THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY & NATURALIST. 



the people's clere at Burghclere, was a settlement in the 

 northern forest of Hampshire, and Odiham was also a 

 forest settlement, as its name implies. I have heard a 

 wood spoken of by country people as a ood, and in Dooms- 

 day book the name of a neighbouring parish, now called 

 Hoddington, was known as Odingeton, and gave its name 

 to the Hundred in which it was situated, and well it 

 might, for it was, like Odiham, a place in the great 

 forest land of Northern Hampshire, which was 

 known centuries later as the Forest of Odiham 

 or Forest of Eversley. That the original settle- 

 ment at Odiham was a British settlement is 

 probable, although there is no direct proof like there is 

 at Burghclere by the remains ef the great British camps on 

 Beacon and Ladle Hills, but circumstantial evidence points 

 strongly towards a British settlement here, for Odiham, 

 like Burghclere or Kingsclere, is situated near the limit 

 which Nature must have placed on the extent of the great 

 northern forest, or, at least, where its character was some- 

 what changed. In both localities the outcrop of the chalk 

 occurs, and this must of necessity have produced a differ- 

 ence in the tree growth, and have caused open spaces to 

 have existed near at hand. 



Within the town of Odiham itself the place-name of the 

 Bury which survives tells us that some earth-work, either 

 of British or Saxon origin, must have existed here, and in 

 the record of an inquisition, held at Odiham in the 2nd 

 year of Richard II, there is mention made of William 

 Dobbs (who appears to have been the head man, or head 

 borough) and other men ef Odiham holding twelve acres 

 of land, and a messuage called Dunton in Odiham. This 

 looks very much as if the men of Odiham held here their 

 ancient fortification or Dun in common. 



The origin and growth of the towns and large villages 

 of Hampshire are subjects of the greatest historical in- 

 terest. It is my opinion that many of our towns and 

 villages are so surrounded with circumstances pointing to 

 British occupation, as to leave no reasonable doubt of their 

 extreme antiquity, but whatever mists of antiquity en- 

 shroud their origin, none whatever obscures the history 

 of their growth. Some of our towns and villages, like 

 Alresford and Micheldever, grew through being important 

 episcopal or monastic manors, and others such as Odiham 

 grew to importance through being royal manors. Odiham 

 appears to have been a royal manor as far back as Anglo- 

 Saxon history goes a royal ville of the kingdom of 

 Wessex. 



The antiquities of Odiham bring us into touch with the 

 sacred Folkland of the early Anglo-Saxons, and this folk- 

 land was none other than the great forest land, which as 

 centuries passed became vested in the king, and known as 

 the King's Forest, and became gradually less and less even 

 in Saxon time, as new manors and villages arose, and the 

 population increased. 



The Doomsday account of Odiham, which is as follows, 

 gives us some interesting information : " King William 

 holds Odiham in demesne, and it was held by Earl Harold. 

 Here are 78% hides. It was formerly assessed at 38 hides, 

 but is not now assessed. Here are 56 ploughlands, 15 in 

 demesne ; and 137 villeins and 60 borderers with 40 plough- 

 lands ; also 50 slaves, 8 mills which pay 563. yd., 21 acres of 

 meadow, and woods for 160 hogs. Its value in the time of 

 King Edward and afterwards was .50 by toll, and now 

 50 in weight. Two hides of this manor belong to 2 

 churches situated in it, on \yhich the priest has i villein 

 with i ploughland, and they are worth 6. Two other 

 priests hold 2 churches of this manor, with two yardlands 

 and i ploughlands worth 6ys. 6d." 



It is worthy of note that this account of Odiham in Dooms- 

 day book comes first of all the Hampshire manors men- 

 tioned in that record. 



We see by this account that William the Conqueror, 

 Harold (here described by the Norman French scribe as 

 Earl only out of deference to William's claim to have been 

 the rightful heir), and Edward the Confessor all held the 

 manor, and it probably had been held by manv Saxon kings 

 before them. 



This account gives us as good an illustration of a large 

 agricultural community in the nth century as that of any 

 place in Hampshire. We may note that more than half the 

 land of the manor was cultivated in common by the 137 

 small farmers of villeins and the 60 labourers or borderers 

 who are mentioned. These people cultivated 40 plough- 

 lands out of the 56, and they performed probably some 

 manorial services on the remaining 16 ploughlands which 

 the king and his bailiff held. This shows that the servile 

 tenants of Odiham were not at all badly off. 



At the eight mills which are mentioned the tenants were 

 all obliged to bring their corn to be ground by a general 

 feudal custom, under which the lord of a manor had a 

 certain toll or benefit. Probably some of the mills which 

 still exist are on the ancient sites. 



The Doomsday account also tells us of pannage in the 

 forest for 160 hogs, and we know also that the tenants had 

 valuable pasture privileges in the forest. 



Of the churches mentioned one was in all probability on 

 the site of the present church. Greywell Church is also 

 probably one of them. The priest or parson had land of 

 his own, which was a rare circumstance in Hampshire at 

 the date of the Doomsday Survey. This land which the 

 priest held carried with it certain pasturage privileges in 

 the forest, and at a much later date, viz., about 1334, when 

 these grazing rights of the parson were questioned, an 

 Inquisition was held by order of the king to inquire into 

 the " common pasture rights of the parson of the church 

 of Odiham." Odiham possesses one remarkable object of 

 antiquity which is apart from its scientific interest closely 

 connected with its ancient system of agriculture, i.e., its 

 great chalk pit. This is, I think, the largest of the old 

 chalk pits of the county, certainly one of the largest, and its 

 great size tells us of its antiquity. It was one of the most 

 ancient of agricultural privileges on such a manor as that 

 of Odiham, for the tenants to have the right to take as 

 much chalk as they wanted for marling their clay land or 

 any other heavy soil. This process of marling was in use in 

 Britain in Romano-British time, it was followed by the 

 Anglo-Saxons, and has continued down to the present day. 

 Odiham possesses another object of antiquity, which re- 

 calls very forcibly to our minds the ancient judicial 

 system of this country. The old stocks of Odiham are, I 

 suppose, no longer a terror to evil doers, but they remind 

 us of the administration of punishment and the local 

 courts of justice which formerly existed in this place. 

 There can be no doubt that when the king wus here in 

 olden time, Odiham was occasionally the seat of a high 

 court of justice, but at other times it appears to have had 

 several courts. Like other manors it had its manor court 

 for regulating manorial matters between the various 

 tenants, and it also had its Hundred Court, held by the 

 King's Provost or Bailiff, by whom it was governed. The 

 Hundred Court included the powers of a Court Leet, and 

 the stocks are, I suppose, almost all that remains of the 

 ancient judicial authority of these Courts. The Hundred 

 Court at Odiham is mentioned in Inquisitiones post- 

 mortem in the time of Edward II, Richard II, and Henry IV". 



