A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



makes it seem unlikely that their name would have 

 clung to the manor for centuries after. Having iden- 

 tified Adam Gurdon's lands with Temple, however, 

 Gilbert White goes on to assume that the oratory 

 built by Adam Gurdon by licence of the prior and 

 convent ' in curia sua de Selburne ' was at Temple. 

 However, a charter of 1240 granting to the Templars 

 six acres of land lying 'between their manor of Sudin- 

 ton and the king's manor of Blakemore,' and found 

 to belong to ' Blakemere,' M would seem to imply that 

 Sotherington manor included the modern Temple, 

 since Temple lies locally between Sotherington Farm 

 and Blackmoor. Then when the manor in the four- 

 teenth century began to be called the manor of Temple 

 Sotherington, the manor-house, the Templars' pre- 

 ceptory, was called Temple, while the manor farm 

 kept the old name of Sotherington. But this must 

 for the present remain conjecture. 



In 1 3 1 7 the manor, by this time at any rate includ- 

 ing Temple, but still called the 

 manor of Sotherington, was in 

 the hands of the earl of Here- 

 ford," but in the next year 

 Pope John issued a bull order- 

 ing the holders of the goods of 

 the Templars in England to 

 give them over to the Knights 

 Hospitallers of St. John of 

 Jerusalem, 60 and the manor 

 evidently passed to the Hos- 

 pitallers. By 1408 Thomas 

 West was lord of the manor, 

 which was held of him, as of his 

 manor of Newton Valence, by the heirs of Nicholas 

 Berenger. 61 Probably the Hospitallers, according to 

 their general custom, had farmed out the manor to 

 Thomas West, since it was in their possession in the 

 sixteenth century, and was 

 granted by the king at the 

 dissolution to Sir Thomas Sey- 

 mour of Sudeley. 6 * Edward VI 

 leased the manor to Edmund 

 Clerk on the execution of Lord 

 Sudeley in 1549, and in 1554 

 granted it in fee to Sir Henry 

 Seymour, 63 brother of Sir Tho- 

 mas, who died seised in 1578, 

 leaving a son and heir John. 64 

 John Seymour conveyed the 

 manor by fine made in 1588 



to Sir Richard Norton, 65 who four years afterwards 

 died leaving a son and heir Richard. 66 In 1599 

 Thomas West, as warden of Woolmer and Alice Holt 

 Forests, brought an action against Richard Norton con- 

 cerning a pound in Blackmoor which was stated to be 

 a pound belonging to Woolmer Forest, not to the manor 

 of Temple. 67 A special commission was issued in 

 1600 concerning 'the bounds, limits and circuit of 

 the waste of soyle of the manor of Temple of which 



THI KNIGHTS HOSPI- 

 TALLERS. Gulei a Mai- 

 fete cross argent. 



SEYMOUR. Gulis a 

 pair of wings or. 



Richard Norton is seised.' In the depositions made 

 on this occasion the bounds of the manor are said to 

 begin at Owton's Lane, and ' on the further side of 

 the right way leading to Farnham by a ditch and a 

 bank directly and eastwards towards Cranmere Pond, 

 then northward to a hill called Runneberry Hill, 

 and from thence crosse a highway northwards to 

 Henley corner, from thence to a stone lying by the 

 pond side called Oakhanger pond, and towards the 

 middle of the said pond and on the further side of 

 the same pond, to the which the bounds of the said 

 manor of Temple aforesaid doth extend. >6S Like 

 East Tisted, Rotherfield, and Noar (q.v.), the manor 

 of Temple Sotherington passed through the Norton 

 family and was held by the last baron, Sir John 

 Norton, in \6j2. ei During the seventeenth and 

 eighteenth centuries the manor passed through many 

 hands. In the nineteenth century it was held by 

 Sir A. K. Macdonald, bart., who sold it to the late 

 Lord Selborne, father of the present earl, in 1865. 



Since it belonged to the Templars the manor is 

 and always has been tithe free, ' for by virtue of their 

 order the lands of the Knights Templars were privi- 

 leged by the pope with a discharge from tithes.' 70 



The manor house had been used as a farmhouse 

 ' from time immemorial ' when Gilbert White wrote. 

 All that then remained of the original house was the 

 chapel or oratory and the hall, 27 ft. long and 19 

 broad, formerly open to the sky. The ' massive thick 

 walls ' of the chapel and the narrow windows made 

 it, as Gilbert White remarked, ' more like a dungeon 

 than a room fit for the reception of people of condi- 

 tion.' rl He looked in vain for any trace of the lamb 

 and flag, the arms of the Templars, in the hall of the 

 farmhouse, and only found a fox with a goose on its 

 back in one corner ' so coarsely executed that it re- 

 quired some attention to make out the device.' n No 

 trace of this hall now remains, for the house has been 

 greatly modernized and rebuilt ; only in the kitchen 

 apartments is there any trace of ancient workmanship. 

 There is also an old well 90 ft. deep which is supposed 

 to date back to the time when the Templars held the 

 manor. 



NORTON. In 903, according to the Golden 

 Charter of Edward the Elder to the abbey of New- 

 minster near Winchester, three hides at Norton next 

 Selborne were granted to the new foundation by the 

 king. 7 * The genuineness of this charter may well be 

 doubted, since there is no mention of Norton in the 

 manors of the abbey enumerated in the Liber tie 

 HyJa, Jt and since the Domesday Survey makes no 

 reference to the fact that Hyde Abbey held any part 

 of Norton. According to Domesday Norton was 

 comprised of two manors both of royal demesne, both 

 consisting of two hides. Two hides with land for 

 one plough in demesne, and two villeins and three 

 bordars with ~]\ acres of meadow were held of the 

 king as one manor by Earl Godwin as an alod. At 

 the time of the survey this manor was held by Hugh 



48 Cat. Chart. R. 1226-57, p. 251. 

 5 Feud. Aids, ii, 315. 



60 Dclaville Ic Roulx, Document] con- 

 cernant les Templiers, 50. 



61 Inq. p. m. 6 Ric. II, No. 17 ; ibid. 

 8 Hen. IV, No. 78 ; ibid. 8 Hen. V, 

 No. no. 



> Deeds penes Mr. A. E. Scott. 

 " Deeds penes Mr. A. E. Scott. 

 84 Inq. p. m. 20 Eliz. pt. 2 (Ser. 2), 

 No. 64. 



64 Feet of F. Hants, East. 30 Eliz. 



68 Inq. p. m. 34 Eliz. pt. 2 (Ser. 2), No. 

 118. 



W Exch. Dep. Trin. 41 Eliz. No. 13. 

 > Ibid. 42 Eliz. No. 2058. 



69 Add. R. 27991. 



W See Gilbert White, Antij. of Sel- 

 borne, Letter xi, quoting Blackstone. 



7 1 Whether this chapel was the oratory 

 built by Adam Gurdon in 1262, or a 

 chapel attached to the Templars' precep- 



8 



tory, it is difficult to say. Some arches 

 which are thought to be traces of the 

 ancient chapel still remain at the begin- 

 ning of what is supposed to have been a 

 subterranean passage, now blocked up, 

 connecting Temple and the priory. 



7" Gilbert White, Antiq. of Seltorne, 

 Letter ix. 



1* Kemble, Cod. Dipl. ii, 144. Birch, 

 Cartul. Sax. ii, 256. 



7< See Liter de Hyda (Rolls Ser.). 



