to preach the blessings of a holy life. Bishop Orlton, of
Winchester, for instance, comes in state, and preaches
1 For more about Henry of Blois, see p. 13, and the papers on " Wolvesey "
and "St. Cross."
ROMSEY ABBtfV 165
in the Chapter House to the nuns upon the text :
" And they that were ready went in with him to the
marriage, and the door was shut." Reforms are carried
through, matters are righted for another fifty years, but,
the clouds darken over it again. Evil deeds and loose
ways creep within the sacred precincts. In the reign of
Henry VII, 1502, an enquiry is held into the state
of the abbey under Elizabeth Brooke. It is a miserable
and sordid story that the Bishop's registers unfold.
One by one the nuns are examined, touching the
scandals which are said to have arisen. Their evidence
is a strange mixture of godly sorrow on the part
of some that such things can be, and paltry back-
stairs gossip and malice from the rest. The abbess
had fallen under the evil influence of a certain Master
Bryce, chaplain of the infirmary. Large sums are
not accounted for ; repairs to the church are neglected ;
the rain comes in upon the nuns in their dormitory ; while
the abbess drinks with Master Bryce in her private rooms.
There are rumours of even worse things going on. Out
of it all comes a conviction that the spirit of holiness has
passed away ; the doom of such a convent cannot be long
withheld. The abbess is deposed indeed, but her successor
is no better ; and when at last a vigorous reform sets in
under Abbess Ryprose, it is too late. A wider Reformation
is at work. One after another, the Acts for the Dissolution
of the Monasteries are passed. Nothing,, indeed, by fair
means or foul, can now be alleged against Romsey, but
envious eyes are cast upon its rich possessions. Men
beside whose evil lives the sins of the abbess and her
nuns are small indeed cringe and toady to the King for
a share of the plunder. The very 'people whom the abbey
employs are the first to suggest its spoliation. " First you
shall onderstande," writes John Foster, of Baddesley, the
convent steward, to Lord High Admiral Seymour, one
of the greediest of them all, "that the house is out of
dette ; also the plate and Jewells is worth 300 li. and
166 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
better ; VI. belles be worth c. li. at the least ; also the
church is a great sumptuous Thynge, all of freestone, and
covered with lede, which as I esteme it is worth iij. or
iiij. cli. or rather myche better."
So the convent of St ^Ethelflaeda of Romsey, after six
hundred years of chequered history, comes to an end.
Let us not judge it harshly. It had done its work ; " the
old order changeth, giving place to new " ; and its closing
chapter was unhappily a miserable ending to a noble
history. But the faults of their declining years ought
not to blind our judgment to the splendid work and
noble lives of the monastic bodies throughout the greater
part of their history. Romsey is still reaping some at
least of the good which they achieved. The provision for
religious ministrations to the parish was made by one of
the abbesses, and still remains, and a large portion of the
abbey estates has passed into the hands of the Ecclesias-
tical Commissioners, and is administered for the Church's
good. Above all, the great church which they built
for the glory of God still stands as of old. By an act of
public spirit somewhat rare in those days, the parishioners
came forward, and saved it from the fate which befel so
many. A royal deed, still preserved in the vestry, records
how they bought it from the King for their parish church.
And the town which we have seen grow up under the
easy and beneficent rule of the abbesses of Romsey had
been through all these later years gradually learning the
art of self-government. The reins of authority drop from
the hands of the last abbess, only to be immediately taken
up by the municipal officers. Even while Henry VIII. is
still reigning, we begin to hear of a mayor and councillors.
Our last thought of the abbey shall be one of gladness
and promise. The church is filled with an enthusiastic
people, who now claim it as their own. They are gathered
to welcome King James L, who comes to listen to a sermon
ROMSEY ABBpy 167
from the saintly Bishop Andrewes, and to grant a charter
of incorporation to the ancient borough of Romsey.
So the memories of the past go trooping by, while we
have been sitting here, dreaming of other days. The
shadows have been creeping up from aisle to vault, and
the great piers and arches seem vaster in the gathering
gloom. Then softly comes a murmur of chiming bells,
and lights begin to gleam as the candles are lit for Even-
song ; and soon we hear sweet voices in the choir singing
the evening Psalms. This is a true type indeed of the
immemorial part which the Church has played. One by
one, the generations come and go. Here, for a little while,
they bring their hopes and fears, their passions and regrets,
and then they pass on into the silences beyond. But amid
all the changes and all the failures, the Church still lifts
her perpetual round of worship and intercession :
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.
J. COOKE YARBOROUGH.
CHRISTCHURCH TWYNHAM
BY GEORGE BROWNEN
HE ancient borough of Christchurch — or, to give
it its name in full, Christchurch Twynham — is
situated near the extreme western border of the
Hampshire coast. The most populous part of the
borough is between the rivers Avon and Stour, which unite
below the Priory to fall into the sea. The Avon is
sixty-one miles in length. It rises near Roundaway Down,
drains the chalk of Salisbury Plain, the green sands of the
Vale of Pewsey, and the tertiaries from Fordingbridge
to the sea, and flows within sight of Old Sarum and
Stonehenge. The Stour rises in Somerset, quickly enters
Dorset, and after a flow of fifty-four miles unites with
the Avon at Christchurch to form an estuary.
From this physiographic position we might expect to
find the locality of great importance in prehistoric times,
when rivers were roadways ; and our expectations are sup-
ported by the huge earthworks on hill and cliff, while the
numerous tumuli of the Stone and Bronze Ages in the
neighbourhood indicate that the locality was early appre-
ciated, though how early none can now tell. Guarding the
estuary, and near the headland now known as Hengisbury
or Hengistbury Head, but called in the. eleventh and
twelfth century charters " Hedenes buria," are huge earth-
works called " the double dykes," connecting the rivers and
the sea, and forming an inner line or landward defence;
but the seaward complement of these entrenchments has
long ago fallen into the sea. The double dykes are twenty
168
CHRISTCHURCH TWVNHAM 169
or thirty feet high, and could still screen a large military
force, if necessary.
A mile or more north of Christchurch is Katterns
—usually called St. Katherine's — Hill (Kader Ryn — the
fort of the run or rivers). On this elevated plateau there
are traces of a British hill town, with its outlying ramparts
and watch towers, a Roman exploratory camp, and the
foundations of a mediaeval chapel of St. Katherine. The
view from this hill (about a hundred and twenty-five feet
above the sea) extends for miles up the valley ; and tumuli,
camps, and other relics of bygone ages are in sight. To
this we may add the names of Danestream, Derrit Lane,
etc., and fragmentary folklore, all indicative that Saxon,
Viking, and other piratical adventurers must often have
found and raided the district.
In the Saxon Chronicle, after the record of King
Alfred's death in 901, it is stated that Ethelwold the
^Etheling disputed the succession and choice of Edward
the Elder by the Witan, for which revolt Ethelwold seized
Wimborne and Tweoxna or Twynham. The revolt
speedily collapsed, and the peace of Yttingaford, in 906,
was probably made a little way south of the town, where
hostile camps face each other across the estuary of the
two rivers. The name Tweoxna or Twinham was modified
by the Norman into Thuinam, and later still Twynham,
which means the two towns, that is to say, either the towns
on the head and hill, with a common pasturage valley
between them, or the King's Town and the Monks' Town,
as they appear in the Domesday Record. From the
ecclesiastical re-arrangements in the twelfth century, the
name Christchurch was associated with that of Twynham,
and then supplanted it, so that nowadays, except by anti-
quaries, Twynham is a discarded name.
The town is in the form of a capital L, and in the
centre, near the angle, are the ruins of a mediaeval castle
built by the De Redvers, Earls of Devon. The castellan's
house, roofless, and partly destroyed, stands by its moat-
i/o MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
stream, supplied by the Avon. The house is rectangular,
with the base of a square tower, formerly commanding a
drawbridge, and a wall containing round-headed windows
and a circular chimney, said to be the earliest domestic
chimney now existent in England. Across the castle yard,
now laid out as a bowling green, on the western side of
the enclosure, is an artificial mound, about twenty feet in
height, of prehistoric date, and upon this mound are the
east and west walls of a massive stone keep, about twenty
feet high by ten feet thick, roughly but strongly built
of uncut stones. It was a previous keep that was seized by
the revolter, Ethelwold, since the present castle was
erected by Richard De Redvers at the beginning of the
twelfth century. King John, on two occasions at least,
visited this castle, and held his court within its walls, but
most of his royal successors who have visited the town
have preferred the hospitality of the prior to that of the
castellan.
This castle is not directly connected with important
events in our national history. It was the scene of a
dispute and massacre in the reign of King Stephen, and
of a slight skirmish of an indecisive character in the Civil
War of 1645, but as the castle is not on any of the great
roads of the country, the earlier troubles of the Barons
and the Roses seem to have passed it by.
The chief attraction in Christchurch is its noble priory
church, visible for miles up the valleys and far out to sea.
This church (or, rather, churches, as we shall presently
see that it is), with its adjacent monastery, lies directly
south of the castle, and between it and the estuary. In
point of fact, the castle was no defence for the church and
monastery. Clearly, therefore, when the ecclesiastical
settlement was made, no raiders from the sea of the Viking
type were anticipated. When this settlement was first
made, and the first church erected, we have no record.
Our oldest reference is the Domesday Book, which records
a monastery in existence, and holding estates in Hampshire
CHRISTCHURCH TWYNHAM 171
and the Isle of Wight, during the reign of Edward the
Confessor (1042-66). As regards the manors in the Isle
of Wight, Domesday Book states that this property
" always belonged " to the Twynham monastery. Clearly,
therefore, in 1086 the exact year of the grant was lost,
and at a distance of more than eight centuries we cannot
hope to recover it.
But we may, perhaps, find a clue in the fact that the
Isle of Wight was conquered and in part assigned to
ecclesiastical foundations by Caedwalla and Ina, Kings of
Wessex in the seventh and eighth centuries. In fact, it
was a sister of the last-named King who became associated
with the Wimborne nunnery, only twelve miles off, and
upon the same river Stour. At any rate, from the liability
to Viking raids down to the time of the Confessor, when
we find a flourishing monastic institution at Twynham,
we might reasonably expect the positions of castle and
monastery to be the reverse of what we find as existent.
Further, as Professor Freeman1 points out, the Twynham
convent was a monastic settlement, having a central church
or minster, with "nine others in the churchyard, as well as
houses for the canons." Twynham must then have " looked
more like Glendalough or Clonmacnois than like anything
else we are used to in England." From the days of the
Confessor to the Red King, the monks were secular, not
regular, Austin Canons. They are styled " honest and
virtuous," and as fulfilling the requirements of a missionary
church to the villages around, from Lymington to Poole,
and as far inland as Ringwood.
From the cartulary of the monastery — now in the
British Museum— which was written in the fourteenth
century, and from which we derive most of our older
information, and from royal examinations and amplifications
of the ancient charters by the Plantagenet Kings, we find
that William Rufus gave the monastery to his Chancellor,
the famous Ralph Flambard. This charter is witnessed
1 English Towns and Districts, p. 169.
172 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
by Walkelyn, Bishop of Winchester, and Anselm, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. Clearly, therefore, this must have
taken place between the years 1093 and 1097, since after
this Walkelyn was dead and Anselm abroad, and the
year of gift was probably nearer to the earlier than
the later date. Whether Flambard became the religious
head as well as owner of the monastery, is doubtful. He
knew the place, however, for Domesday shows him to
be one of the ejected landholders from the New Forest
in 1086, and from a place within the ministrations of
the monastery. It was, however, in the turbulent reign
of Rufus that Flambard became the all-powerful political
agent and chancellor, and it was at this time that he formed
the idea of remodelling and rebuilding the monastery,
which is expressly stated to be " old and dilapidated." It
is quite possible that the project was upon strategic or
political grounds rather than religious, or as an ecclesiastical
defence of the coast-line of the Forest from foreign foes
like Robert. At any rate, from Lymington to Poole, " all
is the parish of Christchurch, and all the churches . . .
to Dorset pertain with their tithes to the church of
Christchurch" (CartuL z., 199).
The exact methods of reconstruction at this period are
somewhat obscure, and have been made more so by modern
confusion of dates. Keeping the necessary limitations of
particular events in mind, the outline seems somewhat as
follows-. — The connexion of Flambard with the monas-
tery, if it really occurred, must be placed in the reign of
the Conqueror, before 1086, and it is quite possible that
Flambard may have become reconciled to his losses by
the more congenial tasks and profits in the making of the
Domesday record which paved his way to the chancellery.
Next, at an uncertain date, but certainly before the one
commonly assigned (1099), "Father" Godric became the
Twynhamite monastic head. In the reign of Rufus, the
Chancellor Flambard, between the years 1093-7, obtains
the monastery in commendam. Flambard now comes into
CHRISTCHURCH TWVNHAM 173
conflict with Godric, for he wishes to rebuild the monastery
by withholding appointments and by appropriation of local
funds. The expenditure was to be cut down to a minimum.
The funds were to be pooled for a fabric fund, and a.
mint made in the town. Of course, Father Godric pro-
tested and resisted, but' the all-powerful Flambard ejected
him, though he reinstated him upon subsequent submission.
In a short time, Godric and nine other monks were dead,
and their perquisites were assigned to the building fund.
There is no suggestion that Flambard had personally
appropriated this money. All this happened before
August, noo, and the premature death of Rufus in the
New Forest; for within a month — in September, iioo —
Flambard was a prisoner in the Tower of London. Soon
afterwards, Henry I. sacrilegiously seized and appropriated
the Twynhamite building funds, and appointed a new
monastic chief, named Gilbert de Dousgunels, a feeble
court puppet. Nine more death vacancies occurred, and
the monastery was reduced to five canons. This was its
lowest point. From the cartulary, it would seem as if
all the old building, except such as was absolutely neces-
sary for life and worship, had been demolished, and very
little new erections even begun. This stagnation lasted
a few years. Father Gilbert went abroad to beg and
died, so the way became open for a stronger man.
Somewhere between 1104-8, Henry I. gave the lordship
to Richard de Redvers, one of his great barons. Flambard
also had made his peace with Henry, and gone to his
Durham bishopric, and it is a curious fact that Flambard
and De Redvers appear together as witnesses to a royal
charter, though not to Twynham. Although Henry was
unable or unwilling to refund, yet -Redvers seemed willing
to endow, and Flambard, no doubt, to co-operate. The
way was, therefore, re-opened for Twynhamite re-erections.
Earl Richard de Redvers placed his chaplain, Peter de
Oglander, as head over the monks, and under his rule and
that of his successor, Ralph, parts of the church and convent
174 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
were roofed over. The arrangements seem to have been
that as much of the monastic revenues as possible was
appropriated to the fabric fund, and that this was supple-
mented by Earl Richard's gifts of rentals, lands, and fees.
In point of fact, this may be considered as the commence-
ment of the new era of endowments, while Flambard, until
his death in 1128, supplied the architectural genius, and
probably improved or modified his older designs, and
so experimented and safeguarded his greater works at
Durham.
The turbulent reign of King Stephen saw another
important change at Twynham. Hitherto, the monastery
had been in the hands of seculars, but from this period it
became a house of canons regular, under the rule of a
prior. To effect this, Hilary, the senior canon at
Twynham, was made Bishop of Chichester. He had
previously been chaplain to Henry of Blois, Bishop of
Winchester, and so, during this vacancy, with royal,
baronial, and ecclesiastical consent, the convent was
brought under the regular Augustinian rule. Its first prior,
Reginald, was remembered as a benefactor, and he lies
buried in the central passage of the nave, just in front
of Prior Draper II., the twenty-sixth and last prior of
Christchurch. The priory, therefore, existed for three
hundred and eight-nine years, from 1150 to 1539.
These twenty-six priors were no doubt important local
men in their day, but none of them became eminent
theologians or statesmen. Several of them are represented
by sepulchral slabs in the church, as Priors Maury (1286),
Wodenham (1397), Borard (1398), Talbot (1420), Eyre
(1520), and Draper II. (1552). Prior Quinton, in 1293,
was an executor of the will of Isabella de Fortibus,
Countess of Albemarle, and last of the house of De
Redvers. Prior Busthorne was deposed by Bishop Orlton
within four months of his nomination in 1337. Prior
Henry Eyre, in 1367, became blind, and was allowed a
coadjutor in John de Wodenham, who succeeded Eyre
CHRISTCHURCH TWYNHAM 175
in 1375. Wodenham and seven of his monks were charged
with heresy and other crimes in the time when Lollardy
and Wickliffism were strong in the land. John Draper II.
resigned the monastery to the commissioners of
Henry VIII. in 1539, and improved his pecuniary position
as being " a very honest and conformable person." Henry
VIIL, after realising what he could, gave the living to the
newly-constituted Dean and Chapter of Winchester. The
records and keys were given to a member of the Powlett
family. The first man put in possession was William
Avery ; a little later Stephen Kirton, goldsmith, of London,
owned it ; and so the priory became divorced from its
associate church — a condition of things lasting until the
present time.
One of the ejected Twynhamite Canons named Thomas
Hancock, M.A., Oxon, was known to Cranmer and Knox,
and became a famous gospeller of the time. His autobio-
graphy is among the Fox MSS. in the British Museum,
and is typical of the Reformation epoch. Hancock has
been styled " The Luther of the West of England." The
Dean and Chapter of Winchester sold the living in 1799
to the Earl of Malmesbury.
As regards the literary memorials of the monastic house
of Twynham, the fabric rolls and most of the work of the
monkish copyists are lost. The cartulary of the priory
in two large folio volumes is fortunately preserved in the
British Museum. It was nearly lost in the fire at Ashburn-
ham House, but its scorched pages have been admirably
restored. The date of its compilation is given (vol. ii.,
p. 134) as follows: —
Anno milhsimo tricenteno d^iodeno
Et sexageno Domini dictamine pleno,
Ad laudem Christi finis libra datur isti
Sps (spiritus} auctoris hinc gaudeat omnibus horis.
It is a fine calligraphic work awaiting translation. A copy
of the chronicle of Robert of Torigni has recently been
recognised in the Cambridge University library as coming
176 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
from Twynham. Thomas Cromwell " borrowed " Bede
and another volume from the Twynham Library in 1535.
Cromwell " wanted " also the works of William of Malmes-
bury, and Prior Draper promised to send them shortly, and
no doubt did so. Where are these copies? This gives
quite another colour to the tradition that the monks were
illiterate, and only had one book in the library at the
dissolution. Transcription was an employment in most,
if not all ancient monasteries, but in the sixteenth century
most of these works were destroyed or lost. Of post-
reformation time, the earliest known local work is
Hancock's, of 1562 and 1582; still later is Vicar
Warner's Diatriba fustificantis, printed at Oxford in
11547, which we believe heads the list of local modern
authors.
The vicarage of Christchurch was created in 1 1 50, and
Prior H. Eyre informed the Bishop in 1359 that the
vicariate had been re-arranged and augmented in 1312.
The vicar then was under the control of the prior, and
lived near the church court. His annual stipend in cash,
food, and other matters for" himself, servant, and house
was equivalent to £28 2s. lod. This was altered by
Henry VIII. in his 1541 arrangements to £16 a year for
the vicar, and £8 a year for a curate to help him in the
services. The names of fifteen vicars from the beginning
of the fourteenth century to the Reformation are known,
and eighteen vicars in succession have held the preferment
since that date.
As a parish church the buildings now form one of the
largest, if not really the largest, in England, and they are
of peculiar interest, as exhibiting all styles of architecture,
from the rough horse-shoe arcading in the crypts to the
sixteenth century work in the chantries. Viewed from
without the church seems somewhat disappointing and
incomplete, in consequence of its great length, unrelieved
by a central tower at the union of the gable and flat roofs.
But it must be remembered that the long building is really
CHRISTCHURCH TWYNHAM 177
three churches — the western being the parochial, dedicated
to the Holy Trinity, the central the monastic, dedicated to
Christ, and the eastern, or Chapel of the Blessed Virgin,
a manorial church. It is also a fact that the stump of a
central tower still exists, uniting the Norman nave with
the older choir and monastic church. It is 'well seen at
the intersection of the nave and transepts where the
rounded massive Norman arches rise high above the early
English clerestory of the nave. The tradition is that the
central tower fell early in the thirteenth century, and
destroyed in its fall the existent monastic church containing
the Redvers chantry. A little later, this monastic church
was rebuilt as the present choir, and it actually contains
the crypt and tombs of the earlier erection. The eastern
end was originally an apse, but a little later the Lady
chapel was added through the interests of the Montacutes
and Wests, the manorial lords. This most easterly portion
of the church was squared off at its eastern end, and con-
nected with the nave by the north and south choir-aisles,
which are outside of the monastic choir. About this time
chantries were erected, and alterations effected on the
eastern side of the north transept, and lastly, the present
western tower was built. From the monastic seals
and certain stone bosses in the church it would seem as
if the central tower consisted of a low square stump,
capped by a spire surmounted by a cross and ball. Each
corner of the cruciform church is represented as bearing
small finial towers, most of which have disappeared also ;
and so the present unrelieved length of 3 1 1 feet, finished
only on its extreme western end by a tower 120 feet in
height, inserted in rather than attached to the nave, gives
some resemblance to a gigantic railway engine.
The analysis of the exterior of the church discovers
important alterations. The eastern side of the north
transept was formerly apsidal like the south transept.
The north front of the north transept still retains its
beautiful arcading and tracery, especially round its turret
N
178 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
tower, but its Norman round-headed windows have been
destroyed, and a huge, ugly, nondescript window inserted
at a higher elevation. In the nave north wall the old
Norman windows of the aisle have been remodelled on the
Early English type in keeping with the upper clerestory,
but the intervening lights of the triforium still retain
their rounded shape. The north porch, the principal
entrance to the church, is a grand massive structure of
two stories, elaborately ornamented. Before the present
tower was erected, the parvise, or upper story, of this
porch was probably the bell-loft of the later De Redvers'
time. The present tower was erected by the Montacutes,
whose armorial bearings may be seen on the spandrels
of the west door, and high up on this face of the
tower in a canopied niche is an image of the thorn-crowned
Saviour in benediction, considerably older than the tower
itself, and formerly standing over the western porch.
The west end of the nave was destroyed for the insertion
of this tower. The monastic wall runs further west,
inclosing domestic buildings and the massive pillars of the
ancient gateway of the convent. On the weather-beaten
south side of the church are the markings of dormitories
and cloisters demolished "as useless." The present
"priory" was made a private residence about 1780, and
the only noteworthy features are blocked doorways.
Entering the church we find that it is composed of
a nave, choir with aisles and chantries, transepts without
aisles, but possessing eastern chantries in each wing, a
Lady chapel, and a tower. The incised sepulchral slab
of Prior Wodenham, who died in 1397, is just within the
church door. A capital in the nave is carved with the
wyvern cognizance of the De Redvers previous to 1184.
The parochial altar of Holy Trinity formerly stood in the
nave, and it was consecrated I2th November, 1214, by
Walter, Bishop of Whithern, in Galloway. The monastic
high altar of the Holy Saviour was consecrated in the
earlier choir or monastic church on 2Qth December, 1195,
CHRISTCHURCH TWYNHAM 179
by the Bishop of Ross. This probably dates the com-
pletion of the canons' church. Other altars named in the
cartulary are of the Holy Cross, B.V.M., Holy Sepulchre,
St. John Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, St. Stephen,
St Thomas, St. Martin, SS. Augustine and Gregory,
St. Michael, St. Nicholas, and St. Edmund.
Separating the choir from the nave and transept is a
fine but much-defaced stone rood-screen of the fourteenth
century. The canons' stalls, with quaintly carved miseri-
cordes, are fifteen on either side of the choir; six
more, including the prior's and sub-prior's, are at the
west end. The roof is richly vaulted and coloured, and
some of the northern windows contain ancient heraldic
glass. On the foot-pace are some despoiled sepulchral
slabs, and just within the presbytery the slab of a De
Redvers with this inscription in gothic letters : —
n fift TEiffi £omifi0 ©etxmie.
Baldwin died September ist, 1216, during his father's
earldom. This is the oldest dated monumental slab in the
church, and a relic of the earlier choir over the family vault
The reredos is a Vine of Jesse giving the Saviour's
pedigree, and is in size and finish one of the most remark-
able in the kingdom. It should be compared with the
later ones of Winchester and St Albans. It is flanked
on the south by the Malmesbury altar tombs instead of
sedilia. On the north is the exquisite .but sadly
mutilated chantry of Margaret Pole, who was executed on
Tower Hill in 1541. In the north choir aisle are the
chantries of the Montacutes and Berkeleys, and in the south
aisle the chantries of Redvers and Harris, and a peculiar
sacristy often miscalled a leper chapel — an obvious absur-
dity. In the retro-choir is the recumbent alabaster
monument of the Chidiocks, relations of the Berkeleys,
Wests, and Stourtons, lying near. By the south side is
the Draper chantry, dated 1552, and initialed. In the Lady
Chapel are Decorated sedilia, and altar tombs of early
i8o MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
fifteenth century Wests, ancestors of the De la Warrs.
The ancient altar of the Virgin is still in situ, decorated
above by a much mutilated reredos ; and high up, above
the vaulted roof, is St. Michael's Loft, probably a relic
room, then a chapel, afterwards a school, and now disused.
