FAWLEY HUNDRED 



ALRESFORD 



Henry III. With these advantages it is not surprising 

 that the trade of New Alresford flourished. In the 

 fourteenth century it was reckoned as one of the ten 

 great wool markets in England, and its prosperity 

 may be gauged from the fact that in the reign of 

 Edward III a contribution of ninths produced 

 jz 1 5/. from New Alresford as compared with <) 

 from Southampton and only 8/. (>d. from Portsmouth.* 9 

 The manufacture of cloth was also carried on vigor- 

 ously by the inhabitants, at one time there being no 

 fewer than four fulling-mills within a mile of the 

 town. 40 A further proof of its importance is afforded 

 by the fact that in the reign of Edward I it gained 

 the right of representation in Parliament, sending two 

 burgesses to the Parliaments of 1295, 1300 I, and 

 1306-7," and one to the Parliament of 1306." 

 Although the town seems never to have received a 

 charter of incorporation, the inhabitants from a very 

 early date possessed certain privileges, as is shown by 

 a charter of 1256 whereby Ethelmar, bishop-elect of 

 Winchester, granted to the burgesses of Francheville 

 or Newtown in the Isle of Wight all the liberties and 

 free customs which were enjoyed by the burgesses of 

 Taunton, Witney, Alresford, or Farnham." The 

 king's grant also in 1 302 of pavage to the bailiff and 

 good men of Alresford seems to point to the nucleus 

 of a corporation," and if the town had prospered as 

 it had begun it seems probable that a charter of 

 incorporation would have been granted to it at no 

 distant date. But linked up as it was with Win- 

 chester, the prosperity as well as the adversity of 

 the inhabitants of New Alresford depended to a 

 great extent on that of the former city, and when, 

 after enduring the calamities of hostile incursions 

 and destructive pestilence, Winchester sank under 

 that ordinance of Edward III which sapped the 

 foundation of its trade by removing the wool-staple 

 thence to Calais, the prosperity of New Alresford 

 declined. A fire of 1440 and a pestilence in the 

 reign of Edward IV completed the ruin of the 

 town, 45 and in the latter reign the place was so 

 deserted and the survivors reduced to such distress 

 that the bailiff found it impossible to collect his quit- 

 rents. 48 However, under the Tudors the town 

 recovered to some extent from its depression. It 

 made considerable advances in the trade and manu- 

 facture of cloth, other officers, such as ale-tasters, tax- 

 collectors, leather-sealers, and constables, began to be 

 elected in the court leet of the borough, 47 and a state- 

 ment of the reign of Edward VI to the effect that 

 the inhabitants of New Alresford held in common to 

 the use of the poor of the town a house or upper 

 room built over the Churchway at the gate of the 

 churchyard, a close called the Town Close, and half an 

 acre of land lying in Downegate Furlong, 48 seems to 

 indicate the existence of the municipal governing 

 body which afterwards consisted of the bailiff and 

 ight burgesses. 49 A further proof that it already 



existed and held the borough at fee-farm of the bishop 

 seems to be afforded by the report of a surveyor sent 

 down by Sir John Gate before his purchase of the 

 bailiwick of Bishop's Sutton. His language is not 

 very clear, but he states : ' The boroughe of New 

 Alresford standeth all upon quite rents,' ' The boroughe 

 is the worst rent within the hooll bailiwicke, as I 

 take it, becawse of the contynual reparations,' and 

 again ' Alresford is clerely gevin bi the bisshopp to 

 one of the porters of the towne, as I have lernd, 

 which must be considered upon your purchase if it 

 be not remedied.' M All this seems to point to the 

 same conclusion that the borough was farmed out for 

 a fixed rent, nearly all of which the bishop had to 

 spend on the town, while the words ' if it be not 

 remedied ' seem to hint that the right was only a 

 prescriptive one. At length, on 10 December, 1572, 

 Robert Home bishop of Winchester by charter 

 granted the borough to the bailiff and burgesses to 

 hold of him at a fixed annual rent of 16 14*. zja'., 

 viz. 15 15*. (>\d. farm of the borough, izs. picage 

 and stallage of fairs and markets, and 6s. %J. farm of 

 a tenement called Bultings in the north of the town. 51 

 From this date the income of the borough was 

 applied in pursuance of resolutions passed at meetings 

 of the bailiff and eight burgesses." At these meet- 

 ings also the bailiff and the other officers of the 

 borough, such as constables, ale-conners or beer-tasters, 

 and kerners of flesh and fish, were elected and vacancies 

 among the burgesses filled up, but at each election the 

 bailiff, burgess, or other officer was presented and 

 sworn in at the court leet of the borough. 53 The 

 corporation also was accustomed to exercise a legal 

 jurisdiction within the borough, and held a law-day 

 court every three weeks for the trial of inferior 

 actions of debt, trespass, &c., but it was discontinued 

 after the burning down of the council-house in 

 1689." Such was the constitution of the borough 

 during the seventeenth and following centuries. 



Its prosperity during this time was repeatedly 

 checked by outbreaks of fire. 55 The first of these took 

 place in 1 644, after the battle of Cheriton, when the 

 royal troops, under the earl of Forth and Lord Hopton, 

 being forced to leave the town, set fire to it at both 

 ends as they marched out, knowing the republican ten- 

 dencies of the inhabitants. Owing, however, to the exer- 

 tions of the victorious Roundheads who were quickly 

 on the scene, the ravages of the fire were stayed before 

 much damage was done. 56 About 1689 almost the 

 whole town, including the church, market-house, and 

 council-house, was destroyed by a more disastrous fire, 

 attributed by some to a party of soldiers who had just 

 marched through the town. 57 According to the testi- 

 mony of an Irishwoman, however, Mary Collins by 

 name, the incendiaries were a company of sixty-seven 

 Irishmen and six Irishwomen, who pretended them- 

 selves to be distressed Protestants, forced out of Ireland, 

 but whose real object in coming to England was to set 



Iny. Nan. (Rec. Com.), 124. 



40 Duthy, Sketches of Hants, 104. 



41 Return of Members of Par!, pt. i, 5, 

 14, 25. 



Ibid. 23. 



4 Vide Chart. R. 1 3 Edw. I, m. 2. 



44 Pat. 30 Edw. I, m. 14. 



45 Duthy, Sketches of Hants, 104. 



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

 1594605. In this aeries there arc six 

 ministers' accounts of Alresford borough 



previous to the reign of Henry VII. 

 On each of these accounts there is a long 

 list of sums of money owing to the 

 bishop from various bailiffs. 



Eccl. Com. Ct. R. bdle. 85, No. 3. 



48 Ibid. bdle. 136, No. I. 



49 Par!. Pap, 1880, vol. 31, p. 8. 



60 Duchy of Lane. Rentals and Surv. 

 bdle. 8, No. 22. 



51 Eccl. Com. Various, bdle. 56, No. 

 159460$. 



351 



p. 1880, vol. 31, p. 8. 



M Ibid. 



54 Duthy, Sketches of Hants, 108. 



65 The inhabitants' fear of fire is clearly 

 shown by the heavy fines inflicted upon per- 

 sons for having dangerous and insufficient 

 flues in their houses (Eccl. Com. Ct. R, 

 bdle. 99, No. 8.) 



56 Woodward, Hist, of Hants, ii, 28. 



" Ibid. ; Cat. S. P. Dam. 1689-90, pp. 

 94, 121. 



