A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



addition to their rent, five like tenants each hold- 

 ing 8 acres of land by rent and similar services, 

 and 4 cottagers each holding 

 4 acres and paying rent and 

 rendering in kind. 11 



The lord of the manor 

 possesses court rolls from 

 1543 to the present time. 

 Amongst the place - names 

 mentioned in these rolls are 

 ' Castle-land ' and ' Arrow 

 Croft ' ; on the death of the 

 holder of the latter a relief K.NIGHT. Vert abend 

 of 6 1 pence, or 6 1 arrows, "grailtJ gold ivitb a 



11 21 TL * c cinqfoil silver in toe foot. 



was payable. 23 The site of 



'the old gallows,' mentioned in 1560," may be 



identified with the spot now known as 'The 



Gibbets,' which was formerly 



part of the common. 



The Enclosure Act was 

 passed in 1 74 1. 25 



In 1224 the king directed 

 that two oaks from Alice Holt 

 Forest should be delivered to 

 William de St. John towards 

 making a house in his manor 

 of Chawton. 88 



Chawton House stands 

 picturesquely on quickly ris- 

 ing ground, facing south and 

 west, having the village of 

 Chawton to the north, and 

 the church immediately below 

 it to the west. It is a late 



KNIGHT. Vert a bend 

 engrailed gold <witb a 

 cinq foil silver in the foot 

 and a quarter gules (for 

 Knight) quartered with 

 gold a cbeveron gules be- 

 tween three lions' paivs 

 erased sable(for AUSTEN). 



sixteenth century building with large additions of 

 the middle of the seventeenth century, and is of 

 two storeys with an attic throughout. The older 

 part was originally Z-shaped, and is built of flint 

 rubble with dressings of stone and red brick, with 

 square-headed mullioned windows and red tiled 

 roofs. The appearance of the south and west 

 fronts has been much injured by a coating of 

 Roman cement which hides all the details of the 

 walling, and by the renewal in wood of most of 

 the window mullions. It seems probable that its 

 builder was John Knight, who succeeded to the 

 estate in 1 5 80. The unusual shape of the plan 

 is due to the nature of the site, but all the essential 

 features of a house of this date, when the medi- 

 aeval arrangement was being modified to suit a 

 higher standard of comfort, are to be found. 



The central block standing north and south, 

 contains the hall, built upon vaulted brick cellars, 

 with the screens at the south end, and a fine open 

 fireplace in the middle of the east side, with a 

 four-centred arch of chalk ashlar, and iron fireback 

 and dogs, the former bearing an anchor, with I.K. 

 (for John Knight) and the date 1588. Over the 

 hall, which has a flat plaster ceiling, probably re- 

 presenting the original arrangement, though in it- 

 self of later date, are two rooms with good fireplaces 

 with four-centred chalk arches and carved span- 



drils. To the north of the hall, and entered from 

 its north-west angle, is the block containing the 

 original main staircase and, in a wing projecting 

 westwards, are the living and sleeping rooms of the 

 family. South of the hall is a block divided from 

 it by the passage through the screens, formerly con- 

 taining the offices (buttery, kitchen, etc.) with 

 living rooms over. The kitchen has been des- 

 troyed in later alterations and must have been on 

 the east side of the block. The front entrance to 

 the house was, and still is, by a porch of the full 

 height of the rest of the building, placed towards 

 the south end of the west front, not opening 

 directly into the screens, but into a lobby adjoin- 

 ing them on the south. 



The two usual defects in a house of this type, 

 the planning of the staircase and the lack of com- 

 munication between the wings at either end of 

 the hall, are herewell illustrated. The staircase is 

 ineffective and awkwardly arranged, and the rooms 

 over the hall, taking up the full width of the 

 block, in order to have fireplaces in the east wall 

 and a good light from the west, left no room for a 

 corridor connecting the wings, and had to be used 

 as passage rooms. 



In the middle of the seventeenth century (about 

 1655, according to a date on a carved door-head) 

 considerable additions in red brick were made on 

 the east of the house, consisting of two gabled 

 wings with mullioned windows, at either end of 

 the hall, and a narrow connecting block, also 

 facing east with two gables, built against the east 

 wall of the hall, and giving the much needed 

 means of access from one end of the house to the 

 other. There may have been some building against 

 the east wall of the hall before this time, but the 

 evidence which remains is not conclusive. A 

 courtyard was thus formed, facing eastwards up the 

 slope on which the house is built, and closed on its 

 eastern side by a low range of brick buildings con- 

 necting the east ends of the north and south wings. 

 The offices were transferred from the south end of 

 the hall to the new north wing, and in the south 

 wing a new staircase was provided, with heavy oak 

 newels, turned balusters, and moulded strings. 



The only important addition to the plan after 

 this date is a block built against the north wall of 

 the sixteenth century north-west wing, containing 

 a billiard room with bedrooms over ; this is of 

 comparatively modern date, with mullioned win- 

 dows in imitation of the older work. 



The house is rich in woodwork of the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries, the best specimens being 

 the hall panelling and the doorheads and details of 

 the south staircase. There is a long series of por- 

 traits in the hall and elsewhere, and of several 

 pieces of tapestry the most important is a carpet 

 of arms of the Lewknor family, dated 1564. 



In the windows of the south wing are a few 

 roundels of old heraldic glass. There are several 

 fine cast iron firebacks, besides that already men- 

 tioned in the hall, but, unlike it, they are not part 





Inq. p.m. jo Edw. I. No. 36. 

 Court Roll, i Elii. i g April. 



34 Ibid. 2 Eliz. 20 Oct. 

 26 MS. indci to Enclosure Acts, 1727 

 to 1812 (Pub. Rec. Off.). 



498 



Close, 8 Hen. III. pt. I, m. 8. 