The chief benefactors since the Conquest were, first, the
De Redvers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; next
the Montacutes and Berkeleys of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries ; and the Wests, Nevilles, and Poles of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Besides these
benevolent barons, we learn from the Cartulary State
Papers that gifts by royal charter were made to the prior
and convent by William II., Stephen, Henry II., Richard L,
John, Edward L, Edward II, Edward III, Richard II.,
Henry IV., Henry V, and Henry VI. With the coming
of the Tudors, the charters ceased, and the era of spoliation
drew near. Then the monks were dismissed with pensions,
their effects sold up, and the conventual buildings de-
molished. The commissioners found seven bells in the
tower, and professed to leave five, but only left two. About
two thousand ounces of gold "and silver plate besides other
robberies were "reserved for the Crown."
The troublous times of the Civil War scarcely affected
Christchurch. John Imber, vicar, was temporarily ejected,
and John Warner appointed in his place. Cromwell made
a grant of oak timber from the New Forest for some
necessary repairs. Constant restoration, indeed, of such
a composite structure is absolutely necessary.
Of legends there are many. One states that the church
was built upon Kattern's Hill, near the old Belgic township,
and what was erected by day was removed into the valley
at night. This may possibly mean that the civil and
ecclesiastical authorities could not agree together, arid that
as at Old Sarum later on, the monks moved off the water-
less hill to the fertile valley below. If so, they were wise.
Again, there was a workman of the silent type, ever
at work but never at play, and this too may not involve
CHRISTCHURCH TWY&HAM 181
the miraculous. Possibly he was a Norman architect or
clerk of the works, speaking only Norman, and representing
Flambard or De Redvers in superintending the work of the
Saxon serf. Another legend of a lengthened beam in the
eastern portion of the church is a late production, and is
manifestly borrowed from the Apocryphal Gospels. The
relics were many, and their power to heal, according to the
Malmesbury annalist, very great.
The borough of which the priory is the parish church
is also of remote antiquity. It is called a " burh "
in Domesday, and the earlier De Redvers gave the
burgesses sundry privileges, lands, and customs during their
respective lordships in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
These liberties were confirmed to the burgesses by the
Crown before the transfer to the house of Montacute.
Further charters were granted by Henry VI, Edward VI,
Elizabeth, and Charles II., and are mentioned in the
records. In the turbulent time of the Wars of the Roses,
1476, Henry Godying, Maryer (Mayor), is wanted for high
treason. The old minute book of the Corporation pro-
fesses to give " ye accompts of ye Major and his brethren,
ye Burgesses of ye saide Borrough," from the first " yeare of
Henry VII. anno 1485 " ; but its list of mayors only begins
in 1598, though names are known at an earlier date. The
book, therefore, was not the earliest record. The old mace
and other civic valuables were lost in the seventeenth
century. The present mace was a gift of Mayor Hastings
in 1662. The seal is a round one, with the central figure
of Christ seated, and the legend : " SI . COMVNE . VILLE .
XPI . ECCLIE . DE . TWINHAM." The Parliamentary fran-
chise was peculiar. Edward I. purchased the lordship from
Isabella de Fortibus in 1292, and in 1307 the King sum-
moned burgesses to his Parliament at Carlisle, and his suc-
cessor, Edward II, to his Nottingham Parliament. The
town pleaded poverty, and was excused on both occasions.
In the reign of Elizabeth, the writ was revived against the
Spaniard, and from 1572 until the Reform Bill of 1831,
1 82 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
the town sent two Members to each Parliament, except
that in the time of the Protectorate, as now, one only was
returned. Christchurch is now little more than the one
interesting suburb of the modern town of Bournemouth, but
Bournemouth's Member is still the Member for Christ-
church.
The charter of Baldwin de Redvers the younger,
confirming the grants of his predecessors, with further
endowments by himself, to the Twynham Monastery
(dr. 1 1 60), has recently been found by W. Jeans, Esq.,
of Christchurch, and is now on view in the Priory Church.
It is in good preservation, about two-thirds of its seal
bearing the wyvern badge of the early De Redvers is still
attached. A free translation of the charter is also
appended, and amongst its points of local interest are the
usage of the name Christchurch in the middle of the
twelfth century ; Jardano, an unknown prior of Breamore ;
salterns at Milford, etc.
G. BROWNEN.
BEAULIEU ABBEY
BY MRS. WlLLINGHAM RAWNSLEY
JF we follow the course of the tiny brook that rises
near Minstead Manor, and flows, now through alder-
thickets, now through low-lying grass-land or bogs
in which the red-brown tufts of heather stand out
like islands, we shall find it joined by many tributaries
in its winding course across miles of open heath, and see
it widening into a considerable stream when it reaches
the meadow-land, and flows into the open reach above
Beaulieu.
In this remote valley, between the Forest and the sea,
where red-roofed cottages nestle amongst sheltering trees
and bright gardens, only some gray, ruined, ivy-clad walls
remain to tell us that here once stood one of the proudest
and most powerful of the English monastic foundations.
It was a Cistercian Abbey, which has the rare distinction
of being founded by King John in 1204, in consequence,
it is said, of a terrible dream. He gave a hundred marks
towards the cost of the buildings, besides endowing the
Abbey with large grants of land and cattle, probably taken
from someone else, and presented it with a gold chalice.
He is said to have intended it to be the place of his burial.
It was peopled with thirty monks from the parent house
of the Cistercian Order at Citeaux.
His son, Henry III., added grants of money and land,
as did his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the
Romans, whose first wife, Isabella, was buried here ; and
183
1 84 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
he and his Queen attended in state the opening of the
Abbey in 1246, it having occupied no less than forty
years in building. Before the foundation of the Cister-
cian Abbey, tradition says that a Hospital of the Knights
of St. John of Jerusalem already existed here. The
name Beaulieu, " Bellus Locus!' means, of course " fair
place " ; and, indeed, it is a " goodly heritage/' The site
presented many attractions, surrounded as it is by the
Forest, and easy of access from the side nearest the sea,
by means of the winding little tidal river, with its beautiful
banks luxuriantly wooded till they open out upon the
gleaming waters of the Solent.
This great Abbey enjoyed its powers and privileges
for about three centuries, until its dissolution in 1539.
Pope Innocent III., in the reign of Edward III., granted it
rights of sanctuary and freedom from episcopal jurisdic-
tion ; John and his son Henry granted the freedom of
the Cinque ports, and free-warren, or the right to kill any
deer that strayed from the Forest into the purlieus of
the Abbey; while the dogs belonging to the monastery
were exempt, by a privilege of Henry VII., from the cruel
forest law of " Expeditation."1
This right of sanctuary was very largely used during
the Wars of the Roses, and it is said that Anne Neville,
Countess of Warwick, fled for safety here after her
husband, the " King-maker," was killed at the Battle of
Barnet. Perkin Warbeck also took sanctuary here for a
time. Only a few years before its dissolution, when there
was a question of the appointment of a new Abbot, Lord
Audley wrote to the Duke of Suffolk on the subject,
urging that whoever was appointed should be " a man of
great gravity and circumspect, and not base of stomach
or faint of heart when need shall require, the place standeth
so wildly ; and it is a great sanctuary, and boundeth upon
a great forest and upon the sea coast, where sanctuary
l For this term, see the paper on "The New Forest," p. 82.
BEAULIEU ABBEY 185
men may do much displeasure if they be not very well
and substantially looked upon."
The Abbey, with all its adjacent demesnes, covered a
space of about twenty acres. By what is left of the walls,
now ruinous and ivy-grown, the various parts of the
monastery can still be distinctly traced. The beautiful
cloisters, with the remains of the pierced stone tracery
of their Decorated windows and arches, are now draped
with ivy and clematis, and thyme, wallflower, and wild
pink blossom in their crevices. The long building on the
upper story was once the monks' dormitory, and in the
field outside can be seen the foundations of the pillars
where once stood the great church. It consisted of a very
long but narrow nave with aisles, even longer than that
of Winchester Cathedral, a central tower, transepts with
aisles, and a short choir ending in a circular apse, with
procession-paths and chapels round it.1
Remains of the old fishponds may still be seen, and
of what was once the vineyard. For, strange as it may
seem now, in some of our monasteries even farther north
than this, as at Bury St. Edmunds and Peterborough,
a vineyard was a common feature of the establishment ;
and English grapes were grown, and wine or brandy made
from them in seasons when summers seem to have been
longer, and their suns hotter, than they are now.2
The refectory of the Abbey is now the Parish Church.
Not having been built as a church, it does not stand east
and west, but north and south. Its most interesting
object is a very curious and beautiful stone pulpit of the
latest Early English or earliest Decorated period, which
is approached by a long flight of steps in the hollow interior
of the wall. The panels are rich* with delicate flower
tracery. This was not a pulpit for preaching, but was the
1 The usual methods of construction of Cistercian Abbeys and their
distinctive customs will be treated more fully in the following paper on
"Netley Abbey."
2 But Lord Bute makes excellent wine at Cardiff Castle, which commands
a high price now.
1 86 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
rostrum from which the monk on duty would read
the Bible or homilies to the brethren as they sat at table.
The only other remaining pulpit of the kind in England
is in the refectory at Chester Cathedral.
Close to the road stands a beautiful old stone gateway,
thickly mantled with ivy, which was the Porter's Lodge
to the Abbey.
At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries by
Henry VIII. the Abbey was worth £326 a year, equivalent
to some £4,000 now, and more than twice as much as
Netley. The spoils were bestowed upon Thomas
Wriothesley, afterwards Earl of Southampton. In the
reign of William III. it became the property of Ralph,
Lord Montagu (afterwards Duke of Montagu), by marriage
with the heiress of the Wriothesleys ; and from the
Montagus it descended by marriage to the Dukes of
Buccleugh. Lord Montagu's present house includes what
was once the gatehouse to the Abbot's palace, and has
a fourteenth-century groined hall.
Two other relics still remain of this once famous and
wealthy Abbey. Two-and-a-half miles away, in the
direction of Lymington, is St. Leonard's Grange, once the
farm which supplied the Abbey with provisions. Here
are the ruins of an enormous barn, two hundred and
twenty-six feet long, of which the gable-ends are still
standing, overgrown with masses of ivy, and also all that
remains of what must have been an exquisitely finished
little Decorated chapel. A mile beyond this is another
abbey farm, now called Park Farm, which also had a chapel
attached to it; but this was destroyed about 1800, and
very few traces now remain.
ALICE RAWNSLEY.
NETLEY ABBEY
BY THE REV. W. A. C. CHEVALIER
GRACE WALPOLE, writing to Mr. Bentley,
says : —
How shall I describe Netley to you ? I can only by telling
you that it is the spot in the world which I wish. Oh ! the
purpled Abbots ! what a spot had they chosen to slumber in ! The scene
is so beautifully tranquil, yet so lively, that they seem only to have retired
into the world.
Gray too, in one of his familiar letters, has happily
described the situation of Netley Abbey, and, with
characteristic taste, has formed the scenery into a cabinet
picture. The site of Netley Abbey indeed, like that of
all the abbeys of the Cistercian Order, is choice, and was
selected by the founders for various reasons. A spot
remote from towns, quiet and peaceful, on the banks of
a river well supplied with fish, in a valley, and as much
as possible surrounded by hills, both for protection and
seclusion — these were the conditions. In no instance were
they much departed from, and they are well represented
in the situation of Netley. The first company of monks
who occupied it came from the neighbouring abbey of
Beaulieu, which has already been described. The site was
probably acquired by Robert, first Abbot of Netley, and
his small colony of monks, in 1235. The name of their
new home is said to have been derived from the parent
monastery by changing the epithet bellus (beautiful) into
laetus (pleasant). How, then, came it to be called Netley ?
If Leteley, taken to be " Laetus Locus," reminded the
187
1 88 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
monks of their old home, " Bellus Locus'" (Beaulieu), it
is most probable that when the abbey was dissolved, the
new owners adopted the name of the neighbouring tithing
of Netley, which was made to include the district around
the abbey. It is certain, at any rate, that the name Letelie
or Lettley, which occurs in Domesday Book, was retained
until the beginning of the sixteenth century.
The monks of Netley were of the reformed branch of
the Benedictine Order called Cistercians, from Cistertium
(Citeaux), in Burgundy, where the order had its rise
towards the close of the eleventh century. It became of
great repute and extent in a short space of time. So
rapid, indeed, was its progress that St. Bernard of Clair-
vaux before his death had founded a hundred and
sixty monasteries ; and in fifty years from its establish-
ment the order had acquired eight hundred abbeys. They
came to England about 1128, and founded their first
house on English soil at Waverley in Surrey, and at the
time of the dissolution possessed thirty-six of the greater
and thirty-nine of the lesser houses.
A remarkable feature of the abbeys erected under
the Cistercian rule consists in the uniformity of their archi-
tecture. There were doubtless some variations, due to
local causes, in the different structures, but in England,
France, and Germany alike, one uniform plan was adopted.
Netley Abbey may be taken as a fair model of a Cistercian
settlement. We find a central cloister quadrangle,
surrounded upon its four sides by the conventual buildings.
On the north is the church of the monastery, thus placed
that the magnitude of the structure might be a shelter
from the north winds to the residential buildings. The
church was always in the form of a cross. The choir was
short, and the east end square, an apse being rarely found
in England. The transept had no aisles, but two or three
small chapels on the east side of either wing, each having
its altar. In some instances, there was a portico extending
over the whole of the west front, and covering the west
NETLEY ABBEY** 189
door, but no lofty towers were erected until after the strict
rules of the order were relaxed ; only low towers of one
stage, or wooden bell-turrets over the crossings were
allowed There were no carvings of the human figure
during the first two centuries, and stained glass was at
first prohibited. Pointed arches were used as- the arch of
construction, and rounded only for purposes of decoration.
Leaving the church at the east end of the south aisle
by a door from the cloister used by the monks, we find
a narrow space between the south end of the transept and
the chapter-house. This was usually divided into two
parts; one was the vestiarium or sacristy, the other,
perhaps, a penitential cell. Next to this was the chapter-
house, which, after the church was the most important
building of the monastery. It was approached by a fine
archway, always open, and not fitted with doors. It was
divided by a double— -or sometimes, as here, triple — arcade
of beautiful pillars and arches, with a vaulted roof. This
was the council room, where all important conferences were
held, and the business of the monastery was transacted.
Here, too, the young novice was admitted and questioned
by the Abbot, who explained to him the austerities and
the duties of the order ; here, at the end of his novitiate,
he received the tonsure, and made distribution of his
property; and here sentence of punishment was pro-
nounced by the Abbot upon offenders. The chapter-house
at Netley is about thirty-two feet square, the groining
supported by four central pillars and by brackets in the
wall. It was lighted by pointed windows, and the floor
was paved with figured tiles. A dais was carried round
three sides, whereon the Abbot and his monks sat for
business. Over the chapter-house Was the scriptorium or
library, where the books and illuminated manuscripts
were kept, though Leland states that at the dissolution
there was only one manuscript in the library, of Cicero's
Rhetoric. Possibly the others were saved by concealment,
as at Durham, where a fine collection of manuscripts
190 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
belonging to the cathedral was found concealed within one
of the nave pillars.
Passing the entrance to the Abbot's lodge, we next
come to the refectory, which the monks entered by a
door at the south-east corner of the quadrangle. It
extended due north and south, and next to the church and
the chapter-house was the richest of the monastic buildings
in architectural details. It is seventy-nine feet by
twenty-five feet, and the groined ceiling was supported
in the centre by four circular pillars. Since its first
erection, this hall has been divided into two apartments
by a wall of masonry, embedded in which about fifty
years ago the base and part of the shaft of one of these
pillars were found, as fresh as though just from the
mason's hands. This division wall may have been built
near the time of the dissolution, when the number of
inmates was much reduced. In the refectory, written up
in a conspicuous place, was the Cistercian motto of
St. Bernard, which is thus translated by Wordsworth1 : —
Here man more purely lives, less oft doth fall,
More promptly rises, walks with stricter heed,
More safely rests, dies happier, is freed
Earlier from cleansing fires, and gains withal
A brighter crown.
Where the monks then sat at their silent meal a great
tree now stands, rearing its lofty head above the roofless
walls. For nearly three hundred years the monks daily
dined in this now ivy-covered hall. A sculptured ivy leaf
on a capital there before their eyes now seems mutely
prophetic of a message after many ages fulfilled.
Over the refectory was the dormitory, entered on the
south side by a flight of steps from the lavatory in the
quadrangle. According to the custom of the Cistercians,
this apartment had no divisions, and was very barely
furnished. The monks slept in separate beds, it is true,
1 Poems of the Imagination^ Part ii.
NETLEY ABBEY 191
but made of wooden planks, such as are provided for
houseless vagrants in some large towns. They were
enjoined to " sleep in their clothes, girt with their girdles."
Fuller, who gives this information, sarcastically asks
whether slovenliness is any advantage to sanctity. It was
probably ordered so that the brethren might be the more
ready to rise for the night office, which began at two
o'clock.
Pn the south side of the refectory was the kitchen,
now one of the most attractive parts of the ruins. It is
a large vaulted room, nearly fifty feet long and about
eighteen feet wide, exclusive of some enclosed spaces
adjoining the south wall. The spaces give some colour
to the supposition that the drain from the fish-ponds in
the abbey-grounds which runs underneath may have
formed a secret passage. The spaces have no connexion
with the ground floor, but there is a small door in the
corner of the dormitory which has a direct communication
down to the drain. From certain incisions in the masonry,
it is not improbable that a hatch was introduced here to
pen back the water, and thus make the drain possibly
available as a secret passage. This hatch might also have
answered the purpose of keeping back the fish, and even
enabling the kitchener to supply the table without leaving
the kitchen. This room has a fine example of a hooded
fireplace, with brackets in the corners for lights, one of
the earliest fireplaces in this country, dating,, as it does,
from the twelfth century.
Adjoining the kitchen was the buttery, from which
dishes were passed into the refectory, the aperture being
fitted with a door on each side, the rebates for which are
still visible. The porter's lodge and domus conversorum,
or house of the lay brethren, comprised the remaining part
of the south and west sides of the quadrangle, the latter
building projecting beyond it southward. It contained
their day room and work room below, and their dormitory
above. There was an approach from this building to the
192 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
west end of the church, which they used, whilst the monks
entered at the east end, having access from their dormitory.
At the east end of the grounds was the Abbot's lodge,
though it was probably built for the accommodation of
the monks on their first colonising the place, and may
originally have covered a larger space.
It is not easy to assign their use to the several apart-
ments. The largest of them was certainly the Hall, of
which the groined roof is worthy of notice, while the rooms
above, from the finish of the mouldings, were evidently
principal apartments. The small room at the south-east
with a buttery hatch was evidently a private dining room,
and adjoining it was the kitchen.
Tanner, the historian of English monasteries, states
that in the year 1239 King Henry III. founded this abbey
as a monastery for Cistercian monks, and dedicated it to
the Virgin Mary and St. Edward, endowing it with various
manors in the neighbourhood, and with the advowson of
Schyre (Shere) Church. That it was dedicated to the
Virgin is sufficiently plain from the charter of the founder,
in the title of which it is called Leteley, but in the charter
itself " the Church of St. Mary of Edwardstow," the words
implying no more than a grant to St. Mary's Chapel at
Edwardstow, or St. Edward's Place. It is not improbable
that as Letely had been enriched by previous donations,
some structure had been dedicated there to the Confessor,
and that Henry only renewed the foundation, as he
afterwards rebuilt Westminster Abbey. In fact, on some
stones lying on the ground in the south transept of the
church, once in the roof, were formerly to be traced the
supposed arms of Edward the Confessor — a cross flory
and four martlets. The then Bishop of Winchester, Pierre
des Roches (de Rupibus), who died in 1238, no doubt
sanctioned the foundation, if he did not procure the gift
of the land. But although Henry III. is said to have
founded Netley Abbey in 1239, his charter confirming its
possessions and revenues is dated as late as 1251, in the
NETLEY ABBEY 193
thirty-fifth year of his reign. In 1242, Roger de Clare
endowed it with certain lands, and as the advowson of
Schyre Church is mentioned in his grant, it is probable
that the King's charter was partly in confirmation of grants
made while the foundation was in progress. Roger de
Clare's grant was ratified by John de Warrene, Earl of
Surrey, in 1252. Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, Robert Ver,
and Walter de Berg are also in the list of benefactors,
the last-named giving certain property in the county of
Lincoln, which he held of the King in capite by the service
of presenting him a headpiece lined with fine linen and
a pair of gilt spurs. Milner, the historian of Winchester,
thinks it evident from certain traces found among the
ruins, that Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester 1500-1528,
was also a benefactor to the abbey.
In 1250, King Henry gave the monks of Netley a
charter for holding a market at Hound and a fair at
Wellow, with a privilege of free warren in their other
manors. In the next year, he granted them further rights
of market at Wellow. The right of merchandise and tolls
at these principal emporia of domestic commerce became
a valuable source of revenue. At certain distances, officers
were posted at bridges and avenues of access to the
markets and fairs, to exact toll for all goods that passed.
All shops were closed, and streets were made in the fair,
and assigned to the sale of the various commodities, being
called according to their special wares, as drapery,
pottery, spicery. In 1288, the bailiffs of the town of
Southampton distrained certain of the Abbot's " men n for
payment of toll, upon which, two years later, an action
against the bailiffs was tried before the Bishop of Win-
chester at Westminster. It appeared that the Abbot had
gone into the town with three of his " men " — John
Messell, John Giffard, and Walter Sakenayl — with some
articles for sale which are not specified, but are called
"merchandises," and that the bailiffs had charged them
toll of one hundred shillings. The Abbot pleaded that,
O
194 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
by the charter of Henry III., and by confirmation of the
present King, his predecessors and himself, Abbots of
Netley, and their " men " of Soteshall, Walonfolling,
Hun, and Totington were made free of toll throughout
the kingdom. The bailiffs pleaded that they had a charter
of earlier date empowering them to take toll without
exception. The case was subsequently heard before
Edward I. and his council. It was decided that in all
acts of buying and selling for the necessary use of the
Abbot and his people, no tolls should be taken, but that
this exemption should not extend to them, notwithstanding
their charter, if they went into the markets like ordinary
merchants. The mention of " men " in the first charter
implies bondsmen or villeins, and conveys an idea of the
social condition of the country at that time. These " men "
were serfs, and passed in the same manner as timber or
rabbits from one possessor to another, with the farms to
which they belonged.
At first, the Cistercian rule was rigorous, especially as
to fasting and religious exercises. Flesh, fowl, and eggs
were prohibited, butter and cheese might only be eaten
when they were given in alms, and only two meals a day
were allowed besides mixtum, which was an indifferent
kind of porridge. On Fridays during Lent, one mess of
this was the only meal throughout the day. Their beds
have been already described. They were not allowed to
speak, except in the locutory or parlour, and there only
on serious subjects. An exception was made in the cases
of the cellarer and some other officials, who were permitted
to give necessary orders, and teachers of theology in their
studies; or if the brethren were on a journey, they might
ask briefly for such necessaries as they were unable to
procure by signs. An offence against any of these rules
was punished according to the circumstances of the case.
For a great offence, such as theft or conspiracy, offenders
were excommunicated yearly on Palm Sunday. For lesser
offences the discipline included flogging and solitary
NETLEY ABBEY 195
confinement, with various acts of penance. The Cistercians
used the Breviary drawn up by Gregory VII, a compen-
dium of the offices in use in the eleventh century. It
contained the Seven Hours, or services for the seven
periods of the day, viz., Mattins, soon after midnight ;
Prime, at 6 ; Tierce, at 9 ; Sext, at noon ; -Nones, at 3 ;
Vespers, at 5 ; and Compline, which closed the day, at 6.
Notwithstanding this discipline and devotion, they did
not escape the satirists of the age. Walter Map, Arch-
deacon of Oxford in the twelfth century, the reputed
author of " Golia's " poems against the priesthood,
ridiculing their professed abstinence from flesh, writes : —
Pigs they keep, many of them, and sell bacon, perhaps not all of
it, the heads, legs, and feet they neither give nor sell, nor throw away :
what becomes of them, God knows. Likewise there is an account between
God and them of fowls, which they keep in great quantities.
Map did not believe, either, in the mixtum, the
perpetual silence, or the seven services of the Breviary ;
and it is certain that the rigorous rule did not prevent
the Cistercians from ultimately becoming, like the
Benedictines of Clugny, " merry monks." They relaxed
their primitive severity and simplicity, until disorder took
the place of discipline, a result partly due to the authority
of Pope Sixtus IV., who, near the end of the sixteenth
century, greatly modified the rules of the order. The
guest hall at Netley was generally full, for the hospitality
of the abbey was great, and often monks would stroll
there, even after Compline, to hear how the world was
moving, and to enjoy a draught of the white wine imported
from Genoa and Venice into Southampton. We find that
in 1280 the rolls of Parliament record a grant of "one tun
of red wine a year to the Abbot of Leteley."
Election of the Lord Abbot was attended with great
ceremony, though, according to the chronicle of Jocelyn,
a monk, the appointment was often made without regard
to fitness or character. The Abbots of Netley whose
names have come down to us are: Robert (1235),
196 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Walter (1290), Henry de Inglesham (1371), John
Stelhard (13/4), Philip de Corhampton (1387), John
de Gloucester (1396), Richard de Middleton (I396),1
John Burges (1503), Thomas Stevens (1527). He was
most probably the last Abbot of Netley, who signed, by
proxy, the instrument in favour of the divorce between
Henry VIII. and Catherine of Aragon.
