THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY & NATURALIST. 



141 



THE HAMPSHIRE INDEPENDENT, December^, 1890. 



MIGRATORY BIRDS AND EARLY WINTER. 



The Rev. H. D. Gordon writes from Harting 

 Vicarage, Petersfield : Mr. T. Swinburne reports 

 that an eider duck, female adult, was shot in Ems- 

 worth Harbour on the 6th or 7th inst. This is the 

 second appearance of the eider duck in the same 

 locality within three years. The eider duck at Ems- 

 worth and the great northern diver at Shanklin are 

 evidences of early severest cold and storm. 



BUCKLER'S HARD. BURMAN'S HOUSE. 



Can any reader give the origin of the name 

 "Buckler's Hard," and any particulars of the 

 Burmans, of " Burman's House," Beaulieu ? 



BEAULIEU. 



" Buckler" is probably the name of a former pro- 

 prietor of the Hard or owner of property in the 

 district. ' ' Hard " is a provincialism for a landing place, 

 and hards are sometimes made by nature as well as 

 by man. At Buckler's Hard there is found a solid 

 mass of argillaceous limestone, forming quite a hard 

 rock, which Mr. Shore, of the Hartley Institution, 

 who has a specimen of the substance in the museum 

 there, thinks must have originally formed the bend of 

 the river there. Four miles farther up the 

 Beaulieu river a similar shelly substance was found 

 by Mr. Shore on the river side of the coppice 

 opposite the brick works, which indicates that 

 the deposit runs along the line of the river, cropping 

 up here and there. At Buckler's it is about four feet 

 below the surface. As to the Burmans, our corres- 

 pondent has probably noticed the casual reference in 

 J. R. Wise's " New Forest: its History and Scenery," 

 p. 66. Burman's is there mentioned as the " Guest 

 House," standing in the meadow eastward of the 

 Palace, " better known in the village, from its former 

 occupants, as Burman's House." Perhaps someone 

 of local knowledge will be able to add further in- 

 formation. ED. N. & Q. 



MONUMENTAL BRASS FROM HORDLE. 



Mr. R. A. S. Macalister, of St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, honorary managing secretary of the 

 Cambridge University Association of Brass Collectors, 

 has sent us the following notes on the tracing from a 

 brass exhibited by him at the meeting of that society 

 on November 5, which was formerly at Hordle, or 

 Hordwell, Hants : 



The tracing was sent me by a friend in Winchester. 

 He sent a letter with it, from which I extract the 

 following 



" I enclose you a tracing of a rubbing a friend gave me. 

 I wrote to the present Vicar, who tells me that he had 

 never before heard of it. In a county history the brass is 

 alluded to thus : ' In the description of old Hordle Church 

 we are told of a brass supposed to commemorate a certain 

 Sir Reginald le Clerke, of Hurdle, who was slain in the 

 Wars of the Roses. The brass was destroyed about a 

 century ago, when the grave stone in which it was 

 embedded was moved from the north transept to the east 

 end of the church.' The brass, however, could not have 

 been destroyed a century ago, as the rubbing is dated 15 

 July, 1870, but there is 110 means of knowing by whom the 

 rubbing was taken, as it was purchased at a book stall in 

 London." 



The brass was a neat little figure, about a foot in 

 length, in a style of armour very similar to that 

 exhibited in a much larger figure at Thame, in 

 Oxfordshire, date about 1460, but in the Hordwell 

 figure the head is represented bare, resting on a 

 helmet, which is omitted in that at Thame. The date 

 would thus correspond very well with the tradition 

 mentioned in the county history. 



DECREASE OF POPULATION OF 

 HAMPSHIRE. 



William Cobbett, in his "Rural Rides " (1821 to 

 1832) through Hants, Wilts, etc., expressed in very 

 forcible language his opinion that the population of 

 the south and west of England was not nearly so 

 dense as formerly ; he even goes so far as to write, 

 " There can be no doubt in the mind of any rational 

 man, that in the time of the Plantagenets England 

 was, cut of all comparison, more populous than it is 

 now ! " He gives in many pages of his book his 

 reasons for this belief, mainly founded on the size of 

 the churches in comparison with the population. The 

 following few references to Hampshire anent this 

 subject may be interesting : 



[Vol. I, p. 173.] "Hambledon is a long, straggling 

 village, lying in a little valley formed by some very 



pretty, but not lofty hills This must have 



been a considerable place ; for here is a church pretty 

 nearly as large as that in Farnham, in Surrey, which 

 is quite sufficient for a large town. The means of 

 living has been drawn away from these villages, and 

 the people follow the means.'' Referring again to 

 Hambledon [Vol. II, p. 257] Cobbett writes, "A 

 village it now is ; but it was formerly a considerable 

 market town, and it had three fairs in the year. There 

 is now not even a name of market left, I believe, and 

 the fairs amount to little more than a couple or three 

 gingerbread stalls with dolls and whistles for 

 children. If you go through the place you see that it 

 has been a considerable town. The church tells the 

 same story, it is now a tumble-down rubbishy place ; it 

 is partaking in the fate of all those places which were 

 formerly a sort of rendezvous for persons who had 

 things to buy and things to sell." 



