A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



chamber, a cheese-chamber, with some other little 

 rooms. Before the entrance of the house is a gate- 

 house with three rooms thereunto belonging. The 

 roof of the house is much out of repair. The site 

 consisting of two little gardens, and a hopyard and 

 two little courts west before the house, lying all to- 

 gether, between the street of East Meon on the west, 

 and a field called the Berry Garden on the east. Near 

 unto the same on the north-west is the church, and 

 on the north is the highway called Hyde Lane, and 

 on the south is a piece of ground called Dovegarden 

 containing together one acre. This farm hath always 

 been let tithe free." 1 



The gate-house and the two little courts before the 

 house have given way to a yard with farm-buildings 

 of no architectural interest, but the ' large hall, 

 strongly built with stone,' still stands, with a block 

 of contemporary buildings on the north, and traces of 

 a ruined south wing. Now, as in 1647, ' the roof 

 of the house is much out of repair,' but unfortunately 

 the lack of repair is not confined to the roof, and the 

 house probably owes its survival to its massive flint 

 and stone walls, 4 ft. thick. All the old work 



THI COURT HOUSE, EAST MEON 



seems to be of one date, and that probably the early 

 part of the fifteenth century. The hall, which stands 

 north and south, is lighted by two large two-light 

 windows on the west, with cinquefoiled lights and 

 transoms rebated for wooden shutters, and the passage 

 through the screens is at the north, with arched door- 

 ways at either end, the framework of the screen, with 

 a central and two side openings, being still in position. 

 The south or upper end of the hall is partitioned off 

 from the rest of the block, and in the west wall, south 

 of the partition, is a blocked doorway leading to the 

 first-floor rooms of the destroyed southern wing, the 

 bonding of whose walls is still to be seen. The east 

 and south sides of the hall have been more altered and 

 pulled about than the north side, but an original two- 

 light window remains in the southern part of the east 

 wall, and this end of the block is divided into two 

 stories and still used as living rooms, while the rest 

 of the hall is gutted and serves for the storage of all 

 manner of lumber. Its old roof has given place to 



rough timbers, though the original stone corbels re- 

 main, carved with heads of bishops and kings. 



The northern block is of two stories, the upper 

 being reached by a wooden stair, dilapidated but still 

 practicable, in the south-west angle, opening to the 

 courtyard close to the west entrance to the hall 

 screens. The ground story is very scantily lighted by 

 narrow single square-headed lights, and contains three 

 rooms, two with doorways side by side opening from 

 the screens, and a third to the north-west, reached 

 only from the western of the other two rooms. 

 These two occupy the normal position of pantry and 

 buttery, and probably served as such ; they are 

 separated by a wooden partition, instead of being set, 

 after the usual plan, on either side of a passage leading 

 to the kitchen. The third room may have been a 

 larder or dairy," and the kitchen can have formed no 

 part of the existing block, but probably stood to the 

 east, where modern buildings now are, and in that 

 case must have been approached through the eastern 

 doorway of the hall passage. It may have been a 

 wooden building, as in other instances, which would 

 account for its disappearance. On the west side of 

 the north-west room (the sug- 

 gested larder or dairy) is a large 

 block of masonry containing a 

 shaft IO ft. long by 3 ft. Z in. 

 wide, an opening into which 

 has been broken from the north 

 end at the ground level. It is 

 probably the shoot of a latrine, 

 but has been boarded over in 

 the room above, and shows no 

 evidence of this. The first-floor 

 rooms of this block have been 

 living-rooms or bedrooms, and 

 in the south wall of that over 

 the buttery (F) is a wide fire- 

 place. 



Nothing can be said of the 

 arrangement of the south wing 

 of the house, which must have 

 contained the best living-rooms, 

 the parlour and dining room 

 of the Survey. The south-east 



angle of the central block seems to have stood clear of 

 any buildings to the south, and has a diagonal angle 

 buttress, which, however, is not part of the original 

 work. 1 he return of a plinth on the south wall 

 4 ft. to the west of the buttress gives the line of 

 abutment of a wall running southwards from this 

 point, forming the eastern limit of the south wing. 



The hopyard of the Survey, with the two little 

 gardens, seems to have been to the south-west of the 

 house, and the ' kill ' for drying the hops may have 

 been near by, though the Survey reads as if it were 

 part of the main buildings, and in the northern 

 block. 



Under the heading Hyden Woods there is a 

 note to the effect that ' the " bacon " (beacons) on 

 Butser Hill have usually been supplied out of their 

 coppices both with timber and fuel.' Stroud Com- 

 mon belonged to the manor, and it is stated that 

 ' this common is overgrown with bushes which the 

 tenants claim a right unto for making and mend- 



81 It it tithe-free at the present time. 



811 Perhaps the three rooms are the 

 buttery, larder, and day house (dairy) of 



66 



the Survey, and the three rooms over 

 them the three lodging chambers. 