The only trace of any transaction between the Abbots
of Netley and the ancient corporation of the town of
Southampton hitherto discovered is an entry in the
steward's book of the Corporation, under the year 1469,
of £2 35. 4^. " paid to the Abbot of Leteley for a grove
of woode bought by the Maire for to make pyles and
hegges by the sea syde," in order to obstruct the landing
of the enemy; the town having been invaded by the
French before our Navy was formidable enough to keep
them out
Netley Abbey existed as a monastery for three cen-
turies. At the dissolution, its community consisted only
of the Abbot and twelve monks. Their annual revenue,
as stated by Dugdale, was £100 is. 8d. ; according to
Speed, it was £160 2s. gd. Taking a medium sum in a
return made by the King's Commissioners, £146 35-. id.,
as correct, the income would represent now about £1,820
— a fairly competent subsistence. Henry VIII. granted
the site of the abbey, together with the farm and manor
of Hound, to Sir William Paulet, who was created Earl
of Wiltshire and subsequently Marquis of Winchester.
He is said to have been a man of learning and talent,
and was tactful enough to hold the office of Lord High
Treasurer during the changeful reigns of Henry VIIL,
Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. From this nobleman
Netley passed, probably by purchase, to the Earl of
Hertford, Edward Seymour, whose father, the Duke of
IJohn de Glo'ster was made Abbot of Beaulieu, 1397, in room of
Richard de Middleton. He was chosen in 1394, but for some cause was
deposed and appointed to the daughter Abbey, but in 1400, probably on
the death of John de Glo'ster, was restored to Beaulieu.
NETLEY ABBEY 197
Somerset, was beheaded in the reign of Edward VI. He
was deprived of the title while a minor, and it reverted to
the Crown ; but in the first year of Elizabeth his titles
and possessions were restored In 1 560, the Queen visited
the Earl at Netley, as appears from an entry in the
register of St. Michael's Church, Southampton : " The
Quene's Majesties grace cam from the Castle of Netley
to Southampton, the xiij. day of August, and from thence
she, went to Wynchester the xvj. day." Towards the end
of the following century, the abbey became the property
of the Earl of Huntingdon. He was the father-in-law of
the famous Selina, the founder of the sect of Calvinistic
Methodists, known as "Lady Huntingdon's Connexion."
Lord Charles Seymour, second Baron Trowbridge, was
born in the abbey, and baptised in the choir of the church
in 1665. In the year 1700 Sir Bartlet — or Barkeley —
Lucy became the owner, and disposed of a part of the
property to a builder of Southampton, named Taylor, who
began pulling down the building, with a view of using the
materials for the erection of dwelling-houses, when he was
stopped in his work of demolition by an accident which
caused his death.1 The ruins as they were left by Taylor
became the property of Mr. Clift, by whom they were sold
to Mr. Dummer, of Woolston House, who bequeathed them
to Mr. W. Chamberlayne, the grandfather of the present
owner. For a time the ruins were in the possession of
Mr. Dummer's widow. This lady married Mr. Dance, an
artist of celebrity, who took the name and title of
Sir Nathaniel Holland.
The ruins of an abbey or other ancient historic
building may be regarded with different emotions,
according to the feelings of the beholder. To some they
give pleasure as picturesque and artistic objects, without
regard to their history and associations ; to others they
thoughts of sadness, that such beautiful edifices
1 See Murray's Handbook to Hants. — Netley Abbey.
198 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
raised by our forefathers, once the scenes of great and
important events, and full of memories of the past, should
be thus despoiled. But these sentiments may be felt
together without incongruity. To all thoughtful minds it
is painful to look upon such a ruin, especially when the
work of destruction, as in the case of Netley Abbey, was
wilful, but at the same time it may give pleasure to the
artistic sense.
Monasteries in their day fulfilled a great purpose, and
were a means of blessing. They were the sources from
which was derived almost all the learning, and the schools
of the thought and culture of the age. They were also the
charitable institutions, whence alms flowed freely to the
poor and needy. They were sanctuaries to the persecuted
and oppressed, and not infrequently hospitals for the sick
and infirm.
The loss of these several advantages was severely felt
and lamented after the dissolution. No doubt there were
abuses ; the monks had declined from the rules and the
principles of their orders. But the ruined cloisters had
seen holy men in their recesses, engaged with true devotion
in the study and offices of religion ; the roofless churches
once resounded with almost incessant prayers and praises
to Heaven. The scriptorium was once the scene of
devoted and arduous toil in the transcription and illumina-
tion of the Holy Scriptures. And among the blessings
which they conferred, it was no trifling one for England
that daily and hourly in their churches prayers were being
offered for the welfare of the Church and nation ; that in
an age of violence, rapine, and lawlessness each abbey
was, as it were, an oasis in the wilderness, and offered a
peaceful retreat to those calmer and gentler spirits who
sought refuge from the noise and strife of a turbulent
world, and were really happier in the pursuit of study and
religious exercises within their hallowed precincts.
W. A. C. CHEVALIER.
THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS AT
NORTH BADDESLEY
BY THE REV. P. GAISFORD BOURNE, D.D.
?YING secluded between two main roads — to
Winchester on the one side, to Romsey on the
other — is a small parish, which is rather a hamlet
than a village. Being so situated, it is apt to
escape the hurrying traveller, but it is, nevertheless, one
of the most interesting spots in rural Hampshire.
On the highest ground stands the venerable church,
and each road and footpath appropriately ascends to it
With all the quiet dignity of a hoary guardian that has seen
many generations come and go, the sacred building over-
looks a broad scene of varied beauty, with its leafy woods
and park-like fields, dotted in the distance with comfortable
homesteads, and foregrounded with modest cottages and
their well-kept gardens. In this spot we come into
touch at once with a past even more remote than Saxon
times, and with many historical associations.
The church is dedicated to St. John Baptist, and this
in itself calls to mind one important epoch through which
it has passed ; for St. John the Baptist was the patron
saint of the Knights Hospitallers. This old-world brother-
hood did not found the church at' North Baddesley ; they
came into possession of it, and used it in their day and
generation. Thus they invested it with an interest which
gives it an importance above that of many a larger church
amid populous surroundings. The place is mentioned in
Domesday Book as having a church then existing, and
199
2oo MEMORIALS or OLD HAMPSHIRE
the manor lands, we know, had come down from Saxon
possession. The late Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A., who carefully
examined the buildings, believed that North Baddesley
was originally the site of a heathen temple, which in turn
was succeeded by a Romano-British church, and followed
by Saxon and mediaeval structures. Traces of its great
antiquity are to be found in the chancel, some of the
stones in which are of Cyclopean size, not squared nor
coursed, but fitted into each other quite irregularly.
Sir Gilbert wrote : —
The Church, though small, is full of interest, containing as it does the
work of so many ages that it, like most ancient churches, is a sort of
epitome in stone of the history of England.
In the Middle Ages, North Baddesley came into the
possession of the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jeru-
salem, which was a semi-military religious order. They
are known more briefly as " The Knights Hospitallers,"
from the first hospital founded by them at Jerusalem, for
the relief and assistance of pilgrims to the Holy City.
The branch hospitals which they afterwards established in
Europe went by the name of Commanderies or Precep-
tories, according to their rank, and were used for the same
kindly care of pilgrims and wayfarers. Their connexion
with North Baddesley was brought about by Hugh de
Mortemer, who died in 1188. He was the son of a
powerful Norman Baron, Ralph de Mortemer, who followed
the Conqueror, and is said to have possessed a hundred
and twenty-six manors in twelve different counties.
The principal house of the Order in Hampshire was
at Godsfield, near Alresford, where the Brethren had
been settled under the patronage of Henry de Blois,
Bishop of Winchester. Of this, the ruins of a small
Decorated chapel remain. Both Hugh de Mortemer and
his son Roger made grants of lands at North Baddesley
to the Order, which they were well able to do, as being
the possessors of such vast estates. Consequently, a
KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS AT NORTH BADDESLEY 201
Preceptory or branch was set up at North Baddesley,
where it continued for nearly four hundred years. The
spot lies a few yards south of the old Church, and is now
occupied by the Manor House. The principal part of this
is comparatively modern, but the older buildings in the
rear include a long structure containing the stables, etc. ;
and in one corner of this, built into the wall, may be seen
some massive stones, identified as part of the ancient
preceptory. The Knights thus became possessed of a
considerable estate in the parish in arable land, pasture,
and woods. Their memory lingers pleasantly in the place,
being embedded in the names of outlying parts, such as
Knight Wood and Z ion's Hill. A few years ago, some
curious old implements and weapons characteristic of the
Middle Ages were discovered on the spot, and removed
to Cranbury, where they remain in the possession of the
present Lord of the Manor.
In the large garden of the Manor House there may
still be seen, vigorous as ever, two fig trees, said to have
been planted by the Knights. The venerable trees, which
have been lopped again and again, yield figs in abundance
still ; but more recent owners, who walled in the garden,
left the trees on the outer side, and so deprived them of
their full measure of sunshine.
Amongst the names of the famous " Preceptors " of
North Baddesley that have come down to us may be
mentioned that of William de Tothale, Grand Prior of
England, who was summoned to the various Parliaments
of Edward I. and II. ; William Tornay, whose death
occurred in 1476 ; and William Weston, who died in
1540, and was buried at Clerkenwell. At Clerkenwell —
then only a small village near the city of London — the
headquarters of the Order in England was established.
Of this, only the time-worn entrance, St. John's Gate, is
now left to mark the spot.
It seems that in early times the chancel of North
Baddesley church was separated from the nave by a wall
202 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
and arch, of which there are traces. The evidence tends
to prove that this wall was about 2 ft. 3 in. thick, about
the same dimensions as the other three walls of the
chancel. Moreover, the chancel arch must have been
very narrow, probably a mere door ; and this feature is
a marked characteristic of very early churches.
On the north side of the altar, in the position usually
assigned for the founder's resting-place, is the tomb of
him who is believed to have rebuilt the chancel. No name
is actually inscribed upon it, but the initial " T " is to
be found there, as in the old glass preserved in several
of the windows. It is believed that Galfridus de Tothale,
one of the Order, and fifty years Rector of the parish,
lies there sleeping, close to the altar where he had so
often ministered. This Rector had been appointed by
Richard de Panely, Prior of the Hospital of St. John of
Jerusalem. The tomb is a beautiful example of fifteenth-
century work, and on it may be seen the armorial bear-
ings of the departed. The rebuilding of the chancel
then included what is now much to be regretted — the
removal of those marks of antiquity, the chancel wall and
its small arch.
A few years ago, an antiquary, travelling in Malta,
made search there for the records of the North Baddesley
Preceptory. They were easily found, and seem to be
fully recorded and carefully preserved, but, unfortunately,
they were written in lingua Franca, the mixed language
formerly spoken by Europeans in the East. A venerable
inhabitant of the island offered his help as translator, and
was about to start on the work, when he was unexpectedly
taken ill and died, so that the records have not yet been
translated into English.
The Hospitallers were suppressed in 1541, and the
Manor was then given to Sir Thomas Seymour, Lady
Jane's brother. He was beheaded in 1549. His estates
were restored by Queen Mary to the Hospitallers for a
short time, till they were finally suppressed under Queen
KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS AT oRTH BADDESLEY 203
Elizabeth. Later on there was a connexion with the
Cromwell family, John Dunch, the owner, having married
Ann Major, of Hursley, sister-in-law of Richard Cromwell.
There are several other objects of interest in the
Church, but few going back to the time of the Hospitallers,
except a few slabs and the parish chest- in the vestry.
This has a roughly-rounded top, taken direct from the
trunk of an oak ; " the rude strength of this rather remark-
able chest seems to indicate a very early date, which,
however, I will not venture to define."1 The chained folio
black-letter Bible was the gift of Thomas Tompkins,
Rector, 1693-1702, who, though quite blind, is spoken
of on his slab in the nave as pastor vigil antissimus.
It is of what is known as the Second Issue of the
First Edition of King James's Bible. One of its
prominent features is (in thirty-four pages) " The
Genealogies . . . according to every familie and tribe
with the. line of our Saviour Jesus Christ observed from
Adam to the Blessed Virgin Mary," by John Speed, under
a patent granted to him. The screen and pulpit are
Jacobean, or, strictly speaking, late Elizabethan, the former
having " T. F. 1602 " on its eastern face. It was probably
the gift of Lord Chief Justice Fleming, whose tomb is
in North Stoneham Church.
Altogether, this old-world spot, remote as it is, has
many claims to the attention of a student of English
history.
P. GAISFORD BOURNE.
1 Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A.
WOLVESEY CASTLE
BY N. C. H. NISBETT, A.R.I.B.A.
|T is probably realised by few of the many visitors to
Winchester that in mediaeval times there were two
castles within the city walls. This was, however, the
case. Winchester Castle, near the West Gate, was
the royal headquarters, while the Castle of Wolvesey, at
the south-east angle, was the episcopal residence. At this
point, the city wall, after following the bank of the Itchen,
turns sharply to the west to form the southern line of
defence.
The King's castle was probably of Norman foundation,
but the episcopal palace, although practically rebuilt in
the twelfth century by Henry de Blois, seems to have been
one of a series of official dwellings on the same site from
very early times. The fact that a Roman pavement has
been found within the castle precincts proves that a house
of some importance stood here before the Saxon Kings of
Wessex made it their principal residence.
The name denotes by its termination, " ey" that the
site was an island ; and as the river still flows along its
eastern wall, while there is also a water-course on the
western side, we cannot be surprised that Leland, in the
sixteenth century, writes : " The castelie or palace of
Wolvesey is welle tourid and for the most part waterid
about."
It is sometimes asked, When did Wolvesey cease to
be a royal residence, and become an episcopal one ? The
answer is simple, but is also a good illustration of the
204
CASTLE,.
0(A.T£ -HOUSE.
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REFERENCES
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PLAN OF WOLVESEY CASTLE.
WOLVESEY CASTLE" 205
gradual, unnoticed development and change, of which the
history of England affords so many examples.
When Cynegils, the first Christian ruler of Wessex,
received in 635 the Roman missionary, Bishop Birinus,
it was contemplated that Mercia might be annexed to
Wessex, and Dorchester, near Oxford, was a conveniently
central spot for watching events in both kingdoms.1 It was
here, therefore, that Birinus set his " bishop's stool." Later
on, ,the royal headquarters were moved to Winchester,
and a church, with a monastic house attached, was built
by Cenwalch, son of Cynegils. When, in 676, Hedda
became Bishop, he removed the See to the same place,
probably because, as he was the natural adviser of the
King in matters both ecclesiastical and secular, it was
convenient for him to live at court. For some time,
therefore, the King and the Bishop of the West Saxons
lived together at Wolvesey. By degrees, however,
Winchester, instead of being merely the capital of Wessex,
became the recognised seat of rulers whose overlordship
was acknowledged from Northumbria to Sussex. Although
the scope of the King's government was extended, the
Bishop still confined his work to his own diocese, continuing
to live in the royal palace, which was only occasionally
visited by the King. At last, Wolvesey came to be
regarded as an episcopal residence only.
The supremacy of Wessex led to an event which may
justly be associated with Wolvesey. In the year 829
Egbert held a council at Winchester, probably in his hall
on this site, and it was then decided that the name of
the whole realm consolidated under his sway should be
" Angle -land." We may, therefore, claim that on this spot
a noteworthy " christening " took place.
Before the end of the century, Wolvesey was the
witness of another great beginning. Here Alfred, about
890, gathered around him those scholars who were to
l For reference to Birinus and Dorchester, see p. 9, and Memorials of Old
Oxfordshire, p. 6.
206 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
assist him in his literary work. Much of this consisted of
translations of Latin authors, but it also included the
composition or compilation of the historical records in
English known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Dean
Kit chin has justly said that this entitles Wolvesey to be
considered as the nursery of English literary language.1
Of the character of the buildings here in Saxon times
we have but little knowledge. A portion of the eastern
wall, near its southern end, has remains of flint work
arranged in the manner known as " herring-bone'' which
is considered by some antiquaries to be a piece of Saxon
masonry.
It was at one time supposed that the many fragments
of other buildings so extensively used in the walls of the
twelfth century castle might have been the remains of
Saxon buildings, but, as we shall mention later, a more
satisfactory explanation seems probable. With the
exception of the small piece of outer wall just mentioned,
the oldest remains now existing are the ruins of the castle
built by Henry de Blois, who was appointed Bishop in
1 1 29, by his uncle, Henry I.
This remarkable man was a grandson of William the
Norman, being a son of that monarch's daughter Adela,
by her marriage with Stephen, Count of Blois. He was
originally a monk of the great Abbey of Cluny, in
Burgundy, which had acquired immense influence in
Western Europe, partly from the manner in which all
Cluniac houses were kept under the control of the Abbot
of Cluny, and partly from the fact that within its walls
many noted men of the age had received an education
which prepared them for almost any career which might
be open to them as ecclesiastics, statesmen, lawyers,
physicians, or artists.
The author of the Gesta Stephani tells us that " Henry,
Bishop of Winchester, ranked higher than all the nobles
1 Historic Towns : Winchester, p. 14. See also p. n in this volume.
WOLVESEY CAS"fLE 2O7
of England in wisdom, in policy, in courage, and in
wealth " ; while another writer says that " he collected
treasures both of nature and art." He constructed the
treasury in his cathedral, and was the first to collect and
enshrine the bones of the early Kings and Bishops.
In 1126 he exchanged the cowl of a monk for the
mitre of an Abbot, and again found himself within
a monastery of some note, for it was at Glastonbury,
with its traditions of Joseph of Arimathea and British
Christianity, that he began to be connected with English
politics. Three years later, he was called to fill the
bishopric vacant by the death of William Giffard. He did
not resign his abbacy, but held it, together with his See,
until his death.
Within a few years after his succession he began
to re -build his castle at Wolvesey. A slight examination
of the existing ruins is sufficient to prove that much of
the masonry has come from some other building. Columns
are found built horizontally across walls, while capitals
and other ornamental features are found in equally
incongruous positions. It used to be thought that these
were the remains of earlier buildings on the same site,
but it now appears that another explanation is much more
likely.
The late Bishop Thorold, in 1895, expressed a wish
that excavations should be made to discover, if possible,
the original plan of the castle, and these were undertaken
under my superintendence. We soon noticed that when-
ever there was any feature from which the date of the
re-used stonework could be fixed, it was always " Norman."
Among the features of most common occurrence were the
shafts of spirally-carved or " twisted " columns, and,
curiously enough, very similar columns existed in the
City Museum, which were said to have been brought from
the site of Hyde Abbey, just outside the north wall of
the city. This abbey was the later home of the monastery
founded by King Alfred, known as the "New Minster,"
208 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
to distinguish it from the " Old Minster " or Cathedral, to
which it was in such close proximity that the services in
the one were actually interrupted by those in the other.
In order to connect this ancient abbey with Wolvesey,
we must now go back to the eve of the Norman Conquest.
The Abbot at that time was Alwy, brother of Earl
Godwin, and a staunch supporter of Harold. With a dozen
of his monks and twenty men-at-arms he marched to
Hastings. After the battle, every one of this devoted
band was found dead near the Saxon standard. The fact
did not escape the Norman William, and, with the remark,
" The Abbot is worth a barony, and every monk a manor,"
he determined that dearly should these Churchmen pay
for their hostility to him. He is said to have confiscated
at least twenty thousand acres of their various estates,
and when, in some cases, he re-granted them, he, in grim
irony, altered their tenure to a military one, so that, in
return for fighting against him, they had to provide soldiers
for him. The possessions of the abbey continued under
these conditions for centuries, and we find that during the
Scottish campaigns of Edward II., the Abbot of Hyde
was summoned to send men-at-arms to meet the King at
Berwick-on-Tweed a fortnight before the Battle of Ban-
nockburn. William was, above all things, practical, and
knew that while the monks of the New Minster might
obey the letter of his commands, they might also become
dangerous intriguers against him. He therefore deter-
mined to give them his very close attention. For this
purpose, he built his palace upon a piece of their land
between their abbey and the High Street.
After the King's death, this palace does not seem to
have been much used, and early in the reign of Henry I.
it was destroyed by fire, and never re-built. Almost
immediately afterwards, it was decided to remove the
abbey from its site in the centre of the city to a new one
in Hyde Meadow, on the north-east side. In the year
uio, the monks went in procession from the old to the
WOLVESEY CASTLE 209
new church. As both the King and the Bishop (William
Giffard, 1098-1129) assisted the Abbot in this removal,
it would not be surprising if some remains of the ruined
palace of the Conqueror were brought to Hyde and utilised.
Even in the single gatehouse, which is all that remains
above ground, there are a few portions of columns used
exactly as those at Wolvesey.
There can be little doubt that when Henry de Blois
determined to rebuild his castle only a quarter of a mile
from the ruined palace, he would be glad of any excuse to
enable him to make use of the materials already prepared
and close at hand There seems to be some reason for
thinking that, as Bishop, he reclaimed it as land belonging
to the Church, but as he did not return it to its original
owners, the monks of Hyde, this may throw some light on
the reason for his behaviour towards them. For several
years he held their abbey in his own hands, giving the
monks an .allowance of two pence a day, and later on, when
the abbey was burnt, owing to a fire caused by combustibles
thrown into the town from his own castle during the siege,
he is said to have taken the ornaments and jewels from
the great crucifix presented by Cnut, which was itself
destroyed by the flames. If the Abbot had had the
temerity to differ from the Bishop with regard to the site
and materials of the old palace, the treatment meted out
to Hyde may perhaps be explained.
Before referring to the remains of the castle, we may
now glance at a few events which probably took place
within its walls.
There can be little doubt that when De Blois, acting
in his capacity as Legate, summoned his brother Stephen
to answer for the imprisonment of the Bishops of Salisbury,
Lincoln, and Ely, the Council would meet in the hall of
the Bishop s Castle.1 The arguments put forth on either
side are not without interest. The Legate affirmed : " If
1 See Memorials of Old Oxfordshire, p. 7.
210 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
the Bishops had in anything overpassed the bounds of
justice, the judging of them did not pertain to the King,
but to the ecclesiastical canons ; that they ought not to
be deprived of any possession but by a public and
ecclesiastical council." The King's case was placed in the
hands of Alberic de Ver, " a man deeply versed in legal
affairs." He seems to have been instructed to obtain an
adjournment until the arrival of the Archbishop of Rouen,
who, on behalf of the King, was willing to allow the
Bishops to retain their castles " if they could prove by
the canons that they ought justly to possess them," but
admitting this, " as the times are eventful," the owners of
all castles should deliver the keys to the King.
William of Malmesbury, who was present, tells us that
although this council was held in August, 1139, it was
selected by De Blois to make known the fact that he had
been appointed Legate nearly six months previously, and
this reticence on the part of the Bishop made a good
impression. Matthew Paris mentions that in the same
year the Bishop invited certain nobles to dinner, and
compelled them to give up their castles.
Two years later (1141), after a conference held near
Winchester, when the Legate agreed to accept Matilda as
rightful sovereign, another council was held, and Malmes-
bury again tells how De Blois called first the bishops, then
the abbots, and lastly the archdeacons, apart, and discussed
with each party as to his design for acknowledging Matilda.
Soon after Matilda had been recognised, a misunder-
standing arose with the Bishop in connexion with the
provision to be made for Stephen's son. Matilda would
make no concessions, and the Bishop, feeling offended, left
her court at Oxford, and returned to Winchester, where
his castle was already being put into a state to resist
hostilities. Matilda followed, took possession of the royal
castle, and sent for the Bishop. His reply, " I will prepare
myself," seems to have been carried out in a very practical
manner.
WOLVESEY CASTLE 211
There is clear evidence of the wall of the most exposed
part of the castle having had some ten feet added to the
already completed masonry. This certainly looks as if we
may believe the report that he " had converted " his palace
into a very strong fortress. The Bishop at the same time
sent to all who were supporters of Stephen, while Matilda's
party was very strongly reinforced. Among her adherents
were David of Scotland, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, and
Ba-ldwin of Exeter, who had already held Rougemont
Castle against Stephen.1 The author of the Gesta Stephani
says : " The siege was, therefore, of an extraordinary
character, such as was unheard of in our days. All England
was there in arms, with a great conflux of foreigners ;
and their position against each other was such that the
forces engaged in the siege of the Bishop's Castle were
themselves besieged by the royal army, which closely
hemmed them in from without." Then it was that the
fiery missiles from the Bishop's Castle set fire to the
buildings of the Nuns' Minster, or St. Mary's Abbey, less
than three hundred yards distant, and the thatched roofs
once ablaze, the conflagration spread to other parts,
including Hyde also with its abbey.
This seems to have been the end of the struggle, for
on the raising of the siege both David and Robert were
captured, and the release of Stephen was arranged, thus
ending Matilda's short reign.
The general arrangement of the castle is shewn by the
accompanying plan. It will be noticed that the hall is
not within the walls of the keep, as was usual in a baron's
castle.
We have already spoken of two councils or synods
held by him, and there are records of others. We are
also told by Henry of Huntingdon that the Bishop was
the introducer of appeals from the synods to Rome, so
that he was evidently quite alive to the possibilities of
l See Memorials of Old Devonshire, p. 8.
2i2 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
these councils. It must further be remembered that
De Blois had procured the consent of Innocent II. to the
raising of the See of Winchester to archiepiscopal rank.
