A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



Droxford in one Mr. Francis Allen, who gave 

 7,675 I3/. id. for it. 10 On the Restoration, the 

 bishops recovered their possessions, and Droxford 

 remained attached to the lands of the Winchester see 

 until the Bishops' Resignation Act of 1869." Drox- 

 ford then passed to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 

 who have since continued to be lords of the manor. 



In 1376 John de Garton of Erehutte, late citizen 

 of London, died seised of lands and rents in MID- 

 DLETON held of the bishop of Winchester, with 

 sjit of court to the manor of Droxford." This is 

 evidently the same as Midlington, a tithing in Bishop's 

 Waltham Hundred." There is no descent traceable 

 of the owners of this property, and the lands seem to 

 have been split up. At a court baron held at 

 Droxford Manor in 1761, it was presented that 'all 

 lands that did heretofore belong to the manor of 

 Midlington have no right of common in Waltham 

 Chase.' " Midlington is now owned and occupied by 

 Mr. F. H. Christian. 



Steeple (? Stepple xv cent."), now represented by 

 STEEPLE COURT, is a well-wooded piece of land 

 situated on the right bank of the Hamble, before it 

 widens to an estuary. It formed a part of Droxford 

 parish until 1884, when it was transferred to the 

 parish of Botley by order of the Local Government 

 Board. 16 In the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, 

 Steeple Court was called a manor,* r which seems to 

 have owed suit to the parent manor of Droxford. 

 At a court baron held at Droxford in 1761 it 

 was decided that ' Steeple Court farm has no 

 rights of common in Horderswood ' * 8 (Waltham 

 Chase). In the sixteenth century Steeple Court was 

 in the hands of the family of Faukener," a name 

 which is found in connexion with the neighbouring 

 parish of Swanmore as early as the thirteenth cen- 

 tury.* By the eighteenth century it belonged to the 

 family of Warner," which had long owned land in 

 South Hampshire, particularly in Titchfield, Waltham, 

 and Botley ." The Rev. Henry Jenkyns, canon of 

 Durham Cathedral, bought Steeple Court from 

 Mr. William Warner about 1875. It is now the 

 property of Lady Jenkyns. 



The church of OUR LADY AND 

 CHURCHES ALL S4INTS, DROXFORD, has a 

 chancel 28 ft. 3 in. long by 1 5 ft. 6 in. 

 wide, north and south chapels of equal length, 

 1 3 ft. 7 in. and 1 3 ft. 2 in. wide respectively, nave 

 45 ft. 2 in. by 19 ft. 6 in., with north and south aisles 

 8 ft. 8 in. wide, south porch, and west tower 1 3 ft. 3 in. 

 square all measurements being internal. 



The earliest details belong to 1150-60, at which 

 time the church possessed an aisleless nave and chan- 

 cel, whose walls still stand for the most part, though 

 pierced with arches opening to the aisles and chapels. 

 The chancel arch of this church remains intact, and 

 the north and south doorways of the nave, though 

 not in their original positions, are part of it. The 

 chancel had two small round-headed windows on 

 each side, and remains of those on the south are still 

 to be seen. Towards the end of the twelfth century 



a north chapel was added to the chancel, and a north 

 aisle to the nave, and in the first half of the thir- 

 teenth century a south aisle was built. At the begin- 

 ning of the next century the north chapel was rebuilt, 

 probably on a larger scale, and the south chapel either 

 newly built or enlarged from a previously existing 

 building. 



The aisles of the nave were widened in the late 

 years of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century, and in 1599 the present tower was built, 

 leaving no evidence of the size of its predecessor, if 

 it had one. In the eighteenth century the church 

 was fitted with new roofs and ceilings, and the clear- 

 story windows of the chancel remodelled. The walls 

 of the church are of flint rubble with ashlar dressings, 

 and the roofs are red-tiled. 



The chancel has a fifteenth-century east window of 

 three cinquefoiled lights with tracery in the head, and 

 is also lighted by two clearstory windows on north and 

 south, the internal masonry of which is probably of 

 fifteenth-century date, but externally they are of the 

 eighteenth century. The chancel opens to the 

 chapels by wide arches, that on the north of late 

 twelfth-century date, being of one order pointed, 

 with a chamfered label and an edge-roll towards the 

 chancel, and a plain chamfer towards the chapel. At 

 the springing are square-edged strings, hollow-cham- 

 fered beneath, and the edge-roll of the arch con- 

 tinues down the southern angles of the jambs. Over 

 the south arch are remains of two round-headed 

 lights, the original south windows of the chancel, 

 with wide internal splays. 



The north chapel, c. 1 300, has an east window of 

 three trefoiled lights, and two two-light north win- 

 dows, with cusped piercings in the head. In the 

 south-east corner is a locker with a shouldered lintel, 

 and rebated for a door, with a shelf-groove, and to the 

 west of it a piscina recess with a plain arched head. 

 The chapel opens to the north aisle by a late fifteenth- 

 century pointed arch of two hollow-chamfered orders, 

 the outer dying out at the springing and the inner 

 carried by half-octagonal moulded corbels. The 

 south respond of this arch is the north-east angle of 

 the original nave, and preserves its quoin-stones 

 unaltered. 



The south chapel, probably built at the same time 

 as the north chapel, has an east window of three 

 trefoiled lights with intersecting tracery in the head, 

 the openings being cusped. In the south wall are 

 two two-light windows like those in the north chapel. 

 Near the south-east angle is a trefoiled piscina, and 

 north of the east window is a large canopied and 

 crocketed niche for an image, with a panelled base. 

 The arch at the west end of the chapel is of the same 

 date and design as that in the north chapel ; but the 

 corresponding east angle of the aisleless nave has been 

 cut back and the original quoins destroyed. 



The chancel arch is semicircular, of two orders on 

 the west face, the outer with a large roll, and the 

 inner with a good zigzag pattern and an edge-roll, 

 and of one plain order on the east face. The outer 



80 Dugdalc, Man. i, 203. 



81 Land. Gax. I April, 1870. 



M Chan. Inq. p.m. 50 Edw. Ill (ist 

 No.), No. 27. Eccl. Com. Ct. R. 



34 Ledger of Droxford Manor, in hands 

 of Mr. Gunner, Bishop's Waltham. 



M Feet of F. Hants, East. 8 Hen. IV ; 

 ibid. Hil. ii Hen. IV. 



M Loc. Govt. Bd. Order 16412. 



W Feet of F. Hants, East. 4 & 5 

 Phil, and Mary ; ibid. Hil. 14 Eliz. 



28 Bk. of Customs of Droxford Manor 

 in hands of Mr. Gunner, Bishop's Wal- 

 tham. 



M Feet of F. Hants, 4 & 5 Phil, and 

 Mary. 



286 



Ibid. East. 37 Hen. III. 



B There is a slab in Botley Church to 

 James Warner of Steeple Court (1784- 

 1857). 



ra Chan. Inq. a.q.d. 37 Edw. Ill (znd 

 Nos.), No. 1 6 ; Chan. Inq. p.m. 9 Hen. 

 IV, No. 27. 



