A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



Of the several houses of note in the parish, Arle- 

 buiy House, or New Place, is a fine house built in 

 Italian style, standing west of the town and north of 

 the main road to Winchester. Charles Kingsley is said 

 to have frequently stayed here, probably when he was 

 rector of Eversley. Miss Mitford, the authoress of 

 Our Village, is said to have been born in a house in 

 Broad Street, which bears a tablet recording the fact.* 3 

 On the south side of West Street, near a house called 

 St. John's, there formerly stood a meeting-house of 

 the Quakers and a cemetery. The meeting-house 

 was standing in 1750, but has since been pulled 

 down, and no trace either of it or of the graveyard 

 now remains. 



The parish contains 244^ acres of arable land and 

 283! acres of permanent grass." The soil is chalky 

 loam, the subsoil chalk. The chief crops are wheat, 

 oats, turnips, and watercress." 



Among place-names can be mentioned Bouerewey, 

 Abourewey, Houlendelle, Basteletyn, La Floudeland, 

 Jagonslane, and Le Hankysburgh * 6 (xv cent.) ; and 

 Sewelsebryge " and Boltings IS (xvi cent.). 



The following sixteenth-century perambulation of 

 the vill of New Alresford is preserved at the Public 

 Record Office : ' Perambulation there beginning at 

 the bridge to the north of the vill there and stretch- 

 ing east to Utley Dych and Furley Dych, and thence 

 stretching south to the east of Shiplond over the way 

 leading to Sutton, and thence on the western part of 

 Swetley to Appledowne, and so by the hedge from 

 New Alresford even to a certain ditch, and by the 

 ditch to the southern end of Le Merchis and by the 

 hedge to a stream, and thence north by the stream to 

 Tottenmede, and thence east by the great stream 

 coming out of Alresford Pond to the eastern part of 

 Brodmed, and thence by the land of Roger Crope 

 to the north of the mill called Townemyll and thence 

 to the bridge.' >Sa 



According to local tradition 



BOROUGH the early existence of New 



OF Alresford as distinct from Old 



NEW4LRESFORD Alresford and Medsted was due 



to a defeat inflicted by the 



Saxons on a party of Danes near the village of West 

 Tisted about five miles east of Alresford. The Saxons 

 granted quarter to the defeated enemy on condition 

 that they went to the ford over the River Alre to be 

 baptized. In commemoration of the victory a statue 

 of the Virgin was then erected in the churchyard of 

 Old Alresford. 89 New Alresford was certainly a separate 

 village in the reign of William the Conqueror, though 

 less important than the village of Old Alresford, 30 and 

 it would doubtless have remained in this subordinate 

 position had it not been for the exertions of its lord 

 Godfrey de Lucy bishop of Winchester (i 189-1204), 



who often resided in the neighbouring palace of Bishop's 

 Sutton, and was naturally anxious to promote its wel- 

 fare. In the first place, he made the Itchen a navig- 

 able waterway for barges and flat-bottomed boats from 

 Southampton to Winchester as well as from thence to 

 the very head of the river, by throwing up a great 

 dyke at Alresford, by which means the water from 

 two or three local streams was gathered into a great 

 lake now called Alresford Pond, and a reservoir of 

 water provided for supplying the navigation." In 

 reward for this scheme undertaken at his own expense 

 King John gave the bishop the royalty of the river, 

 and in addition granted him free licence and authority 

 to collect, receive, take, and apply to his own proper 

 use and benefit ... all fines, tolls, taxes, and customs 

 from goods and merchandise conveyed up or down 

 the River Itchen. 3 * In the second place, having 

 obtained a charter from King John in 1 200 granting 

 to him a weekly market in Alresford on Thursday, 3 * 

 he made a spacious market-place, causing all the build- 

 ings to be taken down and rebuilt with the square in 

 the centre, the market-house at one end and the great 

 corn-mills and public ovens and boulting-house at 

 the other. According to Camden he altered the 

 name of his town to New Market, with respect 

 perhaps to Old Alresford adjoining, but this name 

 continued not long with the common people, the best 

 preservers of language. 34 In 1202 King John granted 

 Godfrey de Lucy a fair at Alresford for three days, on 

 the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and 

 the two following days. 35 This grant was confirmed 

 by Edward I in 1282, and by Richard II in I38O, 3 * 

 and an additional fair was added on the Feast of the 

 Ascension of our Lord some time later. 37 



New Alresford was now well equipped as a market 

 town, and by means of the canal was linked with 

 Winchester and Southampton. Henry III increased 

 its trade still more when he connected it with Alton 

 by a royal highway instead of the hitherto only means 

 of communication a narrow road passing through a 

 continuation of woods where foresters and shepherds 

 had committed all sorts of depredations. The bishops 

 of Winchester and Oxford, together with Robert de 

 St. John and others, met before the king's justices in 

 1269, and surrendered all their title and claims in 

 these woodlands in order that they might be grubbed 

 up and brought into a state of cultivation, and im- 

 mediately afterwards the king by deed granted hi& 

 own demesnes in the neighbourhood in order that a 

 royal road, spacious, wide, and good, might be forth- 

 with made from Alton to Alresford. 3 * It seems prob- 

 able that the old road, which runs from Alton by 

 Chawton Wood and several solitary farms through 

 Bighton, and enters Old Alresford over the cause- 

 way at the head of the pond, is the royal road of 



" The whole question of her birthplace 

 was discussed in Hants N. and Q. 



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



25 This latter industry dates from very 

 early times, there being many mentions 

 of ' Cress pytt ' in the sixteenth-century 

 borough court rolls. 



86 Duchy of Lane. Rentals and Surv. 

 bdle. 8, No. 21. 



"7 Eccl. Com. Ct. R. bdle. 85, No. 



3- 



88 Eccl. Com. Various, 57, No.i5946oJ. 



* Eccl. Com. Ct. R. bdle. 136, No. i. 



Hants N. ana Q. iii, 66. The author 

 adds that two or three circumstances give 

 ome probability to the itory, such as the 



existence of four barrows in Burrow Lane, 

 West Tisted ; also of a hillock in Old 

 Alresford churchyard, which is said to con- 

 tain the ruins of an ancient chapel, but 

 that the story looks suspiciously like the 

 account of the defeat of the Danes by 

 Alfred at Edinson. 



80 y.C.Ji. Hants, i, 459. 



81 Dugdale, Mon. i, 196. 

 " Ibid. 



m Chart R. I John, m. 10. This grant 

 was confirmed to Godfrey bishop of 

 Winchester in 1378 (ibid. 2 Ric. II, 

 m. 7). 



84 Camden, Mag. Brit. (1789), i, 117. 

 His statement is probably based on the 



350 



words 'Item forum innovatum est apud 

 Halresford per Godefridum de Lucy epis- 

 copum Wintoniensem appcllavitque 

 nomen ville novum Forum,' in a cartu- 

 lary of Waverley Abbey (Ann. Man. [Rolls 

 Sen], ii, 252). 



85 Chart. R. 4 Ric. II, No. I. 



88 Ibid. 



W Eccl. Com. Ct. R. bdle. 73, No. 7 j 

 Eccl. Com. Various, bdle. 57, No. 1594602. 

 A court of piepowder was held by the 

 bailiff of the borough on the fair days. 

 The rolls of the courts held in 1420 are 

 preserved at the Public Record Office. 



88 Duthy, Sketches of Hants, 88 ; Chart. 

 R. 53 Hen. Ill, m. 10. 



