FINCHDEAN HUNDRED 



BURITON 



BURITON 



Buyiton (xiv cent.) ; Buryton (xvi cent.) ; Beriton 

 (xvii cent.). 



The parish of Buriton lies on high ground, rising 

 from north to south-east from a height of little 

 more than 200 ft. above the sea-level to more than 

 680 ft. near the Sussex border. A fine view of the 

 whole of the south-east can be obtained from the high 

 ground at the back of Chalton church, while, away to 

 the south-west, the main road from Petersfield to 

 Portsmouth winds between high downs on the east 

 and Butser Hill * and Oxenbourn Down on the west, 

 in the midst of wild and impressive scenery. 1 Butser 

 Hill, which here rises some 889 ft. above the sea- 

 level, is thus referred to by Cobbett : ' This is as 

 interesting a spot I think as the foot of man ever was 

 placed upon. Here are two valleys, one to your right 

 and the other to your left, very little less than half-a- 

 mile down to the bottom of them, and much steeper 

 than the roof of a house. These valleys may be, 

 where they join the hill, three 

 or four hundred yards broad. 

 They get wider as they get 

 farther from the hill. Of a 

 clear day you see all the north 

 of Hampshire ; nay, the whole 

 county, together with a good 

 part of Surrey and of Sussex. 

 You see the whole of the 

 South Downs to the e.ist as 

 far as your eye can carry you. 

 Lastly, you see over Ports- 

 down Hill, which lies before 

 you to the south ; and there 

 are spread open to your view 

 the Isle of Portsea, Porchester, 

 Wimmering, Fareham, Gos- 

 port, Portsmouth, the har- 

 bour, Spithead, the Isle of 

 Wight, and the ocean.' * 



The village of Buriton it- 

 self, surrounded by woods 

 and downs, lies almost in 



the centre of the parish, and is approached by 

 two roads running off south-east from the main 

 road from Petersfield to Portsmouth, and by a 

 narrow winding lane which turns off south-west from 

 the road from Petersfield to South Harting by the 

 grounds of Nursted House. This lane is very pic- 

 turesque, being in places deeply sunk between high 

 banks and completely over-arched by trees. It leads 

 by a steep descent to the east end of the village street, 

 the church standing immediately to the east of the 

 junction of the two roads, with the manor-house close 

 to it on the north. The two roads from the main 

 Portsmouth road meet at the west end of the village, 

 and near their junction are the Congregational church, 

 the schools, and the Five Bells Inn with its blue sign. 



From this point the village street runs eastwards with 

 a gentle downward slope to its junction with the 

 South Harting Lane, bordered on either side with 

 cottages and gardens. In front of the church is an 

 open space with a broad pond on the south side 

 of the road, fed from springs which rise in the steep 

 wooded hillside immediately to the south of the 

 village. From the east side of the pond the ground 

 slopes up to the churchyard wall, shaded by a fine 

 row of trees, and to the west of the pond is the 

 rectory garden, the whole forming one of the most 

 charming pieces of scenery in the district. Before 

 the railway line was made between the village and the 

 hillside on the south, it must have been still more beau- 

 tiful. The manor house stands on the north side of 

 a large yard, bounded on the south and west by farm 

 buildings, and consists of a two-story range, the oldest 

 part of the house, with a three-story eighteenth-century 

 addition on the east. It is a pretty building with red 



CHURCH AND VILLAGE 



brick quoins and window-frames, but its chief claim 

 to distinction lies in its connexion with Gibbon the 

 historian, who in his autobiography speaks of it 

 thus : ' My father's residence in Hampshire, where 

 I have passed many light and some heavy hours, was 

 at Buriton near Petersfield, one mile from the Ports- 

 mouth road, and at the easy distance of 58 miles from 

 London. An old mansion in a state of decay had 

 been converted into the fashion and convenience of a 

 modern house, of which I occupied the most agreeable 

 apartment ; and if strangers had nothing to see, the 

 inhabitants had little to desire. The spot was not 

 happily chosen at the end of the village and the 

 bottom of the hill ; but the aspect of the adjacent 

 grounds was various and cheerful : the Downs 



1 There is now a rifle-range to the 

 west of Butser Hill. 



a A very good description of this road 

 is given by Dickens in the chapter de- 

 scribing the journey of Nicholas Nickleby 

 and Smike from London to Portsmouth : 

 ' Onward they kept with steady progress, 

 and entered at last upon a wide and spa- 



cious tract of downs with every variety of 

 hill and plain to change their verdant 

 surface. Here there shot up almost per- 

 pendicularly into the sky a height so steep 

 as to be hardly accessible to any but the 

 sheep and goats that fed upon its sides, 

 and there stood a mouud of green, sloping 

 and tapering off so delicately and merging 



85 



so gently into the level ground that you 

 could scarcely define its limits. Hitls 

 swelling above each other, and undula- 

 tions shapely and uncouth, smooth and 

 rugged, graceful and grotesque, thrown 

 negligently side by side bounded the 

 view.' 



8 Cobbett'sJ?ar<i/ J R;W (1885), ii, 262-3. 