Can it be that the Bishop intended his palace to possess
a synodal hall, such as had just been erected at Laon, and
was contemplated at Paris?
The hall evidently had a gallery in the thickness of
the wall at the level of the upper openings, which were
round arched, with late Norman mouldings. The string
course at this level rises at the north end, so that the
openings there are slightly raised above those at the side,
and below the five openings were five pointed arches,
forming an arcading on the wall. The additional elevation
of the features at this end was probably on account of the
" dais " being below this part of the hall.
As the principal entrance was by the gatehouse on the
north side, being the least exposed, and giving access to
the city, it seems probable that the guard-room would be
more or less adjacent to both hall and gate. The outer
arch of the gate is a round one, but the vaulting inside it
is pointed. The square keep measures fifty-three feet by
fifty feet, thus agreeing very closely with the keeps at
Guildford and Christchurch, which are each about fifty
feet by forty-six feet. The usual practice of dividing the
keep by a cross wall is followed, the small corner com-
partment being evidently arranged for a rough timber
stair, of which the stone corbels to support the intermediate
"landings" still remain. It should be noticed that the
walls of the keep project beyond the adjoining curtain
walls, so that an enemy attempting to undermine them
would be subject to a raking fire from 'the archers on
the keep.
At the south end of the open court, on the east side
of the hall, there appears to have been a small door, which
led into a narrow courtyard at the south end of the hall,
and then, turning southwards again, descended under the
wall to a sally-port. Should any foe have been able to
WOLVESEY CASTLE 213
gain access by the sally-port, he would have had to pass
under a projecting timber " bretasch," of which the corbels
still remain on the end of the hall ; he would also have
exposed himself to the archers posted behind the loopholes
of a vaulted gallery on the top of the south-east tower.
This is the tower that shows signs of the addition of the
very portion that would thus menace an intruder.
Although there is no proof of the fact, it is probable
that^ the old chapel occupied the site of the one now
forming part of the Church House, and the upper portion
of which appears most likely to have been the work of
Bishop Fox (1500-28). The remains of foundations seem
to indicate a tower at the south-west angle.
On the death of Stephen, De Blois went to Cluny,
whither he had already despatched some of his valuable
possessions. One of the first acts of the new King,
Henry II., was to order the demolition of the unlicensed
castles, those of the Bishop of Winchester being
enumerated, and the charges for carrying out the order
appear in the Pipe Rolls for the year 1155-6. As, however,
the walls of the Bishop's keep were considered by the
Parliamentarians in the seventeenth century to require
the use of gunpowder to prevent them being held by
royalists, we must conclude that the removal of the battle-
ments and other distinctly military features was considered
sufficient. The fact that the Bishops continued to live
here, until Bishop Morley (1662-84) again utilised the old
materials for a more modern palace, proves that it was still
quite tenantable. It seems probable that De Blois may
have himself made some additions on his return, which was
before Trinity Sunday, 1159, when he, with thirteen other
Bishops, consecrated Thomas Becket as Archbishop of
Canterbury. De Blois outlived the Archbishop, his death
taking place in August, 1171.
It would require a volume to refer to all the events of
interest connected with Wolvesey. A few must suffice
here.
2i4 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
On the 28th of March, 1393, William of Wykeham,
before the opening ceremony, received the Warden and
Scholars of his new College of St. Mary, which he had
built on the opposite side of the road skirting the castle
walls.
Cardinal Beaufort entertained Henry V. here on his
way to France, just before the Battle of Agincourt From
the same episcopal residence, Bishop Fox, in 1516, dated
the foundation charter of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
When Bishop Morley erected the great palace facing
College Street, he saddled his successors with a greater
responsibility than a Bishop who has also to maintain
Farnham Castle could well undertake. In consequence,
Bishop North (1781-1820) pulled down the main portion,
and only left the wing with the chapel which is now utilised
as a Church House for the Diocese. It is not at all
inconceivable that historic Wolvesey may some day again
be the palace of the Bishops of Winchester.
N. C. H. NISBETT.
THE HOSPITAL OF ST. CROSS,
WINCHESTER
BY N. C. H. NISBETT, A.R.LB.A.
HE hospitable door of St. Cross, though it was
founded in the days of anarchy during the
contest between Stephen and Matilda, is still
open. Not only did Bishop Henry de Blois, its
founder, make provision for " thirteen poor men " to be
housed, boarded, and clothed, but he also arranged that
no less than a hundred others were to have a meal given
them every day. It would be a difficult matter to continue
the latter charity exactly on the old lines, and part of the
endowment is now devoted to the payment of out-
pensioners, who may reside where they please.
In order to form some idea of what such a foundation
really meant, it is interesting to turn to the contemporary
record of the old English Chronicle for the year 1137: —
Then was corn dear, and flesh, and cheese, and -butter, for there
was none in the land ; wretched men starved with hunger — some lived
on alms who had been erstwhile rich. . . . The earth bare no corn ;
one might as well have tilled the sea ... it was said openly that
Christ and His saints slept.
The continuity of useful and- charitable work carried
out by the Hospital is no doubt partly owing to the fact
that St. Cross never was a monastic establishment, and
therefore escaped the suppression that was the fate of so
many foundations dating from about the same time.
After the Visitation of the Hospital in 1535 the
Commissary of Thomas Cromwell advised that —
215
216 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
The Master shall in no wise diminish the number of the priests,
presbyters, sacrists, and others within this House that have been used to
minister here on the Foundation or by custom.
After such a testimony, and remembering that since
the middle of the last century the administration of the
Hospital has been so re-modelled as to enlarge its
usefulness, we may certainly liken the founder to Long-
fellow's baron : —
Many centuries have been numbered
Since in death the baron slumbered
By the convent's sculptured portal,
Mingling with the common dust :
But the good deed through the ages,
Living in historic pages,
Brighter grows and gleams immortal,
Unconsumed by moth or rust.
It may, perhaps, therefore be worth while to inquire
into the influences which led Henri de Blois to determine
the character of his " hospice."
This great Bishop was originally a monk of the famous
Burgundian Abbey of Cluny. He then became Abbot of
Glastonbury, and it is rather a curious fact, as proving
that he was still influenced by the traditions of his own
monastery, that the existing ruins of the late Norman
building usually known as St. Joseph's Chapel, and
probably built during the abbacy of De Blois, show that
this was a narthex or ante-church, agreeing with the usage
generally adopted by the Cluniac builders in the twelfth
century.1
Henry de Blois was a great builder, and we may,
therefore, be sure that he would be well informed as to
the various architectural works carried out in the more
important Cluniac houses. He retired to Cluny for a time
on the accession of Henry II.
The relief of the poor was a special feature with all
1 Such western extensions were added to their churches at Charite-sur-
Loire and Vezelay at the end of the twelfth century. At the Abbey of
Cluny itself the narthex consisted of five bays with side aisles, and was
not completed till the beginning of the thirteenth century.
THE HOSPITAL OF ST. CROSS, WINCHESTER 217
Cluniac congregations. It was carried out not merely by
means of alms, but by giving employment to their poorer
neighbours under the direction of the monks, thus enabling
them to learn all the useful trades or crafts. As in all
religious houses, they also provided hospitality for
travelling strangers. The almoner at Cluniac houses gave
to every foot-traveller a piece of bread and a measure
of wine ; while on the death of a member of their
fraternity, his portion was for thirty days given to the
first poor man that presented himself. At St. Cross, the
dole of bread and ale has continued to be given until the
present time. Two loaves and two gallons of ale are still
divided into thirty-two portions, and given to travellers
until the measure is exhausted.
Now, the very extensive scope of the possibilities for
practical study offered by Cluny had, no doubt, attracted
many students who had no intention of devoting themselves
to a strictly ecclesiastical career, although they were still
properly clerics. These men, as well as the poor craftsmen
who had left their native place to follow their trade, might
often find themselves stranded in old age. The sympathy
of the practical Bishop was thus enlisted on their behalf.
In 1151, De Blois entrusted the care of his new
foundation to the Master of the Knights Hospitallers,
afterwards known rather as the Knights of St. John of
Jerusalem. This Order, like the Cluniac, was subject to
Benedictine rule, and had houses in Jerusalem, where
pilgrims visiting the Holy Sepulchre were received. This
spot, on which the eyes of all Christendom were fixed, is
probably connected with the dedication of the Church to
the Holy Cross.
A contemporary writer, Henry of Huntingdon, speaks
of Henry, Bishop of Winchester, as " half a monk, half
a knight." That he was not ignorant of military matters
is proved by the planning of Wolvesey Castle, and the
nature of the engines used by him when besieged to throw
combustibles into the adjoining city. It seems not unlikely
2i 8 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
that had he not been prevented by political circumstances
at home, his position as Legate, and his ambitious personal
schemes, we should have found him with the armies of
the Cross in the Holy Land. Being- thus prevented,
perhaps, from becoming a Knight Hospitaller, he emulated
their example, and made provision for pilgrims near
Winchester, dedicating his church to the Holy Cross. One
of his own opponents at Wolvesey, David, King of Scots,
selected a similar dedication for the royal Abbey of the
Holy Rood at Edinburgh, and although the reason for the
latter dedication is explained by the legend of the white
hart, the crusading spirit may rather have been the true
origin.
Glastonbury too, and its connexion with Joseph of
Arimathea, formed another link with the defenders of the
Holy Sepulchre. De Blois adopted as the badge to be
worn by the inmates of his Hospital a silver cross potent,
similar to that borne on the shield of the Crusader King
of Jerusalem. Upon the seal of the Hospital is depicted a
small shield bearing five crosses, usually accepted as the
arms of the foundation, but it is not satisfactorily proved
that these were in use at such an early period. It is
interesting, however, to notice the similarity of these arms,
both with those of Jerusalem and also with those usually
assigned to the Abbey of Glastonbury.1
We will now turn to the buildings themselves. The
Church, although not large, has a certain quiet stateliness
that at once distinguishes it from an ordinary parish
1 Arms of Jerusalem : Argent ; a Cross potent, between four crosses or,
being the only exception to the heraldic rule that metal may not be
placed on metal.
Glastonbury : Vert ; a Cross botonee argent, sometimes with a figure
of the Virgin and Child in the dexter chief.
St. Cross : Five Crosses potent (tinctures uncertain).
See also Memorials of Old Oxfordshire, p. 39, where it is stated that
at Broughton Castle is a gold ring with the device of a cross-legged knight
and a shield with the arms of St. John of Jerusalem. As the Castle
belonged to Bishop William of Wykeham, and passed by the marriage of
his niece to the present family, it would be interesting to know whether
this ring is connected with Wykeham, St. Cross, or the Hospitallers.
THE HOSPITAL OF ST. CROSS, WINCHESTER 219
church. It is a most interesting example of the style of
transition from Romanesque Norman, with the round arch
as a distinctive feature, to Early English, with the recently
introduced pointed arch. This, from its great adaptability
in construction, soon became a dominant factor in a style
which during the three following centuries passed through
various stages of development, exemplified in some of the
most beautiful buildings of Europe.
It seems probable that only the eastern portions of the
church, but including the transepts, were begun by
De Blois. There is no doubt that even here, as in the
piers of the arcades between the chancel and the eastern
aisles, alterations have been made more than once. The
present piers were designed by the late Mr. Butterfield,
but investigations showed remains of no less than three
previous alterations. The curious triple arch at the angle
of the south transept and chancel aisle, whatever may
have been its original purpose, seems at least to point
to some arrangement which required an opening at a
point not contemplated in the original plan. The
care of the new foundation was entrusted to the Knights
Hospitallers in 1151. We may assume, therefore,
that some kind of domestic buildings had been provided.
From indications on the south side of both chancel and
transept it is evident that early buildings adjoined these
portions of the church, and this would agree with the usual
position of such buildings in a conventual establishment.
Even those portions of the church referred to as
begun by De Blois show considerable differences of
detail in the Norman work, and Mr. Basil Champneys1
thinks it probable that the more decorated portion of the
round arched work should be assigned to his successor,
Richard Toclyve (1173-1189), who endeavoured to recover
the care of the Hospital. It is, however, generally
admitted that in the vicinity of Winchester the develop-
ment of architectural style might proceed more rapidly
l The Hospital of St. Cross, Pt. I. ; Architectiiral Review, Oct., 1903, p. 117.
22o MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
than in out-of-the-way parts of the kingdom. As far,
therefore, as the work itself is concerned, it is not
impossible that it may have been carried out before the
death of De Blois in 1171. During the last fifteen years
of his life he was no longer involved in the strife between
Stephen and Matilda, and he may have devoted himself
to his architectural schemes.
By Bishop Toclyve's addition to the charity another
hundred poor men were fed. The staff of the Hospital
was, in consequence, increased by four priests, thirteen
clerks, and additional choristers. This practically doubled
the number of inmates, and additions must have been
made to the buildings, but we cannot tell the site of these.
Two of the Masters — William of Edington, afterwards
Bishop of Winchester, and John de Campden —
undoubtedly carried out considerable building opera-
tions in repair of the fabric, which, owing to most
blameable action on the part of some of the Masters,
was in a very neglected state. It was only the firm
action of William of Wykeham that eventually resulted
in an improvement, personally watched over by his friend,
the new Master, Campden, who was appointed in
1382. Edington is usually credited with the work in
the west and clerestory windows. If so, it is
interesting to note the difference between this work,
presumably carried out during his mastership (1334-1345),
and that generally attributed to him in the Cathedral
during his episcopate (1345-1366). The latter, however,
was probably very little advanced at his death. The
statement that the west window was the. work of Peter
of Sancto Mario1 (Master, 1289-1296) would perhaps fit
in more satisfactorily with the architectural details.
Campden appears to have undertaken rebuilding
in all parts of the Hospital, as would be expected
from a man entrusted with the task of restoring the
establishment to a proper state. The eight windows in
1 The Hospital of St. Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty, by the
Rev. Canon L. M. Humbert (Master, .1855-1868).
THE HOSPITAL OF ST. CROSS, WINCHESTER 221
the lower part of the tower, the reconstruction of
the upper part, the re-roofing of the brewery, re-arrange-
ment of the choir with new stalls and a high altar of.
alabaster, the re-paving, and other works, including,
perhaps, the dining hall, are probably all part of the
work on which he expended a sum equal to some £"27,000
of our present money.
In 1443, Cardinal Beaufort, who had succeeded
Wykeham in 1404, obtained royal licence to assign to the
Master of St. Cross various manors, advowsons, etc., to
the annual value of five hundred pounds, in aid of certain
charges and works of piety ; and three years later, he
constituted an addition to the foundation of De Blois,
calling it the " Almshouse of Noble Poverty," as accommo-
dation for two priests, thirty-five brethren, and three sisters.
In support of the usually accepted tradition that the
present domestic buildings are those erected by Beaufort,
Mr. Champneys, in a second paper,1 emphasises the
interesting fact noticed by Dollman,2 that the accom-
modation in the existing brothers' lodgings, including that
in the part removed in 1789, exactly corresponds with the
number of inmates just referred to. This new foundation
was apparently intended to serve as a refuge to members
of his own Lancastrian family who should suffer in the
contest with the rival house of York. In 1455, when his
successor, Bishop Waynflete, obtained permission to carry
out Beaufort's intentions, his first step was to reduce the
number from that contemplated to one chaplain and two
brethren. This lends colour to the supposition that the
alms-house was itself a considerable sufferer from Yorkist
confiscations. It would appear, from the fact mentioned
above, that the new buildings for the total number had
already been erected, but we do not know where the
original brothers of the De Blois foundation were to be
accommodated. The reduction in the number of new
brothers must have left a large margin of unoccupied
1 Architectural Review, April, 1904, p. 150.
2 Examples of Ancient Domestic Architecture.
222 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
rooms, even when the thirteen original members took
possession of some of the rooms. A space in the north-
west angle of the quadrangle, comprising twelve lodgings,
was eventually re-arranged to provide a house for the
Master, although it appears to have been let to other
residents, since we find the Speaker of the House of
Commons living there in the eighteenth century. This
portion continued to be used as the Master's house until
a few years ago, when a new Master's Lodge was erected
outside the old precincts. In the Master's garden are
remains of the old Columbarium, which still gives the name
of " Pigeon House Mead " to the adjacent meadow.
The interesting question is sometimes asked, how far
Anthony Trollope's The Warden is genuinely based
upon the history of St. Cross? Writing when public
attention had been drawn to the irregularities in the
administration of the Hospital, it is obvious that the
novelist was influenced by the facts, but it must not be
imagined that the novel describes either St. Cross or
its actual history. It seems probable that Trollope
studied the early history of the Hospital, for the two-
pence a day added by the Warden to the stipends of
the brethren of Hiram's Hospital is exactly the allowance
made by De Blois to the monks of Hyde, when he
held their abbey and annexed its revenues. Those
familiar with Winchester may identify "Hiram's Patch"
with " Gram's Arbour," but the old city is so well provided
with " Hospitals "l that the novelist could obtain details
from all without exactly copying any one. But, in any
case, the book, one of Trollope's very best, gives a
charming picture of the beautiful Hospital and its lovely
surroundings, and is an abiding witness to its attraction.
N. C. H. NISBETT.
1 St. John's, founded 931, refounded 1289 ; St. Mary Magdalen, founded
by Bishop Toclyve, 1173-88, for nine lepers; Christ's Hospital, 1607.
THE COLLEGE OF ST. MARY,
WINCHESTER1
BY THE REV. W. P. SMITH
N the morning of March 28th, 1393, "at the
third hour before noon," a little band was making
its way, " preceded by the cross erect," and
to the sound of a solemn chant, through the
meadows on the southern side of the city of Winchester,
close to the high walls of the Bishop's Palace at Wolvesey.
It had come, in all probability, from its temporary home
in the parish of St. John the Baptist, on the slope of
St. Giles's Hill — that hill where, some three hundred years
before, English Waltheof had been put to death by the
first of the Norman kings. The procession included the
newly-appointed Warden, Fellows, and Scholars, who
were making their first and formal entrance into the as
yet unfinished buildings of that " Sainte Marie College
of Winchester," which owes its origin to the wisdom and
munificence of William of Wykeham.
Five centuries later, in 1893, from the same court
which had received the first generation of the sons of
Wykeham, there issued a far larger body that had met
there to do honour to the five hundredth anniversary of
the founding of the College. Too • numerous to worship
within the walls of the Founder's Chapel, they made their
way through the Cathedral close to hold their service of
1 The writer wishes to express his indebtedness to Mr. T. F. Kirby's
Annals of Winchester College, a veritable storehouse of information ; and
to Mr. A. F. Leach's History of Winchester College, which throws much
new light on the history of education in the fourteenth century.
223
224 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
grateful thanks in the nave of that Minster on which
Wykeham left the mark of his distinctive personality, and
where he rests in his chantry tomb.
The two processions, so like and yet so different, give
emphasis to that note of continuity which, in matters
whether political, ecclesiastical, or educational, is the
hall-mark of England's development. It is only when we
realise the enduring nature of the superstructure which,
raised five centuries ago, remains to this day instinct with
vitality, that we can fully appreciate the strength of the
foundations, which Wykeham, like a wise master-builder,
so firmly laid ; and the secret of that living continuity is
to be found in the fact that if the tree that was then
planted stretched forth its branches into the future, its
roots went deep into the past.
The objects that William of Wykeham had in view,
when he founded his two great educational centres at
Oxford and Winchester, are clear enough. The Black
Death had left its mark on England in many ways, not
least in the " general disease of the clerical army, which,
through the want of clergy," was " grievously wounded."
The two colleges, next of kin, and called by one name,
issuing from one stem, and flowing from one spring, as he
tells us, were designed to remedy this evil, and the school
was intended to be the feeder of the college, that there
might pass out into the world an educated clergy, and
that so the " praise of God might be spread, and all
knowledge and virtue be increased in strength."
The time has long gone by since it was the pious
belief of loyal Wykehamists that William of Wykeham
evolved the design of his great foundation at Winchester
from his inner consciousness, and that, by an original
conception, he became the prime creator of the English
Public School system. Historical criticism has destroyed
this idea. Just as there lived brave men before
Agamemnon, so it has been shown that before the close
of the fourteenth century there were many schools in
THE COLLEGE OF ST. MARY, WINCHESTER 225
England that drew their scholars not only from the cities
in which they stood, but from all parts of the kingdom
also. Schools like St Peter's at York and others can trace
back their existence to a point of time long anterior to
the birth of Winchester College, and even in Winchester
itself there was an old foundation — the " High School of
the City of Winchester " — which, so far from being
absorbed by Wykeham's new creation, existed for a time
side by side with it on terms of equality and friendship.
But it is not only clear that Wykeham found other
schools already in existence, which, so far as comparison
is possible, might claim for themselves a right to the title
of being that somewhat nebulous thing, a Public School.
It was from amongst these schools that he deliberately
sought the model for his new creation, and the choice
that he made was characteristic of the man. The
reaction which in matters ecclesiastical had for some time
past set iri in favour of the secular as opposed to the
monastic system made itself felt in education also ; and
when William of Wykeham, who was man of the world
as well as priest, was looking around for his model, he
naturally turned to the example of Merton, at that time
the most successful of Oxford Colleges, and reflecting the
more liberal tendencies of the age. It is not necessary
to dwell upon the many points which Wykeham borrowed
from the foundation of Walter de Merton — this belongs
more specially to the history of New College ; it is
sufficient to say that he found attached to it a school not
housed within the college itself, but in a separate hall,
the pupils of which were to be of founder's kin, either
orphans or in poverty, placed under the charge of a
common grammar master, and in due course proceeding
to their fellowship in the larger foundation.
The points of resemblance between the model and
the modelled here indicated are obvious ; but there was
one important difference which marks the sagacity of the
founder. The school which was meant to feed the college
Q
226 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
was placed at Winchester, not at Oxford, and was
thereby enabled to develop on its own lines with a
freedom which would have been impossible under the
shadow of the greater institution. Yet even in this
departure from the chosen exemplar, research tells us that
Wykeham was not original: he was but following the
precedent of Bishop Stapledon, who had fixed at Exeter
a school intended to be a nursery for his college at
Oxford.
If, then, Public Schools were already in existence, if
in attaching his school to an Oxford College for the supply
of fit and educated scholars, and in placing that school
at a distance from the larger foundation, Wykeham was
only borrowing here and there from earlier models, is
there any point in which he is left a claim to originality?
There is this. Wykeham made his later foundation
entirely independent of the earlier one. It was
deliberately intended by him to be a corporation with
a separate existence of its own, a distinct entity with its
own foundation, its own government, its own control ;
it was to be the younger sister of the " Sainte Marie
College of Wynchester in Oxford," and not its daughter.
It is difficult to estimate overmuch the importance of this
step on the future development and progress, not only
of the school itself, but of education generally: it estab-
lished a model, which, followed fifty years later by
Henry VI. in the foundation of Eton, has helped to give
to English Public Schools that detached position which
is one of their marked characteristics.
But even if criticism and research have deprived
Wykeham of much with which indiscriminate enthusiasm
had previously credited him, we find that his fame rests
upon a surer basis than a kind of haphazard intuition.
Selection, rather than originality, is the mark of states-
manship ; and it was the statesman's grasp which Wyke-
ham showed in selecting from the various elements of
the educational world, as yet in solution and uncrystallised,
THE COLLEGE OF ST. MARY, WINCHESTER 227
those which were of a sound and permanent value, and
in giving to his new foundation an independent and
corporate position, which would enable it to adapt itself
to varying needs and circumstances as they might arise,
untrammelled by external interference.
He determined, also, that his school should be on a
scale beyond anything as yet attempted. The Warden
and thirteen scholars of the school attached to Merton
College grew into a staff of a hundred and five in all —
warden, schoolmaster, usher, seventy scholars, ten fellows,
three chaplains, three lay clerks, and sixteen choristers,
besides an indefinite number of servants to meet the
requirements of such a body.1 The scholars were to be
taken first of all from among the founder's kin, irrespective
of their birthplace, and after them priority was to be
given to " poor and needy scholars, of good character,
and well-conditioned." Whatever may be the exact
meaning to be attached to the words pauperes et indigentes,
around which such fierce controversy has arisen, it would
seem to be clear that it cannot mean absolute poverty,
but something more akin to the paupertas of Horace,
a frugality of life that lies midway between want and
afHuence. At any rate, we find that some of the
commoners, " sons of noble and powerful persons," who
were allowed to be educated at the college, though not
without payment, passed occasionally into the ranks of
the scholars ; they were able to pay the boarding fees,
whatever they were in amount, yet they were not debarred
from qualifying as " poor and needy." Poverty, in short,
is a relative term, and the conclusion arrived at by
Mr. Leach appears to be the correct one, that "Wykeham
meant the poor of the upper and middle classes, those
who then furnished and still furnish the ranks of the
learned professions."
1 The government of the College, which was vested in the Warden
and Fellows, remained unaltered until 1871, when a Governing Body of
eleven members was established. In 1904 the post of a Warden holding
office for life was abolished.
