A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



1728, with a gap in the marriage entries between 

 1 647 and 1 66 1 ; the Commonwealth registrations were 

 doubtless kept in a special book now lost. The second 

 book has baptisms and burials 1731-1812, and 

 marriages to 1735, and the third marriages 1754- 

 1812. 



In the churchyard on the south is a very large 

 yew, evidently of great age, even if the conventional 

 thousand years claimed for it be more than its due. 



Until 1853 Durley was a chapelry 

 JDyOWSON of Upham, the living being a curacy 

 in the gift of the bishop of Win- 

 chester.' 8 In the twelfth century the advowson of 

 Durley went, together with that of the mother church, 

 to the hospital of St. Cross, Winchester, in accordance 

 with a grant made by Henry de Blois, bishop of 

 Winchester, to that body. 19 In 1284 however 

 Upham was among the advowsons concerned in the 

 dispute between the bishop of Winchester and the 

 monks of St. Swithun's, when the latter finally 



renounced their claim in favour of the bishop.** 

 The grant to St. Cross cannot therefore have been 

 more than temporary. As a chapelry of Upham, the 

 patronage of Durley was transferred from the bishop 

 of Winchester to the bishop of Lichfield in 1852" ; 

 and it remained in the gift of Lichfield after the 

 separation of Durley from Upham in 1853. In 1890 

 the patronage of Durley was transferred to the Lord 

 Chancellor. Since the separation the living has been 

 a rectory. 



There is a Wesleyan chapel at Durley, built in 

 1851. There is also a mission room, the private 

 property of Captain Thresher, R.N., who is a con- 

 siderable landowner in the parish. (For school, see 

 article on 'Schools,' V.C.H. Hants, ii, 398). 



By an award of 25 June, 1858, an 



CHAR1TT allotment of 3 acres on Wintershill 



Common was set out for the benefit of 



the poor of this parish ; the rents amounted to ^5 5*. 



a year. 



EXBURY 



Ekeresbur (xiii cent.) ; Eukeresbury (xiv cent.). 



Exbury parish is a low tract of fertile wooded land 

 in the valley of the Beaulieu River, whose estuary 

 curves round the parish, bounding it west and south, 

 where it meets the Solent. Down the eastern 

 boundary runs the Dark Water, a narrow stream with 

 steep high banks which are covered with trees, 

 heather, and bracken. Of the 2,593 acres of which 

 this parish consists there are 829 of arable land, 683 

 of permanent grass, and 365 of woods and plantations. 1 

 The soil is loam, and the chief crops are wheat and 

 barley. The occupations of the inhabitants of this 

 secluded corner of the country are purely agricultural, 

 and there are less than 300 persons in the whole 

 parish. The only main road enters the parish on the 

 north-west, and runs down to the south coast, and the 

 nearest station is Beaulieu Road in the New Forest, 

 nine miles from Exbury village. The other means of 

 communication are sandy lanes or tracks across the 

 fields, while the steep valley of the Dark Water is a 

 great obstacle to access from the east. 



The little village of Exbury stands amid thick trees 

 on the left of the main road from Dibden or Beaulieu. 

 The church on the east, and Exbury manor house on 

 the west, are on the main road, the rest of the village 

 straggling for a little way down a broad lane which 

 turns eastward. Following the road to the coast, 

 Lower Exbury Farm stands high up on the banks of 

 the Beaulieu River, overlooking it as it curves east- 

 ward to meet the Solent. Here can be seen the site 

 of the chapel of St. Katherine, the remaining stones of 

 which are now used for pig-styes. This chapel was 

 served by the Cistercians from Beaulieu Abbey, the 

 tradition being that the monks used to cross the river 

 from St. Leonard's, on stepping-stones. The chapel 

 was not pulled down until 1827, when the present 

 chapel at Exbury was built. 



Turning westward along the coast we come to 

 Lepe, which now consists of a few cottages and a 

 coast-guard station, though Wise wrote of it in 1866 

 as ' a fishing village.' Possibly he was referring to the 

 oyster trade, large heaps of oysters being formerly 

 stacked here to purify. Lepe House, once an old inn, 

 has been beautified and enlarged till it is quite un- 

 recognizable. It is now occupied by Mr. H. W. 

 Forster, M.P., lord of the manor of Exbury and 

 Lepe. Both Lepe House and Inchmerry House (the 

 residence of the Dowager Countess De La Warr) 

 command beautiful views facing the Isle of Wight. 

 All this coast district is very liable to floods. 



There is no record of holders of land 

 MANORS in EXBURT previous to the thirteenth 

 century, when there are various traces of 

 the family of Foliot (Faflet, Pallet, or Follet). In 

 i 244 Richard Foliot, a minor, was holding land in 

 Exbury in chief of the crown,' and at the end of the 

 century Walter Foliot held two carucates there by 

 knight's service.' On the death of Robert Foliot his 

 lands were divided between his two daughters and co- 

 heirs : Maud, who was possessed of one messuage and 

 one carucate in Exbury and Lepe, which she con- 

 veyed in 1 304 to Andrew de Grymstead * ; and Mabel, 

 ho apparently married Robert le Gras. 6 The 

 Grymstead moiety was held by Andrew de Grymstead 

 in 1316.' Andrew died in 1324,' ani in 1336 his 

 son John settled it upon Eleanor his wife for life. 8 

 Eleanor survived her husband many years, holding 

 her moiety of the manor as part of the inheritance of 

 Reginald Perot, who, in default of male issue of the 

 Grymstead line, had become heir to the property. 9 

 On the death of Eleanor, in 1363, a dispute arose. 

 Ralph Perot was a minor, and as tenant-in-chief of 

 the crown the custody of his lands was assumed by the 

 king, who committed it to Robert de Beverley. 10 



18 ffyitcbam'i Reg. (Hants Rcc. Soc.), i, 

 App. 391. 



Harl. MS. 1616, fol. 9. 



Add MSS. 29436. 



11 Land. Gaz. 4 June, 1852. 



1 Statistics from Bd. of Agric. (1905). 



* Exarfta e Rot. Fin. (Rec. Com.), i, 

 426. 



8 fata de Ncvill (Rec. Com.), 235 b. 



4 Feet of F. Hants, Mil. 32 Edw. I. 



5 Cal. of Close, 1323-7, p. 361. 



6 Feud. Aids, ii, 317. 



' Chan. Inq. p.m. 18 Edw. II, No. 



49- 



8 Chan. Inq. a. q. d. 10 Edw. Ill (2nd 

 Nos.), No. 40; Cal. of Pat. 1334-8, 



290 



p. 251 ; Feet of F. Hants, Hil. 10 Edw. 

 III. 



9 Chan. Inq. p.m. 12 Edw. Ill (ist 

 Nos.), No. 37 ; Chan. Inq. p.m. 37 Edw. 

 Ill (ist Nos.), No. 28 ; Hoare, Hist, of 

 Wilts, i, 202. 



w Abbre-v. Rot. Orig. (Rec. Com.), 32OU,- 

 Cal. of Pat. 1377-81, p. 423. 



