BOSMERE HUNDRED 



WARBLINGTON 



AGUILLON. Gules 

 feur-de-l'a argent. 



Survey, but when the manor of Warblington was in 

 King John's hands as an escheat of Robert de Courci 

 he granted loos, rent from it to William Aguillon, 

 and in 1230 Henry III confirmed to him the land 

 late of Robert de Courci in Emsworth and Warbling- 

 ton for the yearly rent of a pair of gilt spurs, 61 

 the land being extended at four hides. 68 In 1280 

 Robert Aguillon, son and 

 heir of William, 63 when sum- 

 moned to show why he took 

 amendment of the assize of 

 bread and ale in Warbling- 

 ton, pleaded the custom of its 

 former Norman tenants. 64 His 

 widow Margaret received 

 seisin of loos, rent in 'the 

 manor of Emsworth ' in April, 

 I286, 65 and died before 

 29 July, 1292, leaving a 

 daughter and heir Isabel wife 



of Hugh Bardolf, 66 who held the rents in Ems- 

 worth by right of his wife. 67 In 1304 she sur- 

 rendered the ' manor of Emsworth ' to the crown 

 and obtained a fresh grant of it with remainder to 

 her younger son William, 68 but in 1312 she sued 

 Robert le Ewer, then lord of Warblington, and 

 another for trespass, 69 and in the following year 

 sought restitution of her lands in Emsworth and 

 Warblington, 70 which had been seized into the king's 

 hands on an inquisition as to her rights. It was 

 then stated that the original grant to William 

 Aguillon only referred to loos, rent to be received 

 from the reeve of Warblington manor, that when 

 Peter son of Matthew was lord of the manor he 

 assigned loo/, rent from certain villeins in Emsworth 

 to Robert Aguillon, but Matthew son of John had 

 through negligence allowed Robert Aguillon to usurp 

 the lordship of the villeins and a fishery in Ems- 

 worth. 71 The suit dragged on for some years while 

 Robert le Ewer received all the profits of the lands 

 according to a grant of 1 3 1 y, 7 ' and was only ended 

 after his forfeiture of Warblington. In 1325 the 

 king's bailiff held a court there 7 * and in December 

 of the same year the ' manor of Emsworth ' was 

 released to Thomas elder 

 brother and heir of William 

 Bardolf according to the grant 

 of Edward I. 74 Thomas Bar- 

 dolf's son John sold Ems- 

 worth with Greatham to 

 Nicholas le Devenish in 

 1342." It descended with 

 that manor to the Faukoners 

 who evidently retained it 

 when they sold Greatham to 

 John Freeland, 76 for a William 

 Faukoner conveyed it to An- 

 thony Browning, and Eliza- 

 beth Cotton, widow, in 1635." 

 Thus, apparently, it became the property of the 

 Cottons, for it was included in the lands for which 



DEVENISH. Vert a sal- 

 tire engrailed argent be- 

 tween four crosslets fitchy 

 or. 



Richard Cotton compounded, and has since re- 

 mained in the possession of the successive lords of 

 Warblington. 



The church of ST. THOMAS OF 

 CHURCH CJNTERBURr, 73 W4RBL1NGTON, 

 consists of chancel 45ft. by 1 5 ft. 6 in., 

 with north vestry and organ chamber, 

 nave 41 ft. by 18 ft. 3 in., with north and south 

 aisles and north porch, and a small tower be- 

 tween the nave and chancel. It is a building of 

 unusual interest, not only on account of the beautiful 

 Purbeck marble detail of the south arcade, but also 

 because part of the tower is of pre-Conquest date. 

 This latter is only 9 ft. square over all, and 4 ft. 6 in. 

 square within the walls, and can hardly have beer 

 other than western. Only one stage of it now exists, 

 the second ; the ground stage having disappeared in 

 the course of alterations noted below. It is not 

 clear whether there was formerly a third stage, or 

 whether it was r.ither a two-story porch than a tower. 

 Nothing remains of the nave and chancel which stood 

 to the east of it, but the width between the chancel 

 arches may perhaps preserve that of the former nave, 

 i 3 ft. 6 in. In the early years of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury a new nave with aisles was built to the west of 

 the tower, the lower part of the tower being removed, 

 to open up the old nave east of the tower, which 

 now became the chancel of the enlarged church, but 

 in the latter half of the same century, with its original 

 chancel, was entirely pulled down, and its site occupied 

 by a large new chancel with a north-east vestry. The 

 aisles of the nave were either remodelled or rebuilt at 

 this time, and perhaps lengthened eastward to the 

 line of the east wall of the old tower. The tower, 

 which probably had open archways on all four sides 

 on the lower stage, has small arched doorways on the 

 north, south, and west in the second stage, and these 

 may have opened to the roof or upper floors of build- 

 ings set against the tower. The question is one 

 which arises in connexion with many of the existing 

 western towers of pre-Conquest date, and may in this 

 instance have had some effect on the later alterations. 

 The blocks of masonry abutting the arches under the 

 tower may perhaps contain parts of the walling of 

 such buildings, and the east responds of the thirteenth- 

 century arcades may have been built against them, 

 the eastern limit of the aisles being on this line. At 

 the rebuilding of the whole of the work east of the 

 tower, the aisles were lengthened to the line of the 

 east wall of the tower, and perhaps widened, as there 

 seems to be nothing in either as early as the arcades 

 of the nave. The chancel, whose unusual length for 

 a church of this scale may be accounted for by the 

 fact of its having been built round the whole of the 

 nave and chancel of the Saxon church, has an east 

 window of three lights with modern tracery, but 

 the rear arch is original. On the north-east of the 

 chancel is the apparently contemporary vestry, formerly 

 of two stories, and entered from the chancel by a 

 plain chamfered door at the south-west. Immediately 

 to the east of the door is a small squint, wide towards 



61 Cal. Chart. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 1 34. 



ra Testa de Ne-v'M, 234*. 



68 Pat. 7 Edw. II, pt. 2, m. 21 d. 



64 Plac. de Quo Warr. (Rec. Com.), 771. 

 The plea is unfinished. 



65 Cal. Close, 1279-88, p. 389. 

 M Ibid. 1288-96, p. 239. 



67 Chan. Inq. p.m. 32 Edw. I, No. 64. 



Chart. R. 33 Edw. I, No. 77. 



Cal. Pat. 1307-13, p. 4.30. 



Cal. Close, 1313-18, p. 72. 



Pat. 17 Edw. II, pt. 2, m. 21 d. 



Cal. Pat. 1313-17, p. 638. 



Mins. Accts. bdle. 1148, No. 19. 



Cal. Close, 1323-7, p. 436. 



Feet of F.Hants, East.i6 Edw. 111,23. 



137 



7 V.C.H. Hants, ii, 506*. 



77 Feet of F. Hants, Hil. 1 1 Chas. I. 

 Later in the same year John Faukoner 

 suffered recovery of the manors of Ems- 

 worth and Middleton. 



' 8 From the architectural evidence, this 

 cannot be the original dedication. 



18 



