HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



in times past of the bishops of Winchester, but now 

 my Lord Treasurer's.' The great Civil War saw the 

 destruction of Bishop's Waltham palace, which after a 

 gallant defence by 200 cavaliers under Colonel Bennett 

 surrendered to General Brown, on 9 April, 1644. 

 On the 1 1 th a cavalier wrote : ' Waltham House in 

 ashes.' Bishop Curll, who was resident in the palace 

 at the time, is said to have effected his escape in a 

 dung cart. For some time after this anyone who 

 required building stone helped himself from the 

 palace ruins. In 1 869 the property passed into the 

 hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who sold 

 the site and ruins of the palace to Sir William Jenner. 

 Since the latter's death in 1898, his widow Lady 

 Jenner has owned the place. 



The ruins of the palace are still imposing, though 

 little is left but the shell of the north wing. The 

 house was probably foursquare, with an inner court, 

 and a gateway in an outer court on the north-east, 

 round which the offices were built. The whole was 

 defended by a moat, which remains very perfect on 

 the north and east, and a large space south and west 

 of the moated site is inclosed by a picturesque brick 

 wall, built by Bishop Langton (ob. 1501), with a 

 square two-story garden-house remaining at its south- 

 eastern angle. Through it a stream runs north- 

 west towards the Hamble, leaving the inclosure at 

 a second red-brick garden-house in the north-west 

 angle, which has served as a latrine. In the 

 western part of the inclosure stands the house known 

 as Place House, owned by Lady Jenner, part of 

 which may be of seventeenth-century date, but its 

 chief attractions are its garden and the view of the 

 ruined palace. 



Part of the arrangement of the palace building is 

 still to be made out, though the site is much over- 

 grown and heaped with fallen rubbish. The south 

 front is iSoft. long, with a square tower at each end, 

 projecting beyond the line of the main wall. The 

 general appearance of the work is that of a fifteenth- 

 century building, but in reality a great deal of 

 twelfth-century walling and detail exists, especially in 

 the western part. In the centre of the range stands 

 the hall, with tall two-light windows on the south, 

 the inner or north wall being in this part entirely 

 destroyed. At the east end are the kitchen and 

 offices, and at the west of the hall are living rooms. 

 Along the west wall of the hall are remains of a 

 twelfth-century wall arcade, and in the room immedi- 

 ately adjoining it a large twelfth-century window 

 remains in a fair state of preservation. The other 

 wings of the house are completely ruined, but the 

 remains of the chapel, a small twelfth-century apsidal 

 building, were excavated some years since, and are 

 still to be seen, though much overgrown, to the south 

 of the hall. Parts of the outer gatehouse exist at 

 the north-east angle of the inclosure, the side walls 

 only being left, with fireplaces in what must have 

 been the porter's lodgings. At the south-east angle 

 of the inclosure is a long building standing east and 

 west, and formerly of two stories. At the east end 



is a large fireplace, and the building was probably a 

 bakehouse, brewhouse, or the like, and is of late 

 fifteenth-century date. 



The large pond to the south of the palace, sepa- 

 rated from the southern arm of its moat by the high 

 road, is an artificial pool made to work the mill at its 

 west end. Below the mill are the banks of a second 

 pool, now dry, and there seems to have been a third 

 bank further down stream. All the pools no doubt 

 served as stew-ponds for the use of the palace. 



The park of Bishop's Waltham, which was 

 PARK attached to the palace, formerly extended for 

 over 1,000 acres. 30 It was bounded by the 

 ' Lug,' a mound 1 6^ ft. broad and some 6 ft. high, with 

 trees planted on the top to form a barricade." After the 

 destruction of the palace, Dr. George Morley (bishop 

 of Winchester 1662-84), being in need of money 

 for the repair of Farnham Castle, 38 conceived the 

 idea of dividing up the park into farms. He there- 

 fore obtained the royal assent to an Act enabling him 

 to lease out ' the two parks and other demesnes at 

 Bishop's Waltham,' in July, I663. 33 A year later 

 the place was spoken of as ' the great disparked park 

 of Bishop's Waltham,' 34 which very accurately de- 

 scribes it at the present day. 



The land known as Waltham Chase was probably 

 included in the original tenth-century grant to the 

 bishopric, but the Chase is only specifically mentioned 

 at the time of its acquisition by the Lord Treasurer 

 in the sixteenth century, and the subsequent grant 

 to the earl of Wiltshire and regrant to Bishop White. 3 * 

 It stretched away to the south and east of the park, 

 and was practically an outlying portion of the Forest 

 of Bere. Originally the hunting-ground of the 

 bishops, the chase became famous in the eighteenth 

 century as the haunt of a gang of deer-stealers, who 

 were known from their blackened faces as 'The 

 Waltham Blacks.' It was in consequence of their 

 doings, and at the instigation of Bishop Trimnell, that 

 the Black Act of George I was passed in 1722, 

 though apparently it was never enforced. Some 

 twenty years later, Bishop Hoadly, on being asked 

 to re-stock the chase with deer, refused, saying that 

 it ' had done mischief enough already.' Waltham 

 Chase was inclosed in iSjo, 36 since when the timber 

 has been entirely cut down, 87 though the name forest 

 still clings to the locality. 



The earliest reference to a market at Bishop's 

 Waltham is in the reign of Edward I, when it was 

 reported by some inquisitors that ' the market of 

 Titchfield and Waltham is to the damage of the 

 market of .... which is held on a Saturday.' M 

 This was in all probability a joint market, held alter- 

 nate weeks at either place, and dropped in consequence 

 of the inquisitors' report, which would account for the 

 entirely new grant by Elizabeth in 1602 to the 

 bishop of Winchester and his successors of the right 

 to hold a market at Bishop's Waltham on Friday in 

 each week. 39 When the main line through Botley 

 was opened in 1832, Botley became a more con- 

 venient centre than Bishop's Waltham, and the 



80 The boundaries arc given by Mr. 

 Houghton in Hann N. and Q. vi, 65. 



fll Bayley's Dictionary defines Lug as an 

 old English rod, viz. i6J ft. or 5j yds., 

 an average deer leap. 



82 Grose, Antiquities, v, 90. 



88 Hill. AfSS. Com. Ref. x, l-jla. 



M Ibid. iSoa. 



85 Pat. 5 Edw. VI, pt. 6, m. 20, and pt. 

 6, m. 39 ; Pat. 4 & 5 Phil, and Mary, 

 pt. 7, m. 20. 



86 Part. Blue Bin. Inchsures, 157. 



" Cf. William Cobbett, Rural Rides, ii, 

 261. 



2 7 8 



88 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 224. 



88 Inq. a.q.d. 44 Eliz. No. 3. T. W. 

 Shore, however, in his Hist, of Hants, 

 p. 151, considers this grant of Elizabeth 

 to be the earliest sign of a market at 

 Bishop's Waltham, and comments upon 

 the fact. 