228 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Such, in outline, was the foundation which in the
closing years of the fourteenth century took shape as the
outcome of William of Wykeham's desire to create a
body of educated clergy, and give fresh strength to the
depleted ranks of the Church. Let us now turn to the
buildings in which this new foundation was to be housed
To the visitor who has made his way from the bright
spaciousness of the cathedral close, the first impression,
as he stands fronting the ancient gateway in College
Street, is one of austerity. The sunless street, the high
fronting wall of flint and stone, pierced only here and
there by a chance window, the massive oaken door, the
grime of ages that has settled everywhere, all combine to
strike a note of unrelieved gloom : it is the same sugges-
tion of reserve and reticence which meets us in the
high-walled approach to the sister college at Oxford, as
if to make the beauty of the interior all the more striking
from its contrast with the plain outside. Through the
gateway we pass into the Outer Court, where the less
comely parts attached to the school had their home.
Here, in olden days, were the brewery, the slaughter-
house, the stables, and the granary; and above the gate-
way, as his coign of vantage, the steward could keep a
watchful eye over everything. If we mentally sweep
away on the left what until recently was the warden's
house, built by Wardens Love and Nicholas in the
seventeenth century, but fronted in flint in a cold and
tasteless manner in 1832, and, on the right, the screen of
masonry erected in 1663 to mark the western end, we
have Outer Court much as it was in the founder's time.
Tower or Chamber Court is reached by Middle Gate, an
archway with a double-storied tower above it, and it is
from this point of view that the beauty of the founder's
work at once becomes apparent. On either side, to east
and west, stands the more purely domestic part of the
buildings, plain and unpretending, but with the subtle
charm that comes from well-considered proportion, and
THE COLLEGE OF ST. MARY, WINCHESTER 229
linking on the stateliness of Chapel and Hall to the lesser
glories of Middle Gate, where the mouldering statue of
the crowned Virgin, flanked on either side by the kneeling
forms of the Angel Gabriel and the founder, still looks
down on the school that bears her name, and the court
that is so rich in memories of the past.
It was across Chamber Court, if we may believe the
legend left us in Strype's Ecclesiastical Memoirs, that
Master William Ford, the usher, one dark night in 1536,
fled back to his quarters, after having, in a fit of reforming
zeal, pulled down the " golden images " that were the
glory of Chapel. Here, eighteen years later, Philip and
Mary came from their wedding in the nave of the
Cathedral, and offered alms in Chapel on the occasion
of their visit. Here the rebellions, which between 1774
and 1818 varied the monotony of school life, had their
centre, leaving traces to this day in the flints which
took the place of the cobblestones, torn up to serve as
missiles in the defence. Here, "ad Portas" in a Latin
speech delivered by one of the scholars, were received
the Warden of New College and the Posers on their
annual visit, and here it is still the custom for the Prefect
of Hall, in the same ornate tongue —
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,l
to welcome distinguished visitors.
But it is in Chamber Court that the genius of the
place and of its founder comes home most closely to
the spectator. As he stands under Middle Gate, he has
but to fill up a gateway made by a later generation, or
open out another that has been walled up, and chiefly to
imagine, in place of the graceful " Thurbern " tower, built
in 1478-1480, the somewhat incongruous circular belfry,
surmounted by a spire, which, if we can trust the quaint
drawing of College (c. 1460) shown in Chandler's Life of
Wykekam, formed part of the original buildings. Perhaps
1 Browning, The Bishop orders his tomb at St. Praxed's.
230 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
the view to-day, when the mellowing hand of time has
laid its fingers on everything, is even fairer than when
the first band of scholars entered the walls. To pace of
a summer's evening, as so many generations of the sons
of Wykeham have done, the paved border of flagstones
that edge the cobbled court, and are still called "sands,"
as they were two hundred and fifty years ago, and
doubtless earlier still ; to watch the changing colours of
the buttresses as the moonbeams fall upon the weathered
stones ; to mark the brighter tints of the stained-glass
windows, glowing from the light within ; to weave the
memories of the past with the happiness of the present,
and in the ardour of youthful friendship to link them
on to the hopes of the future — this in itself is an education
to those whose lines are cast in these happy places.
The interior of the Chapel, unhappily, does not
correspond to the promise of its outer walls, and is greatly
changed since it left the founder's hands. The four walls
and the ceiling with its beautiful fan tracery are prac-
tically all that remain of the- original work. Apart from
details, Wykeham's intention in its main outlines is clear
enough. The ante-chapel was separated from the choir
by a rood-loft, where stood the rood or crucifix, with the
figures of the Virgin and St. John, and the height of the
building, originally great, must have been accentuated by
this division. Of the internal decorations, we read in the
statutes of choir-stalls, and stained glass, and paintings
on the walls, whilst the high altar with its varied frontals
was afterwards enriched with a gleaming tabernacle of
gold, the gift of Henry VI, and a silver, statue of the
Virgin, presented by Cardinal Beaufort In the changing
days of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth the high altar
was taken down, only to re-appear for a time, and then
give place to a communion table. The rood-loft in 1572
became a choir-screen, and at the close of the seventeenth
century Warden Nicholas re-paved the floor in black and
white marble, and covered the walls with a reredos and
THE COLLEGE OF ST. MARY, WINCHESTER 231
wainscotting of wood, rich in carved work of great beauty
and value. This, in its turn, disappeared, though, after
many vicissitudes, it has found a home in the neighbouring
village of Hursley, and has given place to a tasteless
restoration by the late Mr. Butterfield. The bareness
of the walls has lately been relieved by putting up some
valuable framed pieces of arras that had long lain
neglected in the old Treasury or Audit Room, and were
probably the gift of Archbishop Warham ; but this can
only be regarded as a palliative, and the building still
cries aloud for some further sympathetic and reverential
treatment.
College Hall, as at New College, abuts upon the
Chapel, but with this difference, that at Winchester it
is the western end of Chapel, and not the eastern, as at
Oxford, which divides the two : hence Winchester has
that fine Perpendicular east window which exigencies of
arrangement denied to the sister foundation. With its
five slender transomed windows, its corbelled oak ceiling,
its louvre in the roof, and its open hearth in the middle,
where the scholars used to cluster on winter feast-days,
telling stories and singing songs, until the curfew bell
" knolled " them to bed, College Hall is an attractive spot.
The hand of the restorer has dealt more mercifully with
Hall than with Chapel ; the oak panelling which Dean
Fleshmonger set up in 1540 still remains; the flint and
chalk work of the walls has been revealed by the removal
of the plaster covering, and the walls are brightened by
pictures of the founder and other benefactors of the school,
who have been inspired by his example.
Under the Hall, which is approached by a broad flight
of steps, lies the room that is now known as Seventh
Chamber, but originally was the School. In the founder's
day it was larger by the width of the passage taken
from it in 1689, so as to give access to the grounds
beyond. Here were taught the seventy scholars and what
few commoners there chanced to be ; here were to be
232 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
seen the Tabula Legum, containing the school ethics of
the day, and the famous legend : " Aut disce, aut discede,
manet sors tertia ccedi" Raised seats for the schoolmaster
and usher completed the room, which, with its three
windows facing south, courts the warmth and light of the
sun. It ceased to be used for teaching purposes in 1701,
and became a sleeping chamber, but in 1875 it hcdf
reverted to its original purpose, being reserved for a
certain number of the scholars as a place in which to
prepare their lessons.
Such in outline are the buildings as originally
contemplated by the founder, and such they practically
remained for some two hundred years, the home of the
hundred and more who formed the foundation, and
sufficient for the wants of that simpler age.
The only other part of the founder's work which space
allows us to touch upon are the charming cloisters that lie
to the south of the Chapel buildings. They have that
touch of poetry and sequestered grace which cloisters
never fail to convey, that old-world glamour which lays
its spell even upon the least sympathetic minds. Here,
in summer time, on the stone seats that fringe the open
tracery of the windows, the scholars assembled for their
lessons ; here, too, they played their games and carved
their names, and, by a happy continuance, summer term
is still known as "cloister-time." Here, in this little plot
of ground, some eighty feet square, the dead found their
last resting-place, still speaking to us from the walls in
every variety of brass and monumental marble. It is
not merely those whose lives were bounded from first to
last within the narrowing walls of their microcosm whose
record can be read, but others, also, who, in later days,
laid down their lives at the call of duty in lands unknown
to the earlier generations of the sons of Wykeham. In
the centre of the tiny close, like a jewel in its setting of
gold, stands Fromond's Chantry, built out of funds
bequeathed for that purpose in 1420 by John Fromond,
THE COLLEGE OF ST. MARY, WINCHESTER 233
the steward of the College estates, that masses might be
said therein for himself, for his wife, and for the founder.
The vicissitudes of Chantry have been many and varied.
The Reformation brought its earlier purpose as a chantry
to an end: the upper room over the Chantry proper,
originally intended for a scriptorium, became a granary,
and remained so until 1629, when Warden Pinke con-
verted the building into a library at his own expense. So
it remained until 1875, when the lower portion was once
more used for religious purposes, and became a chapel for
the junior boys of the school. Since then, by the muni-
ficence of two distinguished Wykehamists — Dr. Edwin
Freshfield, F.S.A., and Archdeacon Fearon, formerly Head-
master of the College — it has been reverently restored ;
the coats of arms on the bosses of the groined ceiling
received their due emblazonment ; a reredos was added ;
and, above all, the east window at last received
some measure of justice. This window, which came
originally from the adjoining College of St. Elizabeth of
Hungary, when it was acquired by the College in 1544,
and which was placed at first in the Chantry under
Thurbern's tower, was afterwards removed, and thrust in
a ruthless Procrustean fashion into the tracery of
Fromond's Chantry. The most incongruous of the
added glass has now been taken away, and the older
work re-arranged as far as possible, in accordance with
the original design, with the result that its soft and
harmonious colouring can at last be properly appreciated.
After the completion of Fromond's Chantry, there was
no material addition made to the College buildings until
the middle of the seventeenth century, when Warden
Harris, in 1640, built College Sick-house, a charming
specimen of the architecture of that time, and enhanced
by contrast with some of its modern neighbours. Then
came the era of Warden Nicholas (1679-1711), who built
the harmonious garden front of the Warden's lodgings,
and in whose reign those alterations in Chapel were made
234 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
which lasted until recent times ; above all, who built
" School/' so strangely unequal in the contrast it presents
between the blank baldness of the exterior on its southern
side and the richness of the facade that fronts the main
buildings. Over a beautifully proportioned doorway is
the bronze statue of the founder, made by the father of
Colley Gibber, and given by him that he might obtain
that nomination for his son, Lewis, which he had failed
to get for Colley.
The attendance of commoners, which had risen to
seventy-nine in 1681, and from various reasons had sunk
as low as twenty in 1717, began to rise again under the
energetic headmastership of Dr. Burton (1724-1766), and
in 1734 there were a hundred and twenty-three names on
the roll. To cope with these growing numbers, Burton
put an end to the makeshift arrangements by which
commoners had hitherto found a home within the College,
and having acquired possession of the ground to the west,
where the old Sustern Spital had stood, he erected a block
of buildings henceforth known as " Commoners." It was
about this time that Dorothy Osborne, in her letters to
her brother, has left us that pleasant picture of the
Headmaster in the hunting field, surrounded by some
fourteen of his pupils, whose portraits, in all the glory of
periwigs and lapelled coats, still adorn the Second
Master's dining-room in College. " Indeed," she writes,
" I have not seen a finer sight than those boys and their
master together." A hundred years later, and " Old
Commoners" in its turn disappeared, to give place to
" New Commoners." Finally, in 1 868-9, Dr- Ridding, the
late Bishop of Southwell, with that wise statesmanship
which entitles him to be called the second founder of the
school, ended the old system by drafting the inmates of
commoners into the modern boarding-houses which had
recently come into existence. This important change,
which not unnaturally aroused some opposition from the
conservatism of earlier generations, has been amply
THE COLLEGE OF ST. MARY, WINCHESTER 235
justified by the results. Once more put abreast of modern
requirements, the school has since developed with marvel-
lous prosperity, and has shown a power of adaptation
to the changing needs of education which augurs well
for its future progress. The Commoners' buildings thus
vacated were turned by the late Mr. Butterfield into a
library and class-rooms, with a success which contrasts
favourably with the deplorable results of his work in
Chapel. The other buildings which have been erected in
recent years need not be enumerated ; they represent the
expanding needs of an English Public School, but their
artistic value has not always been in proportion to their
usefulness.
Such, in brief outline, is the story of the different
buildings from the founder's time onwards, which make
up Winchester College, and they mark not inadequately
the expansion of the varying educational needs which they
were intended to meet. On the inner life of the school
during these five hundred years of its existence, it is
impossible to touch : it is a microcosm of English history
and society, and it reflects in many ways the great religious
and political movements of succeeding ages.
In conclusion, it may be fearlessly affirmed that if, as
we have seen, the " higher criticism " in matters scholastic
has deprived Wykeham of some of the fame with which
he has been credited, his reputation has been placed upon
a surer because safer foundation. His enduring claim is
that from the somewhat experimental conditions of
education in his day he selected for his new foundation
those elements which time, the supreme court of appeal,
has proved to be enduring: he gave his school a consti-
tution which enabled it to develop on its right lines,
independent of external influences, and he deliberately
encouraged that responsibility of seniors for the welfare
and good government of juniors, which, more than anything
else, has made our Public Schools what they are. The
highest testimony to the value of his work is to be seen
236 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
in the fact that the founders of Eton and Westminster,
at a wide interval of time, both went to Winchester for
their model, and that it was from Winchester that
Dr. Arnold derived those principles of prefectorial
government which are a distinctive feature of English
schools. The present generation of Wykehamists must
inevitably differ from its predecessors, and much that
was dear to older generations — that esoteric language of
"notions," for instance, which has been shown to be no
mere arbitrary or childish invention, but possessed of a
scientific foundation — has been modified or is passing away.
These are but the changes which mark the growing
organism, and the impartial observer, whether from within
or from without, will readily acknowledge that the
generation which to-day worships in Wykeham's Chapel
and Fromond's Chantry will, when the time comes, hand
on to distant successors the torch of the race of life.
W. P. SMITH.
BRAMSHILL
BY THE REV. P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A.
ITUATED in the northern extremity of Hamp-
shire, amidst scenery of great beauty, in a noble
park clothed with heather and bracken, Bramshill
possesses a charm that is all its own. It is
solitary, stately, unprofaned, and the broad balustraded
terraces, the quaint gardens, and the venerable oaks and
yews whose branches overshadow the walks, all conjure
up visions of a bygone age, and speak of the growth of
centuries of regular and peaceful existence. Standing in
this tranquil backwater of life, Bramshill has never played
a very active part in the making of the nation's history.
Its numerous owners have, many of them, been men of
high rank and distinguished careers ; it has had its periods
of excitement ; at one time, perhaps, it might have attained
the dignity of becoming a royal palace ; but its chief charm
lies in its own intrinsic beauties and the natural features
of its picturesque surroundings.
Bramshill can trace its pedigree to pre-Norman times.
At the time of the Norman Conquest it consisted of two
manors, both of which are mentioned in the Domesday
Survey. The name appears in that, record as Bromeselle,
probably the Norman scribe's phonetic reproduction of the
Anglo-Saxon Bromshyll, " the Hill of Broom," which still
grows luxuriantly in the neighbourhood. The pronun-
ciation of words in England by the rustics is often
traditional, and preserves the original form of the name,
regardless of subsequent forms of spelling. The villagers
237
238 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
still call the place Bramzle, or Bromzle, which is not far
removed from the Anglo-Saxon form of the word,
corrupted in the seventeenth century to Bramshill.
Hugh de Port, a favourite of the Conqueror, who
became possessed of many fair lands in the county, held
one of the manors, in whose family it continued for nine
generations. William de Port assumed the name of
St. John, Edmund St. John dying possessed of the manor
in 1346. The estate then passed, through the lack of a
male heir, to the Foxleys. Sir John Foxley built and
endowed a chapel at Bramshill early in the fourteenth
century, and obtained permission from the Bishop of
Winchester to have mass celebrated every day therein.
Nicholas Hagman, parson of .the Church of Eversley,
provided the chaplain. Sir Thomas Foxley, the son of
Sir John, was a personal friend of the famous William of
Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, and rebuilder of the
Cathedral. He was also the Constable of Windsor Castle,
and held a prominent position in the country. He
obtained license from King . Edward III. to enclose two
thousand five hundred acres at Bramshill to form the park,
which now exists, though subsequently greatly increased.
This park, therefore, can claim to have existed for more
than five centuries. He built or enlarged the house, and
considerable remains of the mansion erected by him still
exist, and are worked up in the present house, notably
part of the cellars, the vaulting of which bears a striking
similarity to that at Windsor Castle. Possibly Wykeham,
who was the designer of considerable portions of the
Castle, assisted, on account of his friendship with the
owner of Bramshill, in the planning and building of the
house, or some of the same workmen employed at the
Castle may have been engaged on the Hampshire
mansion.
The estate then passed by marriage to the Uvedale
family, then to the Rogers and Essex families, and then
to Lord Daubeney, who lies under a beautiful brass cross
BRAMSHILL 239
in Eversley Church. On the death of his son, who had
been created Earl of Bridgewater, the estate passed into
the possession of the King, who granted it in 1547 to
William Paulet, Lord St. John, a member of the same
family who had held it two centuries earlier.. He became
Marquis of Winchester, and gained the favour of successive
sovereigns, Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth — a feat
remarkable in those changing and dangerous days. He
attributed his success to his pliable nature and his
character of resembling the "willow rather than the oak."
In 1605, the property was sold to Edward, Lord
Zouche of Harringworth, the builder of the present
mansion, the beauties of which were early sung by William
Browne in his " Shepherd's Pipe " : —
Be pleased, great Lord, when underneath the shades
Of your delightful Bramshill, when the spring
Her flowers for gentle blasts with zephyrs trades,
. Once more to hear a silly shepherd sing.
The stately house took seven years in building, and
the architect was the celebrated John Thorpe. Tradition
states that it was intended as a house of Prince Henry of
Wales, the eldest son of James L, and this is supported
by the shape of the crowning ornament of the great front,
which represents the feathers and coronet of the Prince
of Wales, and also by ornaments stamped on the fire
grates. One of these bears the royal arms, another the
date 1604 with the initials I.R., and a third the Prince of
Wales' Feathers. The royal arms and badges appear on
the ceiling of the chamber which is now the chapel, though
by a curious coincidence the Rose, Fleur de Lys, and Dragon
are the arms of the Copes, the present owners. Lord
Zouche was an important personage at Court — Lord
Warden of the Cinque Ports and Ambassador to Scotland
— and it is not improbable that he offered his newly-rising
mansion to the King ; but the untimely death of the
young Prince in 1612 — the very year the external part of
the house was completed — put an end to any such scheme.
240 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Before his death, a tragic event occurred in the Park.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, was staying
at Bramshill for the benefit of his health, and for the same
reason went out shooting at the deer with a cross-bow.
The Archbishop was known to be a somewhat erratic
sportsman, and the keeper, Peter Hawkins, was warned
to be careful. A deer arose from a spinny. The Arch-
bishop discharged his arrow, but, alas! missed the deer,
and killed the keeper. The prelate never forgave himself,
and observed a monthly fast on Tuesday, the day when
the accident occurred, and bestowed on the widow a
pension of £20 a year. But the consequences to the
Archbishop did not end with these acts of penitence. He
was suspended from the duties of his office. There was a
mighty outcry. Some clerics who were about to be raised
to the episcopal bench refused to be consecrated by his
bloodstained hands. At length the outcry died down,
and the sorrowing prelate was restored to his position,
and suffered to discharge his functions in peace ; but the
tragedy at Bramshill has left its mark on our ecclesiastical
history.
Thirteen years after the death of Lord Zouche, the
property was sold to the Earl of Antrim, whose wife was
the widow of the Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of
James I. and Charles I. It was again sold to Sir Robert
Henley in 1640, a spendthrift family who landed the
estate in overwhelming debts. From their creditors the
estate was purchased in 1695 by Sir John Cope, the eldest
son of the fifth Baronet, the bulk of whose family estates
lay in Oxfordshire, and in this family Bramshill has
remained ever since.
Their principal seat was Hanwell Castle, built by
William Cope, Cofferer to Henry VII., and for many
generations they have wrought well and worthily for their
country. The King granted his own arms to his favourite,
viz., Fleur de Lys, Tudor Rose, and Dragon of Wales,
BRAMSHILL 241
instead of the ancient arms of the Copes : vert on a fesse
argent, a boar passant sable.
We will now visit this noble house, built by Lord
Zouche under the guiding hand of Thorpe, the architect
of Hatneld, who utilised some part of the fourteenth
century building. Several stately English houses in the
south of England were founded at the same time. Hatneld
was built in 1611, Holland House by Sir Walter Cope in
1607, Longford Castle in Wilts in 1612, Charlton in Kent
in 1612, and Audley End in Essex in 1616. It was
a period of much architectural activity, and Bramshill
was not the least successful of these stately houses. It
remains one of the most striking Jacobean mansions in
England, " looking out," as Kingsley wrote, " far and wide
over the rich lowland from its eyrie of dark pines."
The older house was built around a courtyard In
the opinion of the eminent architect, Mr. Fergusson, the
old hall still remains in the present structure, though shorn
of some of its length, as the present dais is too narrow.
The present long gallery was probably built on the
entrance side of the court, facing the hall. Thorpe's
design was to efface the courtyard, put back the
two wings till they nearly met, and make all the windows
look outwards instead of into the court. This interior
court did not, however, quite disappear, for some
unknown reason. No other house in England is quite like
Bramshill, and its plan may be said to be unique. It
belongs to the style usually described as Elizabethan or
early Jacobean, if it may not be more correctly styled
as that of the English Renaissance.
The general plan may roughly.be said to be in the
form of the letter H, the transverse stroke being much
elongated, and of considerable breadth. Beautiful old
brickwork is the material of the structure, with quoins,
mullions, and dressings of Headington stone. There were
formerly projecting wings on the south-west front, one of
which was destroyed by fire, and the other removed at a
R
242 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
later period. Fuller alludes to the fire in his work,
The Worthies of England, which he wrote in 1645 at
Basing House, where he was staying during the siege by
Cromwell's army. He says : " Next Basing, Bramsell,
built by the last Lord Zouch, in a bleak and barren place,
was a stately structure, especially before part thereof was
defaced by a casual fire." These wings must have been
somewhat extensive, as a writer in 1782 states that
thirty-four rooms were destroyed by this " casual fire."
The south-west front is perhaps the most charming
feature of the house. The wings are of brick, and their
present terminations were erected in 1703, as the heads
of the stack-pipes plainly testify. The central portion of
the front is of stone, and consists of a porch or cloister
of three arches, reached by a broad flight of steps. In
the centre rises an ornamental structure, having double
pilasters of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian style, with
ornamental niches between them, rising story above story
to the top of the building. A most beautiful and
graceful oriel window appears in the first floor. On the
second floor are two arches, and above there is a crowning
ornament, which is believed to be a representation of the
feathers and coronet of the Prince of Wales. This seems
to confirm the tradition that the house was originally
intended for the occupation of the eldest son of King
James I. The whole of this charming structure is
profusely decorated with the ornaments of the Renaissance
period. Great similarity between the open-work parapet,
together with the panelling beneath the window and late
Perpendicular work, can be clearly seen, and is evidence
of the endurance of late Gothic architecture, and the
intermixture of styles, of which many examples might be
quoted.
The north-eastern front was originally intended by
Thorpe to contain the principal entrance. On the first
floor are the windows of the long gallery. Facing this
front is a walled garden, and in the north-east wall of
BRAMSHILL 243
this enclosure is the postern, an arched opening, which
was intended to lead to the main entrance to the house,
the old gatehouse of the Foxleys, which is still,
preserved in the present building. The arch of this is
Tudor or four-centred, and is, therefore, earlier than the
Renaissance arches which appear in the rest of the
building. The north-west front is very picturesque with
its numerous gables, though it has been somewhat altered
by the insertion of Queen Anne sash-windows at the
beginning of the eighteenth century. The terrace front,
a hundred and ninety-four feet long, broken by four
projecting bays, and terminated at each end by a bold
projection supported on the terrace side by two ornamental
arches, is an architectural gem. The beauty of the pierced
parapet is perhaps unequalled in any other example of
English Renaissance. At the eastern end of the terrace
is the Troco Court, so called from the game Troco
formerly played on it, which was not unlike lawn billiards.
The iron ring through which the balls were driven still
remains, and a few of the cues and balls are preserved.
We enter the mansion through the noble south-west
cloister porch, and pass into the hall, a fine room, part
of the ancient fourteenth century house. This hall marks
a stage in the history of English domestic architecture,
the diminution in size of the hall, the desire for greater
privacy, and the multiplication of the chambers in the
English house. This hall does not extend to the height
of the roof, as the old halls invariably did, and the entrance
is not under the screens, but in front of them. These
screens are decorated with the arms and descent of the
Cope family, and the chimney-piece shows the arms of
some of the heiresses who have married into the family.
The ancient dais remains at the upper end. The glass in
the windows contains the arms and names of royal visitors
— the late Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, several
members of the Royal Family, and, in older days, James I.
and his Queen, who visited the Copes at their ancestral
244 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
castle of Hanwell, Oxfordshire. The hall contains a good
collection of arms and armour, and amongst other interest-
ing treasures the fine coffer and portrait of William Cope,
cofferer to Henry VII., and builder of Hanwell Castle.
Passing through the terrace hall, at the foot of the
great staircase we enter the dining room, which is hung
with English tapestry fashioned at the Mortlake Works
in 1625. It represents woodland scenery, and is a very
beautiful example of the products of English looms.
