A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



are a few scattered cottages and a school chapel 

 built by Miss Charlotte Yonge in 1858, served by 

 the vicar of Hursley. The oldest house is at the 

 corner of the road, a long low half-timber thatched 

 cottage possibly dating back to the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. There is no river in Hursley parish, but there are 

 several lakes and ponds covering 10 acres altogether ; 

 one in Hursley Park, three in Cranbury Park (Great 

 Pond, Upper Pond, and Lower Pond), a small one 

 at Parsonage Farm, another at Upper Sharland, and 

 several at Standon and Pitt. The soil of the parish 

 varies from chalk in the north to clay, sand, and gravel 

 with peat in the south, and the vegetation differs 

 accordingly. The chief crops are wheat, barley, and 

 oats, with good crops of turnips and peas. 



Although it is possible that an earth- 

 CASTLE work existed at Merdon in the eleventh 

 century or earlier, yet there is no men- 

 tion of such in Domesday, and the foundation of the 

 castle is ascribed to Bishop Henry de Blois, who built 

 and fortified it in 1 1 38.' During the next few years, 

 in the struggle between Stephen and the Empress 

 Maud, the castle was doubtless of military importance, 

 but from that time it seems to have been rather a 

 bishop's palace than a military castle. 



Like Farnham and Wolvesey it was kept in good 

 repair, and between 1 265 and 1 268 in Bishop Gervase's 

 account book an entry was made of the expense of 

 fitting up the hall in the castle of Merdon.* In 

 1278 Bishop Nicholas of Ely was resident at the castle, 

 and the ceremony of reinstating the prior of St. 

 Swithun was performed there. 4 However, by the 

 fourteenth century such parts as were useless for 

 habitation seem to have fallen into decay, though 

 Bishop Edendon seems to have resided there as late as 

 1365.0 



The site of Merdon Castle is marked by a fine 

 circular earthwork surrounded by a deep ditch, with 

 traces of a second line of banks outside the ditch, and 

 a causeway on the east leading to the central inclosure. 

 A small length of the curtain wall remains on the 

 south, with a tower which may be of twelfth-century 

 date. Its walls are 7 ft. thick, and the windows and 

 doorways have lost their architectural detail, but 

 appear to have been round-headed. 



There is only one manor in the parish 

 MANOR of Hursley, and that bearing not the name 

 of the parish, but of the ancient castle 

 of MERDON (Maerdune, Meredune, Meretune, 

 Merantune (ix cent.), Mardon, Merden (xv cent, et 

 seq.) within the parish. Though it is difficult to state 

 with any certainty that the ' Merantune ' of the Anglo- 

 Saxon Chronicle, the scene of Cynwulfs murder by 

 Cynheard his kinsmen in 784, was Merdon in Hurs- 

 ley, yet there is much to be said for the suggestion. 6 

 Certain it is that the murdered king was buried at 

 Winchester, his capital ; and his visit with a small 



company to ' Merantune, ' made evidently from 

 Winchester, is more likely to have been a short journey 

 to a quiet country place just outside Winchester than 

 across Surrey. The next mention of Merantune or 

 Maerdune is in 781, when two months after the 

 Danes had been victorious at Basing King Ethelred 

 and Alfred his brother fought with them at Merdon. 

 Though for a time fortune favoured the king, yet in 

 the end the Danes were victorious and held the place 

 of battle. 7 



Merdon was probably included in the grant made 

 about 636 by King Kinegils to the bishop and church 

 of Winchester of land within a seven-mile circle of 

 Winchester,* and from that time onwards to the 

 reign of Edward VI the bishops of Winchester held 

 the manor. In 1291 Merdon was included among 

 the bishop's lands, and was worth ^8o. 9 



In 1341 Adam, bishop of Winchester, granted the 

 office of parker or warrener in his manor of Merdon 

 to Giles de Mansynton, subject to the confirmation 

 of the grant by the prior and convent of St. Swithun. 

 There is little else in the history of the manor, apart 

 from the castle, until the reign of Edward VI, when 

 in 1552 John Poynet, bishop of Winchester, sur- 

 rendered Merdon among other lands to the king. 10 In 

 the same year Edward granted 

 it to Sir Philip Hoby, together 

 with the park of Hursley, to 

 be held in chief for the fortieth 

 part of a knight's fee." Before 

 this time there was probably 

 no manor-house at Merdon 

 except the castle, and that was 

 in decay by the fourteenth 

 century, and it was Sir Philip 

 Hoby who probably built the 

 ' great Lodge.' But he had 

 little time to enjoy his new 



possession, since in 1557, when Mary dared to restore 

 the church lands, the manor of Merdon was granted 

 to John White, bishop of Winchester." 



An entry on the steward's roll for 1559, the year 

 of the regrant by Elizabeth to Sir Philip Hoby's 

 half-brother William Hoby, 13 shows that the profits 

 of the manor, ' part of the Bishopric of Winchester 

 before this,' were then brought into the annual 

 account register, ' since the said manor by Act of 

 Parliament was granted to William Hoby.' " 



William Hoby seems, according to a monumental 

 inscription in Hursley church, to have married as his 

 second wife the widow of the Thomas Sternhold 

 who in collaboration with John Hopkins first 

 ' sounded out the Psalms of David ' in metrical verse, 

 and employed much time in singing his psalms to his 

 organ for his own ' godly solace'. 16 On his death, 

 probably at Hursley, in the latter part of the six- 

 teenth century, 1 * the manor descended to his son 



HOBY. Argent three 

 weavers' bottoms gules. 



3 Ann. Man. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 51. 



8 Quoted by Marsh, Mem. of the Parish 

 if Hursley, 31 n. 



4 Wharton, Angl. Sac. i, 3 14. Dictus 

 episcopus predictum Valentinum in pristinum 

 statum prioratut restituit die S N Petri ad 

 Vincula apud Merdonam. 



5 Winton Epis. Reg. Edendon, pt. i, fol. 

 129, &c. 



Milner in his Hist, of Winchester 

 identifies it thus because of the evident 

 nearness of the scene to Winchester, 

 whereas Merton in Surrey, with which 



other writers (Lingard, Hist, of England, i, 

 1 64, &c.) have identified Merantune, would 

 have been too far from the king's 

 capital for his military forces to reach the 

 scene of the murder before Cynheard 

 could withdraw {Hist, of Winchester, 1 1 1 ). 

 Woodward unhesitatingly accepted Mil- 

 ner's opinion (Hist, of Hants, i, 319). One 

 other point that seems to sweep away 

 many of the objections made by Marsh in 

 his Mem. of the Parish of Hursley is that 

 the spelling * Merantune ' is found in one 

 version of the chronicle in the descrip- 



4l8 



tton of a battle which he himself gives as 

 taking place at Merdon ; Angl.-Sax. Chron. 

 (Rolls Scr.), i, 140 ; Cott. Tib. A. iv. 



1 Angl. -Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 138- 

 40. 8 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 5. 



Pope Nick. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 215*. 



10 Pat. 5 Edw. VI, pt. 6, m. 3. 



" Ibid. m. 4. 



12 Pat. 5 & 6 Mary, pt. 7, m. 24. 



18 Marsh, op. cit. 6 n. 



14 Ibid ; quoting Steward's Roll for 1559. 



15 See Diet. Nat. Biog. 



16 Marsh, op. cit. 7. 



