MAINSBRIDGE HUNDRED 



width of North Stoneham nave and chancel, so that 

 the tradition may be correct. 



There are six bells by Taylor of Loughborough, 

 1893. The former ring was of three, by I H., 1651, 

 Antony Bond, 1623, and a Salisbury founder, c. 1400. 



The plate consists of a silver-gilt cup of 1702, with 

 a cover paten, inscribed 'TA SA EK TON 2nN anno 

 domini 1702,' and a standing paten of the same date, 

 the gift of Margaret and Thomas Fleming, bearing 

 the Fleming arms, and Fleming with Bland on a 

 scutcheon of pretence. 



The flagon, which has no marks but that of the 

 maker Ro perhaps Philip Rollos of London was 

 given in 1703, and is inscribed 'Humbly offered 

 by Richard Dummer.' There is also a modern 

 paten, silver-gilt, and two glass cruets, with silver-gilt 

 mounts. 



The first book of the registers runs from 1640 to 

 1716, and the second, which bears on the cover the 

 date 1716, and has lost a few pages, runs from 1722 

 to 1812, the marriages ceasing in 1754, and being 

 entered in a third book which carries them to 1812. 



A chapel evidently existed in North 

 ADVQWSON Stoneham as early as the tenth cen- 

 tury, for besides the grant of Stone- 

 ham by Aelfrid the thegn to Hyde Abbey, it also 



SOUTH 

 STONEHAM 



received from King Athelstan 6 hides of land at 

 ' Stanham,' together with the chapel thereto pertain- 

 ing and the vestments. 19 



The abbey held the church with the manor at the 

 time of the Domesday Survey, and in 1330 the abbot 

 received licence in fulfilment of a grant to his convent 

 by Edward I to appropriate the church as well as hold 

 the patronage.*" The advowson continued in the 

 gift of the abbot until the Dissolution, when it was 

 granted with the manor to Thomas Wriothesley, since 

 which time it has always been held by the lord oi 

 North Stoneham manor (q.v.) 



In 1720 Edward Dummer, by his 



CHARITIES will proved in the P.C.C. charged his 



manor and lands in Swaythling with 



the yearly payment of $ for a schoolmaster for 



teaching boys and girls to write and read. 



The Poor's Money, the gifts of various donors, 

 formerly consisted of \ 6 8, which, it is understood, was 

 laid out on some cottages, now forming part of the 

 North Stoneham estate belonging to John Fleming, 

 esquire, by whom the sum of 6 1 5/., being interest 

 at ^4 per cent., is paid annually and distributed on 

 Easter Thursday by the rector and churchwardens. 

 In 1906, sixty-eight cottagers received from it. to 2/. 

 each. 



SOUTH STONEHAM 



Stonham, Stanham, xi and xiii cent. 



South Stoneham, in the southern division of the 

 county, is a very large and scattered parish stretching 

 along the banks of the River Itchen from Southamp- 

 ton just above Northam Bridge to Eastleigh, a dis- 

 tance of about six miles. Its total area, including the 

 tithings of Allington, Barton, Pollack, Shamblehurst, 

 and Portswood, is 8,007 acres, with 50 acres of water 

 and 50 of foreshore. Since 1891, however, a large 

 part of these tithings has been incorporated with 

 newly-formed civil parishes, and the area of South 

 Stoneham proper in 1901 was 1,296 acres of land 

 and 26 acres of inland water. 1 



The land is very fertile and well watered by the 

 Itchen and its smaller streams, the former being 

 navigable as far as Winchester. 



The soil is sandy, with either a gravel or clay sub- 

 soil, and considerable crops of wheat, oats, and barley 

 are raised. The ground slopes down gradually to the 

 river side, and is mostly low-lying and flat, especially 

 near the mouth of the Itchen. 



There is no village bearing the name of the parish, 

 the church and a few adjacent houses are situated 

 near Swaythling, a pleasant village on the right bank 

 of the river just where it receives the tributary Monk's 

 River. Swaythling is now practically a suburb of 

 Southampton, and is a favourite residential quarter. 



The church of St. Mary, South Stoneham, lies to 

 the south of Swaythling village, just beyond South 

 Stoneham House, formerly the manor house, built 

 in the early part of the eighteenth century, now the 

 residence of Sir Samuel Montagu, created Lord 

 Swaythling in 1907. To the south of the grounds 

 surrounding the house, and above the Wood Mill, is 

 a salmon pool, probably a relic of the fishery men- 



tioned in Domesday, and the home of the salmon for 

 which the Itchen was once so famous. 



In the north of the village is the Grange, an old 

 house reputed to be the manor house of the manor of 

 Mainsbridge, now the pro- 

 perty of Lord Swaythling, 

 and Sheppard's Farm which 

 was once probably Swaythling 

 manor house. 



Just outside the modern 

 parish boundaries is Swayth- 

 ling railway station on the 

 London and South Western 

 Railway, and opposite is the 

 Mason's Arms Hotel. Ports- 

 wood, formerly a tithing in 

 South Stoneham parish, was 

 united in 1894 with part 

 of Bitterne tithing, to form 

 a separate civil parish in the municipal borough of 

 Southampton. The western portion of Portswood, 

 which includes Bitterne Park, Bevois Mount and 

 Valley, is in the ecclesiastical district of St. Denys, 

 the church being situated on the right bank of the 

 river, opposite the remains of St. Denys' Priory. The 

 Cobden Free Bridge which crosses the Itchen at this 

 point is a fine structure, opened in 1883, consisting of 

 five spans. Bitterne Station, on the Netley and Fare- 

 ham branch of the London and South Western Rail- 

 way, is in the extreme south, almost in Bitterne parish. 



The eastern part of Portswood, known as High- 

 field and Westwood Park, is in the ecclesiastical dis- 

 trict of Christ Church, formed in 1 844, and is mainly 

 a residential suburb of Southampton, consisting of 

 modern villas with several large houses.' 



MONTAGU, Lord 

 Swaythling. Or a file 

 azure with a tent argent 

 thereon between nvo palm 

 trees torn up by the roots. 



19 Cott. MSS. Vesp. D. Ix, p. 113; 

 ibid. Plut. xxiv, G. 300, 3ii. 



* Pat. 4 Edw. Ill, pt 

 1 Ordnance Survey. 



481 



1, m. 40. ' The total area is 1,120 acres, and it has 



a population of nearly 10,000 inhabitants. 



61 