There is a fine Italian mantelpiece which belongs to the
period of the erection of the present house. The next
room is the Red Drawing room, which, together with the
billiard room, was somewhat modernised at the beginning
of the last century. It is hung with some remarkable
portraits, amongst which we notice Lady Bolingbroke, the
daughter of Sir Henry Winchcombe, a celebrated beauty,
and descendant of the famous " Jack of Newbury," the
famous Berkshire clothier. The portrait by Vandyke of
Marie de Medicis, Queen of France, and mother of the
Queen of Charles L, was painted for and formerly belonged
to the martyred King; it is not known how it found its
way to Bramshill. A portrait of Vandyke by himself ;
some family portraits, including that of Mrs. Bethel, by
Kneller, and of Rachel, Countess of Bath, by Vandyke ;
and a painting of the Holy Family, by Rubens, are the
principal artistic treasures in this room. In the billiard
room is a painting of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, by
Hogarth, which formerly was hung in the great room of
the celebrated gardens of Vauxhall, and several family
portraits. The garden room ends the suite of apartments
on the ground floor.
Ascending the staircase, we see several pictures of
much interest. A portrait of Queen Mary; Charles, Earl
of Peterborough, who fought in the Spanish War in
Queen Anne's time, by Amiconi ; Mrs. Tipping and
Mrs. Mordaunt, by Kneller ; Mrs. Poyntz as " Minerva,"
known in her day as "the Fair Circassian " ; William,
BRAMSHILL 245
third Earl of Pembroke, by Van Somer ; a painting of
Posthurrms and Imogen (Shakespeare's Cymbeline, Act L,
Sc. ii.)> by William Hamilton ; and Sir John Cope, fifth
Baronet (died in 1/21), who had a long and interesting
career.
We now pass into the State Drawing room, which has
a fine Jacobean ceiling with pendants and interlacing
work. The tapestry is extremely important and
interesting. It was designed by Rubens, and made at
Brussels under his direction. Letters are in existence
which prove that the great artist intended to present the
tapestry to Sir Dudley Carleton, the English Ambassador
to the Hague, in exchange for a set of marbles. How they
came to Bramshill is not known ; perhaps it was through
the friendship of Sir Dudley with Lord Zouche, perhaps
through the relationship of the Copes with the Ambas-
sador; but this can only be conjectured. The subject of
the tapestries is the history of Decius Mus, the Roman
consul who sacrificed his life for his country. The first
scene represents him consulting the Augurs ; in the second,
we see him taking leave of the Senate before engaging in
the war against the Samnites. Then the Death of Decius
is shown in the midst of a fierce fight, the hero falling
backwards from a plunging charger. The fourth scene
represents the Obsequies of Decius, a spirited design
showing the prisoners taken in the fight and the spoils
of the conquered. The artist in later life painted six
pictures dealing with the same subject, which are now
in the Liechtenstein Gallery, near Vienna, and in which
three of these scenes are exactly reproduced. The
furniture in this room, as in other parts of the house, is
good Chippendale. Two of the tables here contain panels
of Early English needlework of early seventeenth century.
The library contains many treasures and a good col-
lection of family portraits ; amongst them is the painting
of Sir Anthony Cope, fourth Baronet, who played a
distinguished part in bringing about the Restoration
246 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
of Charles II. There is a fine Jacobean ceiling and
a noble chimney-piece of black and white marble. We
now pass into the famous gallery, a notable feature of
every English Elizabethan or Jacobean house. It is said
to be the longest in England, 130 feet by 21 feet. It is a
noble room, and fancy peoples it with a gay company
of cavaliers and the courtly beauties of the Stuart times
dancing the stately minuet, or coranto, or quadrille, or the
old English "country dances," really contre-dances, which
were once the favourite of the court. If the ladies and
gentlemen whose portraits adorn the walls of Bramshill
could step out of their frames, and assemble in this old
gallery, they would form a fitting company for this noble
chamber. Bramshill has indeed a ghost, the " White
Lady," who haunts the " Flower-de-luce " chamber
immediately adjoining the gallery, and she may have been
concerned with the tragedy of the " Mistletoe Bough,"
which tradition attaches to Bramshill. The story tells of
a fair young bride who, on her wedding night, proposed
the game of " Hide and Seek." She rushed off to hide
herself, and selected a beautiful old chest in the gallery,
wherein she laid herself. The door of the chest closed
with a spring lock. The searchers tried to find her, but
all in vain. The fair lady had disappeared. Years after-
wards, a servant had occasion to open the chest, and lo!
A skeleton form lay mouldering there,
In the bridal wreath of that lady fair.
The story has been told by Rogers in Ginevra, and by
Haines Bailey in The Mistletoe Bough, and is attached
also to another Hampshire house — Harwell Hall, in Owles-
bury parish. The chest, very finely carved with satyrs and
other figures, was removed from Bramshill about a
hundred years ago. Sir William Cope, the father of the
present baronet, did not credit the legend, and stated that
the event never occurred at Bramshill, and that no lady of
his family ever died on her bridal day. It may possibly
BRAMSHILL 247
refer to Mrs. Bethel, who died a year after her marriage in
1728, but Italy is probably the home of the legend, and
it is stated that the chest was bought by an Englishman,
possibly by Sir John Cope, fifth Baronet, who thus brought
the chest and the story to Bramshill.
The chapel-room is very attractive, not only on account
of its store of wonderful portraits and paintings, its
Chippendale furniture, its Florentine mosaic cabinet, and
other treasures, but also on account of its charming shape
and construction. There is a fine Jacobean ceiling,
panelled walls, and good Renaissance chimney-piece. The
hearth-back bears the royal arms of the Stuarts, with the
initials I. R. and the date 1604. There are several of
Lely's portraits: Charles II, his Queen Katherine of
Braganza, Nell Gwyn, the Countess of Ossory, Lucy
Walters, and Lady Pratt, the daughter of a neighbouring
squire ; two small paintings by Holbein of Henry VIII.
and Edward VI. ; paintings of the Seasons by Paul Bril ;
Lucretia, after Guido; and many other valuable artistic
treasures.
The chapel is adorned with rare fifteenth century
tapestry, not later than 1450. It has been sorely treated
and cut, and was at one time used in the attics to keep
out draughts. By the tender care of the late Sir William
Cope, it has been repaired and preserved, and now forms
a rare and curious set. The principal subjects are : Aaron
praying before the Ark of the Covenant, the people
waiting without while two priests are drawing back the
curtains of the Sanctuary ; King David praying ; the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary ; the Prophet
Isaiah ; a crowned figure in crimson, with an ermine cape ;
the Star of Bethlehem (represented as a comet) appearing
to the Wise Men ; the Adoration of the Wise Men ; the
Queen of Sheba and Solomon. There is a grand concep-
tion of the Church and the world adoring the Saviour
seated in the arms of the Virgin : cardinals, bishops,
monarchs, monks, ladies, and others, are all looking to the
248 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Saviour, and chanting : " Ad te clamamus, 0 pia, 0 dulcis
Maria" The rest of the tapestry gives representations
of personified vices — Avarice, Fraud, Vanity, etc. This
tapestry certainly, in spite of its great age, shows
evidences of the highest art, the drawing of the figures
and the expression of the faces being most admirably
conceived and executed. The work is probably of German
origin.
Besides the chambers which we have visited, there is
a labyrinth of bed-rooms and extensive attics, wherein
legends say that a whole troop of soldiers was quartered
during the Civil War. A quaint little room still bears the
name of the " Powdering Closet," and reminds one of the
time of high towering wigs, when patch, powder, and paint
were the signs of gentility. In this room there would be
hung two curtains, behind which the beau or belle would
stand, and expose only the head, which received its proper
supply of powder without any falling on the clothes of
the individual. A fine view can be seen from the roof,
and on the north-east front you will see an iron hoop
which in olden days held a lantern, so that the lords of
Bramshill might find their way home across the wide
heaths and deserted park in the dark winter evenings.
Returning to the hall, we see a large picture of a meet
of the hounds at Bramshill, with portraits of Sir John Cope
and other noted sportsmen of the beginning of the last
century. Bramshill was at that time a great centre of
fox hunting, and there have been few keener hunters than
the then owner of this mansion.
As we wander through the park, we notice the great
trees, the four great avenues leading to the house, and
especially the grand Scotch firs dearly loved by Kingsley,
who said of them : " I respect them, those Scotch firs.
I delight in their forms, from James the First's gnarled
giants up in Bramshill Park — the only place in England
where a painter can learn what Scotch firs are— down to
the little green pyramids, which stand up out of the heather,
BRAMSHILL 249
triumphant over tyranny and the strange woes of an
untoward youth." Some of these giant trees have a
circumference of more than twenty feet. And so we leave
this beautiful Hampshire home in its framework of dark
pines, purple heather, and yellow gorse, keeping watch and
ward over the moors and forests, which have often echoed
with the sound of the merry horn, when Sir John and his
friends, Mr. Chute, of the Vine, old John Warde, and
*Mr. Piers Williams, of Temple, rode merrily to hunt the
fox, or with the tramp of armed men when King and
Parliament were engaged in a more deadly contest.
P. H. DlTCHFlELD.
BASING HOUSE
BY THE REV. G. N. GODWIN, B.D.
iWO miles east of Basingstoke, the traveller from
London by the South- Western Railway sees on
his right a large chalk-pit, and on his left a
stately church with a massive square tower,
a barn which shews marks of cannon shot, and a long
garden wall, flanked at either end by a turret, and having
behind it some grassy mounds and noble trees. Those
green mounds mark the site of old Basing House, the
" Basting House " of many a jubilant Cavalier, and
" Loyalty House " for ever.
The road by which we leave Basingstoke is full of
history. Along it Cavaliers and Roundheads have trudged
or galloped, and it has echoed to the tramp of the Ironsides,
who knew not the meaning of the word " defeat." Near
the canal bridge, " Slaughter Close " tells us how many
a brave man on both sides died as a soldier should
Basingstoke Workhouse marks the site of the Parlia-
mentarian headquarters on Cowdrey Down, and the big
chalk-pit beyond the railway, which still bears the name
of " Oliver's Delve," was occupied by Southampton
pikemen and troopers during the siege. A noble barn
was the riding school of Basing House, and still shews
traces of the battering of Colonel Dalbier's guns. Crossing
the canal, which some century ago was cut right through
the ruins, we find ourselves in the midst of brick-lined
moats and the foundations of a stately gatehouse. On
our left is the breach by which the Ironsides stormed the
portion of the mansion known as the New House ;
250
BASING HOUSE 251
on our right is the bowling green. On the farther side
of this is an orchard, which was formerly the garrison
cemetery. From the orchard we enter a pleasant garden,
along one side of which runs a long wall, with two flanking
turrets, one of which now does duty as an extremely curious
dove-cot. By the kindness of Lord Bolton, to whom lovers
of the past owe a debt of gratitude for his systematic
excavation of this historic site, a number of interesting
relics are shewn in a well-arranged Museum. Here are
proud escutcheons, discoloured by smoke and flame, bearing
fragments of the glorious family motto, " Aymez Loyaute."
Here are cannon-balls, pikes, and bullets, fragments of
shell, and a couple of swords which fell, two and a half
centuries ago, from dying hands.
Returning to the bowling green we have in front of
us a bridge, on which men fought during the final assault,
whilst black flags of defiance waved from the lofty gate-
house. We now enter a huge circular entrenchment of
earth faced with brick, and surrounded by a moat, the
average depth of which is thirty-six feet. Here Lord
Bolton's excavations have laid bare many an interesting
detail, and also many an archaeological puzzle. Here are
remains of the ancient Norman castle of Basing, as well
as of the more modern and stately mansion of the first
Marquis of Winchester. Note the massive vaults which
have been opened out, with curious sketches on the walls
of a kite, a ship, a Cavalier's head, and the Kke. In the
cellar, above which once stood the great hall, many of
the garrison were suffocated or burnt to death after the
last fierce assault. The whole place must have been a
very forest of towers, with many and large courtyards.
We can still see the sally-port and the off-duty kennel
of the turn-spit dog ; we can still pace the ramparts,
commanding a glorious view, whereon steadfast Cavaliers
did sentry-go for so many months.
Like so many other places in Hampshire, this place
is an epitome of English history. Unnumbered centuries
252 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
ago the Celts threw up these mighty mounds as a shelter
for their women, children, and cattle. Wars of which
some local Homer may have sung were waged around
these ramparts, but the Hampshire " Iliad " has perished
Vespasian's legionaries carried these works by storm just
before they embarked at Portchester for the more famous
siege of Jerusalem. In 870, a Danish host which had
landed in the north was harrying Hampshire. The lion-
hearted ^Ethelred dwelt in the royal palace at Winchester,
and by his side was his young brother, Alfred, "the
Truth-Teller," already known as a Dane fighter. Led
by the two royal brothers, the men of Wessex, with their
Dragon standard, faced the Raven of the North at Basing.
It was no fault of theirs that "the Pagans remained
masters of the place of death," and that "when the fight
began, hope passed from one side to the other, the royal
army was deceived, the enemy had the victory, but gained
no spoils." The neighbouring " Lick Pit " or " Body Pit "
farm is probably a memento of this fight. Basing was the
home of the clan of Basingas, and from it Basingstoke
was an offshoot
Adam de Port, whose inscriptions are still to be seen
on the outside walls of Warnford Church,1 " a mightie man
in this tract, and of great wealth in the reign of William
the First" (Camden), was lord of Basing, marrying the
heiress of the House of St. John. In 1261, Robert de
St. John obtained from Henry III. licence to palisade the
moat and fortify his house at " Basinge Pallis," and in
a grant made in the reign of Henry II. to the Priory of
Monks' Sherborne, mention is made of the "old castle
of Basing." In 1280, John de St. John obtained leave
from the Basingstoke Hundred Court to rebuild the
gallows which had fallen down, and to replace an execution
tumbrel which had been worn out by frequent use. He
also owned a pillory, a ducking-stool for scolding women,
and other persuaders to good manners. Two Priors
1 See p. 43.
BASING HOUSE 253
of Winchester are said to have borne the name of
William de Basynge. The old castle of Adam de
Port was falling into decay when William Paulet,
who had inherited Basing from the St. John family, was
made Comptroller and Treasurer of the Household by
Henry VIIL, and was created Marquis of Winchester by
Edward VI. He was a very shrewd man. Being once
asked how he had kept the favour of four Tudor sovereigns,
ne replied : " I was born of the willow, not of the oak."
He firmly supported Mary against Lady Jane Grey.
In 1569, he entertained his royal mistress so royally at
Basing that the Queen is said to have confessed : " By
my troth, if my Lord Treasurer were but a young man,
I could find in my heart to love him for a husband before
any man in England." He died in 1571, at the age of
eighty-seven, enormously rich, and leaving a hundred and
three living descendants. He rebuilt Basing Castle in
a style of great magnificence. The ancient home was left
standing within the great earthern mounds, and was
henceforth known as the Old House. Huge cellars and
vaults were excavated and lined with brick, a new well
was sunk, and a great hall built over an ancient cellar.
A stately gatehouse, with a tower not unlike that of
Winchester College, led into the ancient mansion. To
the right and left of the gatehouse were two new wings
of noble proportions, bearing in many places the proud
Paulet motto, "Aymez Loyaute," which also flamed, it
is said, in every window. The new buildings, which were
known as the New House, had another stately gatehouse
of their own, approached by a winding road up the
steep ascent from the garrison gate, and were protected
by deep, brick-lined moats; on the other side of the
road stood the farm or grange. The approach was
through two gateways of fine pointed brickwork, whilst
on the other side access was by means of a drawbridge.
The upkeep of this stately pile was a heavy burden, and
before long the Paulet family pulled down the left wing.
254 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
When the Civil War broke out, the Paulets declared
for the King. John, the fifth and " Loyal " Marquis of
Winchester, was a man of letters and a Roman Catholic.
He said that " if the King had no more ground in England
than Basing House, he would maintain it to the utter-
most" The Marchioness was daughter of the Earl of
St. Albans, and sister of Lord Essex, the Parliamentarian
general. She shared in all the dangers of the siege, saw
her maid killed by a shell, she herself narrowly escaping.
With the other ladies of the garrison, she cast into bullets
the lead stripped from the roofs and turrets, and success-
fully organised the relieving expedition of Colonel Gage.
The Marquis collected arms for fifteen hundred men,
which he was obliged to sell by an order of the House
of Commons, bearing date November 4th, 1642. Being
left with only six muskets, he and his gentlemen with
difficulty beat off some straggling Parliamentarians. At
the end of February, 1643, Prince Rupert rode through
the garrison gate, in vain pursuit of four guns and seven
cartloads of ammunition, destined for Sir William Waller,
the Parliament's general in Hants. On July 3ist, Colonel
Harvey, " a decayed silk man," who had lately won
doubtful glory by dispersing a crowd of women in London
who begged in vain for peace, aided by Colonel Norton,
of Southwick Park and the Old Manor House at Alresford
— the " Idle Dick Norton " of Cromwell — made an attack
upon the house from the side of the park. Help came
in the very nick of time, brought from Oxford by
Lieutenant-Colonel Peake, a London printseller, who had
as his assistants William Faithorne, the father of English
engraving, and the well-known artist, Wenceslaus Hollar.
All three took commissions in the King's service at Basing.
There is a curious etching of Basing Siege done by Hollar
in his leisure hours. All hands were set to work, and some
fourteen and a half acres were soon protected by strong
but rough fortifications. Sir Marmaduke Rawdon, a
London merchant, whom the Parliament had " decayed,"
BASING HOUSE 255
was appointed Governor, having as his deputy Lieutenant-
Colonel Peake, who had a long white beard, and was
styled " a seller of picture babies." Lieutenant-Colonel
Johnson was a clever doctor and botanist, and Major
Cufland, or Cufaude, whose relations dwell in Norfolk
to-day, of Cufland House, was of Plantagenet descent
The London Trained Bands, who are the regimental
ancestors of the Buffs and the Royal Marines, were now
o'rdered to Basing, where the garrison was said to consist
of some five hundred men, " all in a manner Papists." The
" Soldier's Report " said that the house was " as large as
the Tower of London," and was " built upright, so that
no man can command the roof." The garrison were armed
with muskets, and had mounted eleven guns of various
calibre. Sir William Waller advanced from Farnham and
Alton with some seven thousand men, and offered free
exit, to no purpose, to all women and children. The
besieged burnt the Grange and its supplies in self-defence,
and for nine days the blockade went on. After three
days' hard fighting, Waller was obliged to retire to
Farnham, " having dishonoured and bruised his army,
whereof abundance were lost, without the death of more
than two in the garrison, and some little damage to the
house by battery," as Lord Hopton, the King's general in
Hants, was on his march to relieve Basing. On August
1 8th, 1643, the Parliament declared the Marquis of Win-
chester guilty of high treason, and sequestrated his large
estates. Lord Hopton, a gallant Cornishman, who was
an old friend of his constant opponent, Sir William Waller,
was holding Winchester in strong force for the King,
though his Cornish levies often mutinied through home-
sickness. He was a good and staunch friend to Basing
House, which, with Donnington Castle, near Newbury,
effectually commanded the great Western Road ; and many
a broad-wheeled waggon, heavily laden with cloth, and
bound for London, was intercepted by raiders from these
two garrisons. Spies were active, and when detected
256 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
found a short road to the gallows. One of them, Tobias
Beasley, who made bullets at Basing, " showed great
reluctance to go off the ladder."
Certain royal cooks came to Basing with a detachment
of Prince Rupert's regiment in December, 1643, which
started an unfounded rumour that the King in person had
removed much plate and treasure from the fortress.
After Cheriton Fight (March 2Qth, 1644), which "broke
all the measures, and altered the whole scheme of the
King's counsels," Lord Hopton made good his retreat at
dead of night to Basing, from whence he fell back upon
Reading and Oxford, leaving behind him as chaplain to
the Basing garrison Dr. Thomas Fuller, author of the
Worthies of England, who seems to have stayed about
six weeks under the hospitable roof of Lord Winchester,
writing of the " troutful streams and natural commodities "
of Hampshire, and confessing to some slight interruption
from the frequent cannonades. He says that Basing " was
the largest of any subject's house in England, yea, larger
than most (eagles have not the biggest nests of all birds)
of the King's palaces. The motto, ' Love Loyaltie/ was
often written in every window thereof, and was well prac-
tised in it, when, for resistance on that account, it was
lately levelled to the ground." Their enemies styled the
Basing garrison " foxes and wolves," but they showed in
many a daring foray that they could bite as well as bark.
A plot was now formed by some disheartened mal-
contents within the walls to surrender the house to Sir
William Waller, with whom a correspondence was carried
on by " the Lord Edward Pawlet, brother to the Marquis
of Winchester, and then with him as unsuspected as a
brother ought to be." The plot was discovered through
the unexpected desertion to the King of Sir Richard
Granville, who was ever after called by his old comrades
" Skellum " or " Rogue " ; and the conspirators were all
executed, with the exception of Lord Edward, who was
forced to act as hangman at all future garrison executions.
BASING HOUSE 257
Sir William Waller was very active in cutting off stragglers
from Basing, and on June 1st, 1644, a party from the
house met with heavy disaster at Odiham, which, as a ,
Parliamentarian base of operations, they had tried to burn.
On June nth, 1644, the siege of Basing House began
in earnest. Colonel Norton, aided by Colonel Onslow and
a Surrey contingent, showed himself a daring and resolute
foe, and was reinforced by Colonel Herbert Morley with
five hundred foot from Farnham. He blockaded the house
with his cavalry, occupied Basing village, and cut off
supplies. On June I4th there was a smart skirmish near
The Vine, and on the same day it was reported in London
that the garrison was already suffering severely, Sir William
Waller having burnt both their mills. Salt and other
necessaries were also lacking. On June 1 8th — a day to
be hereafter memorable for fighting — a jet of flame at
midnight made the old church tower stand out in bold
relief. Half Basing was in a blaze, and it seemed as if
a fierce sortie made from the house would raise the siege.
But it was not to be. For eighteen weeks the struggle
went on. Sorties, assaults, mines, desertions, famines, and
feasting came in quick succession. The story of this
period alone would fill a volume. Basing House began to
be styled " Basting House " by rejoicing Cavaliers. The
besiegers laboured, like Nehemiah's workmen, with a sword
in one hand and a tool in the other, and on June 24th
" three of ours runne to them." The gallows was always
ready for would-be deserters. A heavy fire of shells, some
eighty pounds in weight, which the garrison styled
" baubles," and of cannon shot was kept up, and " they
did shoot the Marquisse himselfe • through his clothes."
Owing to a lack of salt, on July 24th, " stinking beef was
thrown over Basing walls." In vain did Colonel Morley
summon the Marquis to surrender, in spite of disease
making havoc in the ranks of the defenders. Several
dashing sorties were made, and once or twice the besiegers
were driven off as far as Basingstoke.
S
258 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
In the second week in September, Colonel Sir Henry
Gage, a gallant Roman Catholic soldier, led a relieving
force from Oxford, and, after a fiercely-contested action
on Chinham Down, against desperate odds, with sorely
wearied troops, and shrouded in blinding fog, relieved the
garrison in a masterly fashion. The wounded Roundheads
" were next day sent forth unto the care of their own
chirurgeons, and two that ran from us had execution."
" That lovers met that day, and blushed and kissed ; and
old grey-bearded friends embraced each other, and, aye
marry, pledged each other, too ; that good Catholic
comrades exchanged prayers at Basing altar ; that brave
fathers kissed the wives and children they had left shut
up in brave old ' Loyalty/ needs no telling. But not
alone in kissing and in quaffing did Gage and his troops
spend those two merry days." The Parliamentarian
Committee was chased out of Basingstoke, and all the
stores which they had laboriously accumulated were carted
off to Basing House, after which Colonel Gage withdrew
by night to Oxford, fording the Kennet and the Thames
at Burghfield and Pangbourne, " our horse taking up the
musketeers en croup." Heroic Colonel Gage afterwards
met with a soldier's death on January nth, 1645, at
Culham Bridge, near Abingdon. On September I4th the
Cavaliers were celebrating their relief, " drinking in the
town, and in no good order." Colonel Norton made an
unexpected attack, and " one hour's very sharp fight
followed." Basing Church was taken and retaken, as,
indeed, it was several times during the siege, though,
strangely enough, the Virgin and Child on the west front
still remain unharmed.
The assailants were at length repulsed with heavy loss,
but in the struggle the wise and learned Lieutenant-Colonel
Johnson, doctor and botanist, was mortally wounded. Ten
days later there was another fierce fight. The stern
besiegers again closed tenaciously around Basing, and
things went on much as before, the gallant little garrison
BASING HOUSE 259
being in vain summoned to surrender. In October, 1644,
the King himself was in the neighbourhood, returning
from his western campaign to Oxford, as were also
Cromwell and the Earl of Manchester, who were then
not on the best of terms. Manchester -intended the
engagement which was afterwards the second Battle of
Newbury to have been fought at Basing, and even marked
out the positions which his regiments were to occupy.
Famine was now pressing the garrison hard, and
surrender seemed imminent. On November 28th it was
said in London that " Basing garrison had neither shoes
nor stockings, drank water, and looked all as if they had
been rather the prisoners of the grave than the keepers
of a castle." The diary of the siege closes with these
noble words : —
Let no man, therefore, think himself an instrument, only in giving
thanks that God had made him so, for here was evidently seen "He
chose the weak to confound the strong." Non nobis Domine. "Not unto-
us, not unto us, O Lord, but to Thine own Name be all glory for ever.
