TITCHFIELD HUNDRED 



TITCHFIELD 



house Titchficld' was taken for the queen presumably 

 as a convenient point from which to escape to France."'' 

 A bridge over the Meon close to Place House bears 

 the date 1625. West Hill, a large house on rising 

 ground west of the town, belongs to the executors of 

 James Dredge, C.M.S., late owner of Engineering. 

 St. Margaret's is a large red-brick house on high 

 ground to the west of the town : a long range of 

 building with picturesque chimneys and a tower at 

 the south end. It appears to be entirely of early 

 seventeenth-century date, with much of its original 

 wooden framings, and stands in a pretty garden sur- 

 rounded by a belt of trees. Several industries for- 

 merly of importance have now almost entirely disap- 

 peared, amongst them brick-making, of which the only 

 remaining trace is a field called ' Clay-pits." A garden 

 called Skin House Piece marks the site of a building 

 where parchment-dressing was formerly carried on. 

 Gravel was worked at Meon in former days, and salt 

 was obtained by evaporation from Hook and Warsash, 



available person is employed in picking the fruit, the 

 schools are closed, and all the children go to work in 

 the strawberry fields. Swanwick is the chief station 

 for this trade, a special staff and special trains being 

 provided by the railway company during the busy 

 season. Market gardening on a large scale is carried 

 on in the parish, Titchfield supplying most of the 

 cabbages for the Royal Navy, while turnip greens are 

 largely grown for the London market, ' green cutting ' 

 being a recognized industry among the girls of the 

 locality. There is a large tannery in the town on 

 the site of the old wharves, and a jam factory on the 

 common belonging to the Army and Navy Stores. 

 Titchfield mill, probably the one mentioned in 

 Domesday and later as being worth 2O/., 1 is in the 

 town on the Meon, and there is a windmill on Peel 

 Common at Crofton. Though no traces of any 

 dovecots remain, there is a field called the ' Dovecot ' 

 near Place House. 



Crofton and Stubbington consist of a few dozen 



ST. MARGARET'S, TITCHFIELD 



where the name ' salterns ' still survives. At Funtley 

 in the north of the parish are the ruins of an old mill 

 the iron mill where ore was smelted, local ironstone 

 being used. Early in the seventeenth century the 

 third earl of Southampton, alarmed at the decay of 

 trade caused by the suppression of the monastery, 

 started a woollen industry, and men were brought 

 from Alton ' to teach the poor the art of weaving.' 

 The experiment was not altogether successful, although 

 the older inhabitants can still remember the time 

 when blankets were manufactured in the parish. 

 The chief local industry to-day is strawberry growing; 

 Titchfield Common, formerly called Swanwick Heath, 

 and until comparatively recent times a stretch of waste 

 heather land, being now cut up into small allotments 

 generally consisting of a few acres of strawberry fields 

 round a cottage. In the strawberry season every 



fe Cal. S.P. Dam. 1641, p. 250 ; Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. rliv, 123. 



221 



cottages and farms scattered over a tract of flat 

 country, and only round the green in Crofton is 

 there anything in the nature of a village. Crofton 

 House, south-east of Titchfield, belongs to Col. Boyd, 

 and Stubbington House, which stands at the corner of 

 the green, is used as a naval school. Its bell is said 

 to have come from Place House at Titchfield. 

 Whiteleys, in the north of the parish, is an interesting 

 old house formerly standing within the park of Place 

 House, and now, from its isolated position, used as a 

 smallpox hospital. In late years old land drains have 

 been discovered near the house filled in with deer's 

 horns. Lee-on-the-Solent is a modern watering 

 place, there being very little more than the site to 

 mark its ancient history. 



Sarisbury, Locks Heath, Swanwick and Lower Swan- 

 wick form a modern parish on the east bank of the River 



V.C.H. Hantt, i, 456 ; Cal. of Pat. 1307-13, p. 20. 



