THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY 



AND NATURALIST, 



Being " Local Notes and Queries " and other Antiquarian and 

 Natural History Matters connected with the County. 



REPRINTED FROM THE HAMPSHIRE INDEPENDENT. 



THE HAMPSHIRE INDEPENDENT, September 21, i 



ATHELSTAN'S VILLA AT TWYFORD. 

 In an article on the Easton family in the Western 

 Antiquary for August, reference is made to " the 

 villa at Twyford, near Winchester, which Athelstan 

 occupied." Can any of your readers give particulars 

 of this villa, so associated with the name of the Saxon 

 king, and say if the remains are still to be seen ? 



F. 



RARE MOTHS IN HAMPSHIRE. 

 Mr. M. J. Stares, of Portehester, Fareham, writes 

 that he captured at Portehester, by sugaring, a Clifden 

 Nonpareil moth (Catocala frazini) on Sept. 3, and 

 also another on the following night. They were 

 both in good preservation. He thinks this rather an 

 unusual occurrence for this locality. Mr. H. Pope, of 

 Ventnor, caught a specimen of the Sphinx convolvuli 

 moth there on the evening of Sept. 5. It was a little 

 over 4jin. in expanse of wing. He caught one only 

 last year Sgin. in breadth of wing, too, and heard of 

 several others being caught during the autumn. 



MILTON CHURCH, HANTS. 

 Some time since I called attention in the Hamp- 

 shire Independent to a marble effigy and an old sword 

 in this church, of Ignatius White, who was a com- 

 mander in Flanders and Ireland, and was born at 

 Fiddleford, in Dorset. I found the well-built house 

 is still existing, and will be known to many of your 

 readers as the house at the Old Fiddleford Mill, 

 probably of the i4th or isth century. I omitted that 

 of the two bells at Milton one is dated 1599 ; the 

 other is quite young and undated. 



GEO. PARKER, Southampton. 



THE TRADITION OF ST. SWITHIN. 



Apropos of the strong confirmation afforded this 

 summer to the old tradition that if it rains on St. 

 Swithin's Day we shall have bad and broken weather 

 for forty days to come, to which we referred in a 

 recent Note, a writer in the Standard recalls the 

 history of the watery saint. An ecclesiastic of the 

 ninth century, chaplain to King Egbert, tutor to his 

 son Ethelwulf, chancellor of the latter when he 

 ascended the throne, and finally Bishop of Winches- 

 ter, St. Swithin has been a household word with 

 Englishmen for over a thousand years. He is credited 

 with having built numerous churches, and being 

 remarkable, even in an age of priestly and monkish 

 piety, for the virtues of charity and humility. 

 Perhaps the general reverence in which he was held 

 by the Church in the Middle Ages was due to the 

 circumstances that the introduction of the Papal 

 Tribute known as Peter's Pence was ascribed to him. 

 When, about the middle of the tenth century, and a 

 hundred years after his death, he underwent the 

 ceremonial honour of canonization, his bones had to 

 be removed from the churchyard at Winchester into 

 the Cathedral, and the day chosen for the function 

 was the isth of July. Tradition says that the 

 ceremony was delayed by rain of unprecedented 

 volume and violence, which continued on and on for 

 forty days ; and out of this incident sprang the belief 

 concerning St. Swithin's Day and the weather of the 

 ensuing six weeks. In France, Belgium, Germany, 

 and Italy analogous superstitions prevail. 



THE COMMERCE OF SOUTHAMPTON A 



CENTURY AGO. 



Our forefathers, or some of them at least, did not 

 take quite the same practical view of the necessity 

 and advantages of docks at Southampton that are 

 entertained now-a-days, judging by an old and in- 