Amen!"
For some months Basing was left in peace, and many
a successful foray and capture of road waggons took place,
bold riders scouring the country as far as Hindhead.
But unfortunately religious dissensions, which have ruined
many noble causes, broke out. On May Day, 1645, there
was a sorry sight. All the defenders who were not Roman
Catholics marched out of Loyalty House some five
hundred strong. They were refused admission to Don-
nington Castle by stout-hearted Sir John Boys, who
expected to be besieged, but was unable to feed so large
a contingent After a running fight with Colonel Butler's
Horse, they succeeded in joining the army of the dissolute
Lord Goring, at Lambourne in Berkshire.
At the end of August, the Parliament sent Colonel
Dalbier, a Dutchman, from whom it is said that Crom-
well learned the mechanical part of soldiering, to reduce
Basing at all costs. " Mercurius Britannicus " said
260 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
that the Marquis of Winchester spent his time in
bed at the bottom of a cellar, " out of reach of gunshot,
for, you know, generals and governors should not be too
venturous." Dalbier occupied Basing village, and tried in
vain to take the house by means of mines. Shells, known
as "granado shells," proved more effective. One mortar,
which was sent direct from London — the bridges being
strengthened so that it might cross them — fired shells of
sixty-three pounds weight and eighteen inches in diameter.
Ammunition was sent from Windsor Castle, then a
Parliamentarian arsenal. " A compounded stifling smoke,"
emitted by damp straw, brimstone, arsenic, and other
ingredients, made the lives of the besiegers a misery. On
Sunday, September 2ist, 1645, the Rev. William Beech,
a Wykehamist, gave the besiegers a remarkable sermon,
which occupies, in small type, thirty-two small quarto
pages. It was entitled " More Sulphur for Basing," and
is a marvellous specimen of the sermon militant. On the
following day, Dalbier's guns brought down "the great
tower in the old house." Deserters and a released prisoner
said that " in the top of this tower was hid a bushel of
Scots twopences, which flew about their ears." Shot and
shell now poured in thick and fast, and when on
October 8th Lieutenant-General Cromwell, at the head
of a brigade detached from General Fairfax's new model
army, arrived from recently-captured Winchester, the fate
of the fortress was sealed. The besiegers were seven
thousand in number, whilst the walls, which needed from
eight hundred to a thousand men to hold them, sheltered
but three hundred, many of whom were but eighteen and
some scarcely twelve years of age, including also the
priests and the wounded. Only its natural strength saved
the fortress so long. There was no chance of relief.
On October I3th the besieged made their last sortie,
and, during a fog, captured Colonel Robert Hammond and
Colonel King, the former of whom was afterwards the
King's gaoler at Carisbrook Castle. They received fair
BASING HOUSE 261
treatment, and it was alleged that they were taken by
previous arrangement, so that Colonel Hammond might
save the life of the Marquis during the final assault. At
five o'clock in the morning of October I4th the attack
began, and the invincible Ironsides formed up in column.
The garrison was utterly worn out, but it' is said that
some of them were surprised as they were playing cards.
" Clubs are trumps, as when Basing House was taken,"
is- a well-known Hampshire phrase. Rush of pike and
pistol shot put a speedy end alike to game and players.
Four cannon shots boomed out, and, by a breach which
is still plainly visible, the storming party entered the New
House, and then made their way inch by inch over the
huge mounds faced with brickwork into the Old House.
In spite of the black flags of defiance which they hung
out, and of the heroism of those who " fought it out
at sword's point," superior numbers prevailed. When
opposition ceased, plundering began. But in the midst
of the pillage, the dread cry of "Fire" was raised, for
a fireball had been left to smoulder unheeded. Ere long,
Basing House was but a pile of smoking ruins. Many of
the garrison were suffocated or burned to death in the
cellars and vaults in which they had taken refuge, and
which have been recently opened out by Lord Bolton.
Hugh Peters, " the ecclesiastical newsmonger," heard them
crying in vain for help. "There were four more Roman
Catholic priests beside, who were plundered of their
vestments, and themselves reserved for the gallows." The
prisoners were two hundred in number, including the stout
old Marquis, who, after being confined with Sir Robert
Peake for a day or two at the Bell Inn at Basingstoke,
was sent up to London, and committed to the Tower. He
was afterwards allowed to retire to France. William
Faithorne and Wenceslaus Hollar were also taken. Inigo
Jones, the celebrated architect, who is said to have designed
the west door of Basing Church, "was carried away in a
blanket, having lost his clothes," doubtless borrowed by
262 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
some trooper. Seventy-four men were killed, but only one
woman, the daughter of Dr. Griffith, of St. Mary Magdalen,
Old Fish Street, " a gallant gentlewoman, whom the
enemy shamefully left naked." We are told by " Mercurius
Veridicus " of " the ladies' wardrobe, which furnished many
of the soldiers' wives with gowns and petticoats." The
ladies themselves were " entertained somewhat coarsely,
yet they left them with some clothes upon them." A
hundred gentlewomen's rich gowns and petticoats were
among the spoil, which was reckoned to be worth £200,000,
and was styled by Cromwell "a good encouragement."
The victors chaffered with the dealers, who had hired all
the available horses between Basing and London, lowering
their prices as the hour for marching drew nigh. At dawn
on October I5th, 1645, Cromwell's trumpets sounded "to
horse," and the long column of the Ironsides marched
away from smoke-blackened, ruined Basing, to reduce
Longford House, near Salisbury, and the House of
Commons ordered that all and sundry might take brick
or stone at will from the ruins. Basing House soon
became the picturesque ruin which it has ever since
remained. The grass grows green to-day over the
crumbling ramparts. As long as any feeling remains of
chivalry and respect for the mighty heroes of the past
who " jeoparded their lives in the high places of the field "
— whether for King or Parliament, for there were good,
gallant, and noble men deeply engaged on both sides of
that mighty struggle — so long will the story of Basing
House be green in English memories.
G. N. GODWIN.
For further details of the siege of Basing House, readers are referred
to the much enlarged 2nd edition (1904) of my book, The Civil War in
Hampshire and the Story 9f Basing House (Gilbert & Son, Southampton ;
Bumpus, London). 2is. net.
CHARLES I. AT PLACE HOUSE
AND HURST CASTLE
BY THE REV. G. N. GODWIN, B.D.
Place House
WINTER day (November I2th, 1647) was
closing in as two horsemen made their
way down the hill near the stately mansion
of Place House, Titchfield, and drawing
rein outside the noble gatehouse demanded admis-
sion. They were weary, and their horses were jaded,
for they had ridden far and fast. Those who greeted
the wayfarers and gave them welcome little thought
that they were taking part in the first act of a grim
tragedy. The travellers were the hapless monarch,
King Charles, and his faithful friend and follower, Colonel
Legge. On the previous night, which was dark and
stormy, the King, leaving his cloak in the gallery, stole down
the back stairs at Hampton Court with Colonel Legge,
and they were joined at the gate by trusty comrades,
John Ashburnham and Sir John Berkley. Passing through
the gardens, the party crossed the fiver at Thames Ditton.
A relay of horses had been sent on the day before to
Bishop's Sutton, near Alresford. The fugitives rode
south-west through Windsor Forest, and " in the dark,
cloudy, rainy night," lost their way for more than ten
miles, according to Sir Richard Bulstrode, who adds that
263
264 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
next morning they found themselves at Farnham. When
they reached the inn at Bishop's Sutton — probably the
present " Ship " — they found that the Hampshire Parlia-
mentarian Committee was holding a meeting within. It
would never do to fall into the hands of Cromwell's intimate
friend, the Colonel, " Idle Dick Norton." There was
nothing for it but to push on, wearied as they were.
Then followed the memorable council. "Walking down
the next hill, and holding our horses in our hands," they
decided that Berkley and Ashburnham, loth as they
both were to leave the King, should make their way to
Lymington and Carisbrook, to sound Colonel Robert
Hammond, Governor of the Isle of Wight, as to what
treatment the King might expect from him. Ashburnham
had spoken to Colonel Hammond not long before, and
the Colonel had said that he was going down to the Isle
of Wight, "because he found the army was resolved to
break all promises with the King, and that he would have
nothing to do with such perfidious actions."
Colonel Robert Hammond, to whom Cromwell used
to write as " Dear Robin," was the second son of Robert
Hammond, of Chertsey, and was born in 1621. He spent
three years at Oxford, but left without taking a degree.
He has been well described as being " the nephew of two
uncles," one of whom, Dr. Henry Hammond, was the
favourite chaplain of the King, while the other, Thomas
Hammond, had formerly commanded the fortieth troop of
horse, became Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, and
was one of the Regicides. Influenced by these uncles, and
by his wife, who was a daughter of John Hampden, whose
memory he always adored, Hammond's views were some-
what undecided. He was taken prisoner just before the
" Sack of Basing House," it was said, by previous
agreement, so that he might save the life of the Marquis
of Winchester during the final assault. He was appointed
Governor of the Isle of Wight, of which his grandmother
was a native, September 6th, 1647, being made subordinate
CHARLES I. AT PLACE HOUSE AND HURST CASTLE 265
to Fairfax in military, but to the Parliament in civil
matters.
Before leaving Hampton Court, Ashburnham had
suggested to the King that he should go to the Isle of
Wight, and remain in hiding at the house of Sir John
Oglander, till he could find out whether Hammond would
protect him. So with heavy hearts, Ashburnham and
Berkley rode by lonely roads to Lymington, where they
were detained a whole day by inclement weather. The
next morning they crossed the Solent, and journeyed to
Carisbrook Castle, whence they followed Hammond to
Newport, and there met with him.
Meanwhile, the King and Colonel Legge had been
making their way to Titchfield, where the Earl of
Southampton had a noble mansion, it having been decided
that they should there wait for the report of Berkley and
Ashburnham. They probably skirted the hills, being
horsemen .and riding light, more especially as the King's
wish had been " to avoid highways." They were received
with joyous welcome by the old Countess of Southampton.
Of her son, Clarendon says : " The Earl of Southampton
was indeed a great man in all respects, and brought much
reputation to the royal cause." He watched the King's
body during the night after the execution, and saw the
entrance of a muffled figure in a cloak, whom he believed
to be Cromwell, and who said, " Stern necessity." He was
also present at the King's funeral at Windsor on February
8th, 1649. Clarendon says that the Earl "was small in
stature, his courage and all his other faculties very great."
Place (i.e., Palace) House, as the Earl's mansion was called,
was already a place of memories. It had been a house
of Premonstratensian canons, founded by Bishop Peter de
Rupibus in 1232. The abbey was of the estimated value
of £240 per annum when Abbot Sampson surrendered it
into the greedy hands of Henry VIII. He bestowed it
upon his Chancellor, Thomas Wriothesley, first Earl of
Southampton, who lies beneath a stately monument in the
266 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
interesting church of Titchfield. Leland tells us how, in
about four years, a complete transformation had been
effected. Mr. Minns says : 1 " The canons' cloister-garth
was converted into a fountain court : an entrance gateway
was driven through the nave of the church, the south
front denuded of its buttresses, and flanked with
embattled towers, and square-headed windows took the
place of double lancets; so complete was the change
effected that the ' right statelie house ' swept away almost
all trace of monastic arrangements."
Did the unhappy Charles remember how his ill-fated
predecessor, Henry VI, had wedded a French bride,
Margaret of Anjou, within those very walls? Both in
Henry's case and in his own, the French brides had spelt
disaster. Or how the first Earl of Southampton had
abetted the divorce of Anne of Cleves, hunted to the death
Catherine Howard, and striven to compass the fall of
Catherine Parr? Did the aged Countess dwelling there
" with a small family " tell him how she and her husband
had once welcomed to Titchfield a poet, who had immor-
talised the discrowned King Lear? One memory of
Titchfield House must, at least, have been vividly present
to him. " In 1626, the French priests and domestics of
that nation who came into England with the Queen were
grown so insolent, and put so many affronts upon the
King, that he was forced to send them home. This was
partly due to a stormy scene at Titchfield House, when
the King was paying a hunting visit to fair Beaulieu in
the New Forest When her French retinue departed,
Charles was obliged to drag her back into the room,
her hands bleeding from the energy with which she clung
to the bars. This is not an agreeable picture to contem-
plate. But it might have been well for Charles I, and
for England as well, if he had always asserted his authority
with equal firmness over this passionate and impulsive
1 Hants. Field Club Proceedings^ vol. iii.
CHARLES I. AT PLACE HOUSE AND HURST CASTLE 267
French girl." The magnificent oak overlooking the old
fish-ponds has probably sheltered both Shakespeare and
Charles I.
Ashburnham and Berkley had been strictly charged
to make sure that Colonel Hammond would faithfully
promise "not to deliver his Majesty up, though the
Parliament or Army should require him, but to give him
his liberty to shift for himself if he were not able to defend
him." In default of such a promise, they were on no
account to reveal the King's hiding place, but were to
come back at once to Titchfield and report. They told
Hammond, to the surprise of the latter, that the King
" had withdrawn from the army, but that his Majesty had
such confidence in Hammond, that he was willing to entrust
himself to his care, on condition that he was not surren-
dered to the Parliament." Berkley now foolishly said
that the King had escaped from Hampton Court to avoid
assassination, and that he was in the neighbourhood.
Hammond vaguely answered that he would act as a man
of honour, but that he was only a subordinate officer. He
offered to take the King to a place of safety, and then
asked where he was. He was told that " they would
acquaint his Majesty with his answer, and, if he were
satisfied with it, they would return to him again."
Hammond expressed his willingness to serve the King,
and wished one of the messengers to remain as a hostage.
This, however, was declined. But after dinner, strange to
say, it was agreed, with the full concurrence, if not actually
on the suggestion of Ashburnham — whom both Berkley
and Clarendon, be it noted, acquit of all treachery — that
Hammond should go with them to the King, taking no
one else with him. Ashburnham says that he was bound
to act thus, or the Governor's spies would have followed
them, and discovered the King's retreat. The three then
started for Cowes, where Hammond was joined by Captain
John Baskett, of Cowes Castle, and two servants : Captain
Grose says by a file of musketeers, and Clarendon by three
268 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
or four soldiers or servants. From thence they made their
way to Titchfield. It is not known whether they came
up the Meon River to Banner's Bridge, or landed at
Bursledon. Leaving the others below, Ashburnham went
upstairs, and astounded the King by telling him that
Hammond had come. " The King, striking himself on the
breast, exclaimed : ' What ! have you brought Hammond
with you ? Oh, Jack, you have undone me ; for I am
by this means made fast from stirring ! ' ' Ashburnham,
"falling into a great passion of weeping," said that
Hammond and Baskett were but two, and that he would
go down and " get rid " of them both. But of murder
Charles would not hear. He said that he had sent to hire
a ship at Southampton, and expected every moment to
hear of it, and that he would escape that way. But he
paced the room for two hours, and no word came of the
ship. Hammond was now fiercely impatient, and Charles,
allowing him to come upstairs, gave himself into his
keeping. Attended by Hammond, Baskett, Ashburnham,
Legge, and Berkley, through the still existing large gates,
and across the bridge still known as Hammond's Bridge,
Charles left Titchfield for Carisbrook, a free man for the
last time. Carisbrook was exchanged for Hurst Castle,
Hurst Castle for St. James's, St. James's only for the
scaffold at Whitehall.
Hurst Castle
On November 3Oth, 1648, a troop of horse and a
company of infantry, sent in all secrecy and haste by the
leaders of the army, landed by night in the Isle of Wight,
and being reinforced by the local garrison, demanded
admission to Carisbrook Castle. This was sternly refused
by Captain Bowerman, but Major Rolph promised them
his assistance. At break of day, Lieutenant-Colonel
Cobbet had completed his preparations, and "the King,
CHARLES I. AT PLACE HOUSE AND HURST CASTLE 269
hearing a great knocking at his dressing room door, sent
the Duke of Richmond to know what it meant He, on
enquiring who was there, was answered, one Mildmay
(one of the servants the Parliament had put to the King,
and brother to Sir Henry). The Duke demanding what
he would have, was answered, there were some gentlemen
from the army very desirous to speak with the King ; but
the knocking increasing, the King commanded the Duke
to let them into his dressing room. No sooner was this
done but, before the King got out of his bed, those officers
rushed into his chamber, and abruptly told the King they
had orders to remove him. ' From whom ? ' said the King.
They replied, ' From the army/ The King asked whither
he was to be removed ? They answered, ' To the castle.'
The King asked, ' What castle ? ' They again answered,
' To the castle.' ' The castle,' said the King, ' is no castle.'
He told them he was well enough prepared for any castle,
and required them to name the castle. After a short
whispering together, they said, ' Hurst Castle.' The King
replied, ' They could not well name a worse,' and called
to the Duke of Richmond to send for the Earl of Lindsey
and Colonel Cooke. At first they scrupled at the Earl
of Lindsey's coming ; but the King said, ' Why not both,
since both lie together ? ' Then having whispered
together, they promised to send for both, but sent for
neither.' So says Colonel Cooke. The King said to his
trusty friend, Henry Firebrace, the clerk of the kitchen,
'I know not where these people intend to carry me, and
I would willingly eat before I go ; therefore, get me
something to eat.' " The Duke of Richmond hastened the
preparations for breakfast at eight o'clock, but the horses
had now arrived, and the soldiers hurried his Majesty into
the coach, without allowing him to taste it. Lieutenant-
Colonel Cobbet " with his hat on " tried to enter the
coach, but the King pushed him back saying : " It is not
come to that yet: get you out." Cobbet then mounted
beside the driver, whilst Herbert, Harrington, and Mildmay
270 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
rode with the King, who hastily bade his servants farewell.
Sir Thomas Herbert says : " At other times, he was
cheerful, but at his parting from his friends, he showed the
sorrow in his heart by the sadness of his countenance —
a real sympathy." Two troops of horse escorted the
coach, "only permitting the Duke of Richmond to attend
him about two miles, and then told him he must go no
further ; when he sadly took his leave, being scarce
permitted to kiss the King's hand, whose last words were :
" Remember me to my Lord Lindsey and Colonel Cooke,
and command Colonel Cooke, from me, never to forget
the passages of this night." And so " the coach went
westward (from Newport), towards Worsley's Tower in
Freshwater Isle, a little beyond Yarmouth Haven." This
was a small redoubt for two wall-pieces, built by Sir R.
Worsley when he was Governor of the island, and stood
between Sconce Point and Cliff End. Some remains of
it are still to be seen. The King and his attendants rested
for about an hour whilst the vessel was being got ready
to take him aboard, "a sorrowful spectacle and great
sample of fortune's inconstancy. The wind and tide
favouring, they crossed the narrow sea in three hours,
and landed at Hurst Castle." Surely, Sir Thomas Herbert
must mean three-quarters of an hour, for the distance is
barely a mile. Hurst Castle, which is to-day a strong
fortress and an important telegraph station, was one of
the many blockhouses built by Henry VIII. in 1535 to
defend the coast. The stones of which it and Cowes
Castle are built came from the ruined abbey of Beaulieu.
In the reign of Queen Mary, one of the Uvedales of
Wickham was executed for attempting to betray this
castle to the French, and in 1547 its armament seems to
have consisted of one short brass gun and thirty-five
cannon balls. In 1648, when King Charles was a prisoner
here, the garrison consisted of a captain, who received
is. Sd. per diem, an under-captain at iod., ten soldiers
at 6d. each, a chief gunner at 8^., one porter at 8^., and
CHARLES I. AT PLACE HOUSE AND HURST CASTLE 271
six gunners at 6d. each. The total yearly cost was
£264 i$s. ^d. Clarendon says that it was "in so vile
and unwholesome an air, that the common guards there
used to be frequently changed for the preservation of their
health," and Sir Philip Warwick writes: '"The place
stood in the sea, for every tide the water surrounded it,
and it contained only a few dog-lodgings for soldiers, being
chiefly designed for a platform to command the ships."
Colonel Firebrace says : " This castle stands a mile and
a half in the sea, upon a beach full of mud and stinking
ooze, upon low tides, having no fresh water within two
or three miles of it, so cold, foggy, and noisome, that
the guards cannot endure it without shifting quarters."
The governor is thus described by Herbert : " The captain
of this wretched place was not unsuitable ; for at the King's
going ashore, he stood ready to receive him with small
observance. His look was stern ; his hair and black beard
were large and bushy ; he held a partizan in his hand,
and, Switzerlike, had a great basket-hilt sword by his side.
Hardly could one see a man of more grim aspect, and
no less robust and rude was his behaviour."
Some of the King's servants feared that he meant
mischief, especially from his swaggering manner. They
complained of him to his superior officers, who reprimanded
him, whereupon " he quickly became mild and calm."
This sturdy warrior, whose name is variously given as
Ewer, Eyre, and Ayres, had formerly been one of
Hammond's lieutenant-colonels, and had seen service in
Wiltshire. " After his Majesty came under his custody,
he was very civil to the King, both in his language and
behaviour, and courteous to those that attended upon all
occasions ; nor was his disposition rugged towards such
as in loyalty came to see the King and pray for him, as
sundry out of Hampshire did, and the neighbouring
counties." On December I4th, the House of Commons
voted Colonel Ewer £200, since he complained of his
" want of money and provisions due to the King's arrival."
272 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
The room which Charles is said to have occupied is nothing
more than a closet in the thickness of the wall, on the
second story of the keep, with a small window looking
west ; the dimensions are about eight feet by four and a
half; and in the face of Colonel Firebrace's assertions
of courteous usage, it is difficult to believe that this
cupboard could have been more than his dressing-room,
or at most his bed-chamber. " King Charles' ' Golden
Rules ' used to hang in this room, and were said to have
been placed there by the King himself."
At midnight on December i8th, the King was roused
from sleep by the fall of the drawbridge and by the
trampling of horses. He aroused Sir Thomas Herbert,
who told him that the noise was due to the arrival of
Colonel Harrison. Charles was terrified, for he had been
warned that Harrison would murder him. Bidding Herbert
wait in the ante-room, he himself knelt in prayer in his
closet. He wept, and said: "I trust in God, Who is
my Helper, but I would not be surprised : this is a place
fit for such a purpose." Harrison withdrew after making
preparations to remove the King to Windsor, without an
interview with his prisoner. Early next morning, Colonel
Cobbet removed the King, who had now recovered his
composure, by way of Romsey, Winchester, and Farnham,
to Windsor. The King, on horseback, "came through
the narrow passage, three long miles well-nigh from Hurst
to Milford," where an escort of cavalry, then quartered
at Lyndhurst, awaited him. " Three miles from Hurst he
found a body of horse charged to escort him to Winchester.
Everywhere on his road, a crowd of gentlemen, citizens,
and peasants came round him. Some of them were
sightseers, who retired after they had seen him pass,
without any particular observation; others, deeply
interested, and praying aloud for his liberty. As he
approached Winchester, the Mayor (Mr. Joseph Butler)
and the Aldermen came to meet him, and presenting him,
according to custom, with the keys and mace of the city,
CHARLES I. AT PLACE HOUSE AND HURST CASTLE 273
addressed to him a speech full of affection. But Cobbet,
rudely pushing his way towards them, asked if they had
forgotten that the House had declared all who should
address the King traitors. Whereupon, seized with terror,
the functionaries poured forth humble excuses, protesting
that they were ignorant of the will of the House, and
conjuring Cobbet to obtain their pardon." The King
slept at Winchester Castle, and the next day resumed his
jo'urney. Between Alresford and Farnham, Colonel
Harrison took charge of him, and the King, noting his
gallant bearing, frankly acknowledged the injustice of his
former suspicions, and so rode across the border of our
county to play his part most nobly in the tragedy of
Whitehall.
G. N. GODWIN.
THE HAMBLEDON CRICKET CLUB
BY HORACE HUTCHINSON
[O other village in the whole world, says a
cricketer, is entitled to equal glory with little
Hambledon, in Hampshire. It has even been
claimed that cricket was first played at Hamble-
don. This is a legend that cannot be proved, for the
exact moment cannot be determined at which the practice
of one man delivering a ball, and another man hitting at
that ball with a stick, began to develop itself into anything
worthy the great name of cricket. But certainly
Hambledon is the place where cricket worthy of the
inspired bard began. It found an adequately inspired
bard in old Nyren, and really he had a wondrous tale to
tell, for the players of this little village club could and
did beat the best eleven that the rest of England — that
is to say, of the world as known to the ancients of that
day — could put into the field. He was a member of the
club, and wrote with a natural sentiment in its favour,
but he has facts — that is to say, score-sheets — to back him
in what he says. His accounts, and some gossip that
Mr. Pycroft, author of The Cricket Field, gathered
from Beldham, also one of the Hambledon players, in
Beldham's declining years, are the founts of historical
knowledge of Hambledon, and of the chief beginnings
of cricket.
The father of Nyren the historian was landlord of the
little Bat and Ball Inn, still standing, on Broadhalfpenny
274
THE HAMBLEDON CRICKET CLUB 275
Down, where the Hambledon Club used to play originally.
Later on, the club ground was moved to Windmill Down ;
the Duke of Dorset, Sir Horace Mann, and some others
of the aristocracy, who used to bring teams against the
Hambledon men, finding the position of Brpadhalfpenny
Down too bleak and exposed for pleasure. As to the date
of the formation of the club, we get the best hint
from this quotation of Mr. Pycroft's taken from the lips
of Beldham : " If you want to know, sir, the time the
Hambledon Club was formed, I can tell you by this : when
we beat them in 1789, I heard Mr. Paulet say: 'Here
I have been thirty years in raising our club, and are we
to be beaten by a mere parish ? ' So there must have
been a cricket club, that played every week regularly, as
long ago as 1769." Beldham, although a member of the
Hambledon Club, speaks here as a native of Farnham,
and regarding this match, he tells Mr. Pycroft : " In those
days the Hambledon Club could beat all England ; but
our three parishes around Farnham at last beat Hamble-
don." When " Surrey " is mentioned in the old
score-books, it means just these three parishes. Yet
when " Hampshire " played " All England/' those parishes
were included in the Hampshire side. " The members of
the Hambledon Club," says Beldham, " had a caravan
to take their eleven about. They used once to play
always in velvet caps. Lord Winchilsea's eleven " (these
were the Kent men, and frequent opponents of Hamble-
don) " used to play in silver-laced hats ; and always "
(that is to say, for both sides) "the dress was knee
breeches and stockings." This Beldham is written of most
enthusiastically by Nyren. " When he cut the balls from
the point of the bat," Nyren says, "their speed was like
the speed of thought." Of course, all this was in the days
of underhand bowling. One of the Hambledon men, Tom
Walker, attempted the overhand bowling, which Nyren
bitterly condemns, under the title of "throwing," but it
was ruled illegal by the Hambledon Club, and the fact
276 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
that their ruling was accepted by the cricketing world of
the day and adopted by the M.C.C. is a great testimony
to the position they held. On another occasion, one
White of Reigate brought a bat so broad that it covered
all the wicket, and a rule was forthwith passed to restrict
the width of the bat, and an iron frame for testing the
width was made, and was kept by the Hambledon Club
just as the M.C.C. would keep it now.
It is time now to give proof by figures of the Club's
right to such high honour as Nyren claims for it.
First hear his statement. The following he enumerates
as —
The most eminent players in the Hambledon Club when it was at its
glory :—
DAVID HARRIS TOM WALKER
JOHN WELLS ROBINSON
PURCHASE NOAH MANN
WILLIAM BELDHAM SCOTT
JOHN SMALL, JUN. TAYLOR
HARRY WALKER
No eleven in England could have had any chance with these men ;
and I think they might have beaten any two and twenty.
That is a brave claim for them, but I think we may
find reason to deem that it was not too daring. Witness
the following account : —
On the 22nd of May, 1775, a match was played in the Artillery
Ground, between five of the Hambledon Club, and five of all England ;
when Small went in the last man for fourteen runs, and fetched them.
This match is worthy of fuller notice for the fact that it
was the occasion of a drastic alteration of the wicket.
The wicket in those days was of two stumps only, and
in course of Small's " fetching " these fourteen runs
required, it was seen that the ball passed between the
stumps several times, without disturbing the bails, and
in consequence the rule was passed to add a third stump
to prevent these favours of fortune. Luck evidently was
THE HAMBLEDON CRICKET CLUB
277
on Small's side in this venture; but he must have been
a terrible fellow, for he is recorded to have stayed in on
one occasion for three days. The bowling, of course, was
underhand, but the wickets were certainly not as true as
to-day; in fact, we find record of the bowlers, who were
allowed to pitch the wickets to suit themselves up to
1830, sometimes choosing a wicket with a lump for the
ball to pitch on, to make it bump, or sometimes, like
Honest Lumpy, who did 'low
He ne'er could bowl, save o'er a brow,
with an inclination to help the ball to shoot. This Lumpy
was the unlucky bowler when Small "fetched" those
fourteen badly-wanted runs. But it was at a three-
stumped, not a biped, wicket that Aylward made his very
astonishing score, for those days, of 167 in a " Hambledon "
against " All England " match. The full score of this
match was as follows, and it may be noted that the wickets
caught out are credited only to the fieldsman, and not to
the bowler: — -
HAMBLEDON CLUB AGAINST ALL ENGLAND.
PLAYED i8TH JUNE, 1777.
England^ 1st
Innings.
2nd Innings.
Runs.
Runs
t
Duke of Dorset
0 .
B by Brett
5
. C by Ld. Tankerville
Lumpy . . .
I .
B ditto
2
. — not out
Wood . . .
I .
B ditto
I
. B Nyren
White . . .
8 .
C Veck
10
. — not out
Miller . . .
27 .
C Small
23
. B Brett
Minchin .
60 .
— not out
12
. B Taylor
Bowra . . .
2 .
B Brett
4
. B ditto
Bullen . . .
13 •
C Ld. Tankerville
2
. B Nyren
Booker . . .
8 .
C Brett
2
. B Brett
Yalden . .
6 .
C Small
8
. C Nyren
Pattenden . .
38 •
B Brett
o
. C Brett
Byes . .
2
0
(Byes)
1 66
69
278 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Hambledon, 1st Innings.
Runs.
Lord Tankerville . 3 . B by Wood
Lear . . . 7.6 ditto
Veck 7 V 16 . B Lumpy
Small . * . 33 . C White
Francis „ . . 26 . C Wood
Nyren .... 37 . B Lumpy
Sueter ».'v • ' . 46 . B Wood
Taylor . v .' . 32 . C Bullen
Aburrow . ., . 22 . C Minchin
Aylward . ; . 167 . B Bullen
Brett . ,' . 9 . — not out
Byes . ? 5
403
"Won by Hambledon, by 168 runs in one innings," is
the curt comment of Nyren, the historian, who could be
almost Homeric in phrase when the inspiration took him.
Some years previously to this, as far as I can make
out, Small and Richard Nyren, father of the historian, got
in together in a match that was going badly until their
partnership for the Hambledon Club side, and were not
parted until the one had scored a hundred and ten and the
other ninety-eight. So there were long scores even in
those days. Beldham seems to have been the first really
to recognise the value of the straight bat and the left
elbow up. They were lessons taught him by one Harry
Hall, gingerbread baker, of Farnham — who deserves at
least to have a statue in gingerbread put up in his native
town — and the bowling of that great genius, David Harris,
whose balls, by all accounts, must have come up off the
ground just as if they had been delivered overhand, made
a straight bat and stepping out to the pitch of the ball
essential. All Nyren's hints in his " Cricketer's Guide "
show him to have been well acquainted with the points
of the game. It was an age of single wicket matches, an
age in which large sums were betted on matches, and
Beldham is eloquent to Mr. Pycroft about the temptations
THE HAMBLEDON CRICKET CLUB 279
offered to the rustics to "sell" the games — temptations
that, as it seems, were not always withstood. Perhaps it
was hardly in nature that they should be. All these
Hambledon players were poor men. Nyren's father, who
was farmer as well as innkeeper, and looked after the
ground, was perhaps in the highest social position of them
all, and his son, the author, who writes of him with an
admirable filial piety, styling him the " King Arthur of
their Round Table of Knights," and the " General," before
whose orders all his staff would bow, speaks of him as
forming a connecting link in the social chain between the
rank and file of the team (for instance, such "anointed
clod-stumpers" — this is Nyren's name for them — as the
two Walkers) and aristocrats like Lord Tankerville.
It is quite marvellous for how many years the Hamble-
don Club, which, as we have seen, was recruited from some
neighbouring parishes, held its own, and more than its
own, against the ever-increasing competition ; but at length
a period of decline set in, so severe that the famous Club
was in danger of being dissolved. The nadir of its
fortunes was about 1769-1770. It is not recorded that
the Club meetings, which were held every Tuesday in
the summer, were ever quite abandoned, but certainly all
was far from well with the Club. However, says Nyren,
they determined " once more to try their fortune, and on
the 23rd of September, 1771, having played the County
of Surrey, at Laleham Burway, they beat them by one
run. Out of fifty-one matches played by the same club
against England, etc., during the ensuing ten years, they
gained twenty-nine of the number " ; so that was a gallant
recovery, even if not quite up to the level of the palmiest
days of the Club. Its final and formal dissolution appears
to have taken place in 1791, in which year, says Mr.
Pycroft, " the true old Hambledon Club all but beat
twenty-two " of Middlesex at Lord's." In this year Nyren
left the Club, and perhaps with his going the true life
of the Club went too.
28o MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
It is really a very remarkable record for a little
Hampshire village ; and the recorder, Mr. Nyren, is himself
of some remarkable gifts. Mr. Pycroft says that he
borrowed the pen of C. Cowden Clarke, but the language
has a vigour that is racy of the soil. He had some
education from a Jesuit, and shows some profit from it.
He records not only the cricketing triumphs of the Club,
but also the pleasure of the social evenings at the Bat
and Ball, when Small would play on the violin given him
by the Duke of Dorset, and others would join in a glee.
Primarily, no doubt, all were cricketers out of pure love
of the game, although Beldham shows us the money-
making element of it, which Nyren conceals, indicating
that the rustics soon became what we should call profes-
sional players : £$ a match to win, and £3 to lose, was
the recognised rate of pay for matches at Lord's, and that
by no means covered the rate at which the players lived
while in London, according to Beldham, notwithstanding
that they travelled up " in a wagon." Altogether, it is
a curious page in the social history of the country, across
which the name of little Hambledon has thus to be writ
large.
HORACE HUTCHINSON.
[NOTE BY THE EDITOR. — Professor Hearnshaw has kindly sent me
an extract from a MS. book in the Hartley College Library, relating
to the Hambledon Club. I add it here as a suitable appendix to Mr.
Hutchinson's very interesting paper.]
In the Hartley College Library there is a manuscript history of Hamp-
shire, by Thomas Gatehouse, dated A.D. 1778. The volume was purchased
by Lord Brabourne at a sale in 1886 for five guineas. It was afterwards
acquired by the Rev. Sir W. H. Cope, Bart., who bequeathed it, together
with many other rare and valuable works bearing on local history, to
the College. Among numerous curious items, it contains some notes of
cricket as played at the close of the eighteenth century. The following
may be of interest to exponents of the twentieth century game : —
"A.D. 1777. On the 28th and agth days of May, five of this (the
Hambledon) Club played in the Artillery Ground against five of All
THE HAMBLEDON CRICKET CLUB 281
England, the best match ever seen, which terminated in favour of
Hambledon by 15 notches, though the odds at one time were four to one
against them." «
"On the i8th of June following, another match [this is the match of.
which Mr. Hutchinson gives the score] was played at Sevenoaks, in Kent,
between All England and Hampshire, which began on Wednesday and
ended on Friday, 168 notches in the favour of Hampshire at one innings.
Aylward, on the side of Hants., went in at 5 o'clock on Wednesday
afternoon, and was not out till after 3 on Friday."
"Near this village (Bishop's Waltham) is Broadhalfpenny, the Down
of late so much frequented by gentlemen of the county, and so noted for
the game of cricket, on which you have the following composition . . .
remarkable for its originality."
On the Game of Cricket
Assist all ye muses and join to rehearse
An old English sport never praised yet in verse ;
"Tis cricket I sing, of illustrious fame,
No nation e'er boasted so noble a game.
Great Pindar has bragged of his heroes of old,
Some were swift in the race, some in battle were bold ;
The brows of the victor with olive were crowned,
Hark ! they shout, and Olympia returns the glad sound.
What boasting of Pollux and Castor his brother,
The one famed for riding, for bruising the other,
But compared with our heroes, they'll not shine at all,
What are Castor and Pollux to Nyren and Small?
There's guarding, and catching, and throwing, and tossing,
And bowling, and striking, and running, and crossing,
Each mate must excel in some principal part,
The Pentathlon of Greece could not show so much art.
The parties are met and arrayed all in white,
Famed Elis ne'er boasted so pleasing a sight,
Each nymph looks askew at her favourite swain,
And views him half stript both with pleasure and pain.
The wickets are pitched now and measured the ground,
Then they form a large ring and stand gazing around ;
Since Ajax fought Hector in sight of all Troy,
No contest was seen with such fears and such joy.
282 MEMORIALS OF OLD HAMPSHIRE
Ye bowlers take heed, to my precepts attend,
On you the whole fate of the game must depend,
Spare your vigour at first, nor exert your full strength,
Then measure each step and be sure pitch a length.
Ye strikers observe when the foe shall draw nigh,
Mark the bowler advancing with vigilant eye,
Your skill all depends upon distance and sight,
Stand firm to your scratch, let your bat be upright.
Ye fieldsmen look sharp lest your pains ye beguile,
Move close like an army in rank and in file,
When the ball is returned, back it sure, for I trow
Whole states have been ruined by one overthrow.
The sport is now o'er and victory rings,
Echo doubles the chorus and fame spreads her wings,
Let us then hail our champions all sturdy and true,
Such as Homer ne'er sung of, nor Pindar e'er knew.
Buck, Curry, and Hogsflesh, and Barber, and Brett,
Whose swiftness in bowling was ne'er equalled yet,
I had almost forgot they deserve a large bumper,
Little George the longstop and Tom Sutor the stumper.
Then why should we fear either Sackville or Man,
Or repine at the loss both of Boynton and Lann?
With such troops as these we'll be lords of the game,
Spite of Minshul, and Millar, and Lumpy, and Frame.
Then fill up your glass, he's the best who drinks most :
Here's the Hambledon Club ! Who refuses the toast?
Let us join in the praise of the bat and the wicket,
And sing in full chorus the patrons of cricket.
INDEX
THIS Index is chiefly of Hampshire place-names, and should
be consulted, when possible, under them.
Important subjects specially treated of in the volume are
given in italics.
Abbot, George, Archbishop, 240
Aclea, 10
Agistment, 78, 81
Alfred, King, 10, 51, 52, 101,
205
Alice Holt, 72, 96-8
Alresford, 121, 273
Alton, 119, 123, 131, 149
Amport St. Mary, 127, 152
Andover, 3, 5, 123, 130, 162
Anglo-Saxon, see Chronicle
Arthur, King, historical charac-
ter of, 19, 21
Ashley, 122, 123
Ashmansworth, 139-40, 149
Atrebates, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 27
Avon, River, 6, 41, 168, 170
Badon Hill, 21, 31
Banner's Bridge, 268
Barrows and Camps, 3, 4
Barton Stacey, 125, 127
Basing Church, 118, 128, 129,
152, 258, 261
House, 15, 250-262
Basingstoke, 119, 127, 128, 131,
152, 250, 261
Holy Ghost Chapel,
128, 132
Bassett, 47
Baughurst, 132
Beacon Hill, 42
Beaulieu, 3, 94
Beaulieu Abbey, 96, 126, 183-6,
188, 196, 270
Bere Forest, 72, 98-9
Binsted, 123, 129
Bishop's Ditch, 94
Bishop's Sutton, 122, 131, 263,
283
Bishop's Waltham, 14, 69
Bittern, 5, 17, 48
Boarhunt, 120, 133
Boldre(wood), 75
Bournemouth, 2, 182
Bramdean, 139, 142
Bramley, 131, 143-4, 148
Bramshill, 237-249
Brasses, in churches, 130-1
Breamore, 120, 121, 133, 149, 161
Broad-halfpenny Down, 274
Broadlands, 157
Brockbridge, 44, 45
Brockenhurst, 84, 120, 122, 137
Broorny, 75
Brown Candover, 131
Buckland Rings, 96
Buckler's Hard, 72
Burghclere, 3, 151
Bursledon, 268
Calleva (Silchester), 5, 17, 18, 38
Canterton, 41
Catherington, 114, 130, 148, 150
Cerdices-ford (Charford), 6, 41
Cerdices-ora, 40, 41
Charcoal-burning, 70, 91
Charford, 6, 41
Charles /., see Hurst Castle,
' Place House
Chawton, 130
Cheriton, 14, 15, 126
Chilcombe, 122
Chinham Down, 258
Chorengham, 87, 89
Christchurch, 118, 122, 125, 126,
127, 128, 136, 152, 153, 154,
167-182
Cistercian Abbeys, 183-4, 187-195
Clatford, Upper, 123
284
INDEX
Clausentum (Bittern), 5, 17, 48
Colmer, 142
Ccmpton, 122, 137
Corhampton, 41, 43, 120, 121,
!33> '38
Cowdrey Down, 250
Cranbury, 201
Crock Hill, 95
Crondall, 123, 130
Deane, 132
Deer, in New Forest, 68, 72, 75-
83
Denny, 94
Domesday Book, 13, 73, 74, 84,
169, 170, 171, 172, 181, 188,
237
Dorchester-on-Thames (Oxon.),
9> 205
Droxford, 41, 44, 46, 122, 129
Durley, 151
East Meon, 41, 118, 122, 123,
124, 125, 142
Easton, 123
East Tisted, 130
Eling, 120
Ellingham, 126, 129, 132, 150, 153
Estovers, 92-4
Eversley, 131, 238
Expeditation, 81, 184
Exton, 42
Eyeworth, 74, 95
Fareham, 126
Farley Chamberlayne, 130
Farlington, 108, 129
Farnborough, 146
Farnham (Surrey), 14, 214, 264,
272, 273, 275, 278
Fawley, 122
Fence Month, 79, 80
Fonts, 123-5
Fordingbridge, 127, 154
Forest, meaning of, 68
Forest, see New, Bere, Pamber,
Wolmer
Frensham (Surrey), 97
Fritham, 87
Godsfield, 200
Goodworth Clatford, 123
Gosport, 104, 116-7
Grateley, 126, 132
HAMPSHIRE (Hants)
Name, 7, 8, 9, 50
"Natural Features, 1-3, 16, 47
Hamble, 122
Hamble, river, 6
Hambledon, 120, 123, 126
Hammond's Bridge, 268
Hartley Mauditt, 122
Hartley Wespall, 127
Hartley Wintney, 152
Havant, 126, 130, 142
Hayling, South, 121, 126, 133
Headbourne Worthy, 120, 131,
149, 161
Heckfield, 131
Hengistbury Head, 168
Henri de Blots, Bishop, 13, 116,
123, 124, 164, 174, 200, 204,
206, 207, 209, 212, 213, 215,
216, 217, 218, 219
Hinton Ampner, 120, 122
Hospitallers, see Knights.
Hound, 133, 151, 193, 196
Hursley, 231
Hurstbourne Priors, 130, 133
Hurstbourne Tarrant, 147
Hurst Castle, 269-273
Ibsley, 151
Idsworth, 147
Ironworks, 91
Island Thorns, 95
Isle of Wight, 6, 9, 28, 41, 43,
171, 264, 269, 270
Itchen, river, 40, 48, 57, 204
Itchen Stoke, 131
Jutes, the, 6, 39-46
Katterns Hill, 169, 180
Kimpton, 131, 152
Kingsclere, 118, 123, 130, 131, 151
King's Lane, 88
King's Somborne, 125, 129, 131
Kingston (Portsmouth), 116
Knights Hospitallers (of St.
John), 184, 199-203, 217, 218,
219
Templars, 129
Ladycross, 74,
Laverstoke, 130
Leckford, 124
Lepe, 96
Leteley (Netley), 187, 188, 192,
195, 196
Litchfield, 3
Little Somborne, 120, 139
Littleton, 125
Lymington, 60, 71, 96, 159, 171
Lyndhurst, 79, 82, 95
INDEX
Mattingley, 127, 152
Meon, see East and West
Meon, river, 4, 6, 39-46
Meonstoke, 41, 124, 127
Meomaara, 6, 42
Merdon, 14
Micheldever, 127, 152
Michelmersh, 129
Milford, 122, 272
Milton, 130
Minstead, 183
Mistletoe Bough , Legend of the, 246
Monk('s) Sherborne, 122, 137
Monkston, 131
Monuments., 128-130, 153
Mottisfont, 122, 123, 132, 139
Nately Scures, 122
Nether Wallop, 131
Netley Abbey, 151, 187-198
New Forest, 2, 5, 12, 41, 42, 53,
67-96
Newnham, 122, 137
New Park, 174
North Baddesley, 129, 166, 199-203
North Charford, 74
North Stoneham, 59, 129, 130, 203
Nursling, 130
Oakley, 10, 131, 132
Ocknell Clump, 73 .
Odiham, 125, 131, 257
Old Winchester Hill, 4
Otterbourne, 88
Owerbridge, 73
Pamber, 143
Forest of, 19
Pannage, 79
Park Farm, 186
Paulsgrove Quay, 101
Pear Tree Green, 47
Penton Mewsey, 127
Petersfield, 3, 123
Place House (Titchfield), 142,
263-8
Pond Head Farm, 96
Portchester, 5, 40, 49, 100, xoi,
122, 124
Portsdown Hill, no, 120
Portsea, 104, 106
PORTSMOUTH CHURCHES —
Garrison Chapel, 105, no, 126
Kingston, 116
St. George's, 116
St. Thomas', 104, 113, 114, 126,
129
PORTSMOUTH —
Hard, the, 117
Inns, 112, 113, 114
Landport, 116
Southsea Common, 102, 104,
107-110
Spithead, 109, in, 115
Powdering-closets, 248
Preston Candover, 131
Privett, 42
Purlieu, 77
Ringwood, 126, 130, 171
Romsey, 118, 121, 123, 125, 134,
i$7> i53> *54» I56'l69
Rowner, 48
Rufus's Stone, 86-88.
St. Cross, 14, 118, 125, 130, 131,
i32» i34» J35> J38> MI. i49»
151-153, 215-222
St. Denys Priory, 53, 132
St. John of Jerusalem, see
Knights.
St. Katherine's Hill (Christ-
church), 169, 180
St. Leonard's Grange, 186
St. Mary Bourne, 4, 119, 123,
124, 129, 133
St. Nicholas (Santa Claus), 124
Segontium, 23, 24, 27
Selborne, 133
Shawford, 88
Sherborne, Monk(s), 122, 137
Sherborne Priory, 143
Sherborne St. John, 125, 129,
131, 153
SlLCHESTER, 5, 17-38
Name, 17, 18, 22, 24
Church, 142, 146
Sloden ware, 95
Soberton, 41, 127, 130
Somborne, 4 (see King's, Little)
Sopley, 130
SOUTHAMPTON, 2, 7, 9, n, 16,
47-66, 119, 193, 195
Arcades, the, 56
.Bar Gate, 57
Castle, 53, 57
Churches —
All Saints', 64
Holy Rood, 132
Maison Dieu, 57, 58, 123
St. Lawrence, 64
St. Mary, 50
St. Michael, 119, 123, 124,
!30, i53> 197
Name, 7, 8, 48
286
INDEX
Southampton Water, 6, 7, 12,
39> 47> 51* 58> 59> 61
South Hayling, 121, 126, 133
Southsea, 102, 104, 107-110
South Warnborough, 131
South wick, 131
Sowley Pond, 91
Spithead, see Portsmouth.
Stockbridge, 3, 124
Stoke Charity, 129, 131, 150,
J52> J53
Stour, river, 168, 171
Stratfieldsaye, 130
Sutton Scotney, 129
Terrace cultivation, 4
Test, river, 4, 48, 156, 161
Thorougham, 87
Thruxton, 127, 129, 130
Tichborne, 120, 122, 130, 151
Timber, for ships, 98, 99
Titchfield, 41, 122, 127, 129, 153
Titchfield Abbey, 58, 142. See
also Place House
Toot-hill, 162
Troco, Game of, 243
Tufton, 151
Turbary, 92
Twyford, 133
Twynham (Christchurch), 168,
169, 181
Tyrell's Ford, 88
Upham, 151
Upper Clatford, 123
Upton Grey, 142
Vent a B el g arum (Winchester),
5, 17, 18, 21, 48
Vindomis, 17
Vine, The, 249, 257
Walbury, 4
Wallop, 4
Waltham Chase, 69
Warblington, 115, 120, 131, 146
War ham, William, Archbishop,
Warnford, 41, 43, 121-124, 130-
132
Week (or Wyke), 131
Wellow, 143, 193
Wessex, 6-10, 48, 49, 206
West Meon, 41
Wherwell, 122
Whitchurch, 17, 121, 131
Wickham, 41, 127, 130
Wield, 130
Wight, see Isle of.
Wilfrid, St., 43
William Rufus, death of, 84-91,
159, 163, 173
WINCHESTER, 2, 5-16, 31, 42, 51,
199, 204, 205, 272
Castle 14, 16, 141, 204, 205,
210, 273
Cathedral (Old Minster), 9, n-
14, 16, 118, 122, 125, 126-
128, 130-132, 208, 220,
223, 228
Font, 123, 124
Reredos-screen, 129, 179
Wall Paintings, 134, 136, 140,
141, 147, 150-153
Christ's Hospital, 222
Churches —
St. Bartholomew, 123, 138
St. John Baptist, 123, 132,
J34> I37» I44> i45> X49>
223
St. Laurence, 151
St. Michael, 121
St. Peter, 123
St. Swithun, 150
College, 16, 214, 223-236
Hyde Abbey (New Minster),
II, 14, 207-209, 211, 222
Nuns' Minster, n, 14, 209
St. Giles's Hill (Fair), 16, 224
St. John's Hospital, 222
St. Mary Magdalen Hospital,
134, I39» 146, 222
Wolvesey, 10, 14, 204-214, 224
Winchfield, 122, 137, 142, 146
Windmill Down, 275
Wolmer Forest, 72, 96, 98
Wolverton, 125
Woodcott, 4
Woodfidley, 94
Wootton St. Lawrence, 122
Worsley's Tower (Isle of Wight),
270
Yateley, 131, 147
Yew-trees, in churchyards, 132,
J33
Ytene, 85
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