let his customary tenement; but such fine may exceed a penny in the
pound of the yearly value of such customary tenement.
"Custom 11. That every copyholder of inheritance of the said manor
may sell any of his coppices, under-woods, and rows, and use them at
pleasure; and may dig for stone, coal, earth, marle, chalk, sand and
gravel in their own grounds, to be employed thereon; and may also dig
any of the commons or wastes belonging to the said manor for earth or
gravel in the ancient pits there, where their predecessors have done,
for the improvement of their copyholds.
"Custom 12. That all the customary tenants of the said manor, when
and as often as their old pits, where they used to dig earth, marle,
chalk, sand, clay, gravel, and other mould, were deficient, and would
not yield the same for them, that they, the said customary tenants,
may and have used to dig NEW pits in any of the wastes and commons of
the lord within the said manor, and there dig and carry away earth,
marle, chalk, sand, clay, gravel, and other mould at their pleasure,
for the improvement of their customary tenements, or for other
necessary uses, without the licence of the lord of the said manor.
"Custom 13. That the ancient customary tenants of the said manor
(other than such as hold only purpresture lands) have always had
common of pasture and feedings in all the lord's commons belonging to
the said manor, viz. upon Cranbury Common, Hiltingbury Common,
Ampfield Common, Bishop's Wood, Pit Down, and Merdon Down, for all
their commonable cattle, levant and couchant, upon their respective
copyhold tenements, within the said manor.
"Custom 14. That no customary tenant of the said manor can or ought
to plough any part of the land upon the aforesaid wastes and commons,
to lay dung, or for improving their customary lands.
"Custom 15. That the Customary tenants of the said manor have not
had, nor ought to have in every year, at all times of the year,
common of pasture in the wastes, heaths, and commons of the lord of
the said manor within the said manor, for all their commonable
cattle, without number or stint, exclusive of the lord of the said
manor.
"Custom 16. That the hazels, furzes, maples, alders, wythies, crab-
trees, fern, and bushes, growing upon the aforesaid wastes and
commons, or in either of them, as also the acorns when they there
fall, do belong to the customary tenants of the said manor, not
excluding the lord of the said manor for the time being from the
same. And that the customary tenants of the said manor have had, and
used and ought to have, right of cutting furzes growing upon the
wastes and commons of the said manor for their firing, and to cut
fern for their uses and that the said customary tenants, in like
manner, have right of cutting thorns, bushes, wythies, hazels,
maples, alders, and crab-trees, growing upon the wastes and commons
of the said manor, or in either of them, for making and repairing
their hedges and fencing of their grounds, but they are not to commit
any waste to the prejudice of the breeding, nursing, and raising of
young trees of oak, ash, and beech, which do wholly belong to the
lord of the said manor, to have, use, and fell; and that the acorns,
after they are fallen, do wholly belong to the customary tenants of
the said manor.
"Custom 17. That the customary tenants of the said manor have right
to feed their cattle in the three coppices called South Holmes, Hele
Coppice, and Holman Coppice, within the said manor, and a right to
the mast there.
"Custom 18. That the lord of the said manor ought not to cut down
the said coppices, or one of them altogether, or at any one time, but
by parts or pieces, when he pleases.
"Custom 19. That when the lord of the said manor doth cut down any,
or either of the said coppices, he, by the custom, is not compellable
to fence the same for seven years after such cutting, nor to suffer
the same to lie open.
"Custom 20. That neither Thomas Colson, William Watts, alias
Watkins, nor the customary tenants of the tenement called Field
House, have a right of selling or disposing sand in any of the wastes
or commons of the lord of the said manor within the said manor.
"Custom 21. That any customary tenant of the said manor seized of
any estate of inheritance, in any customary tenement within the said
manor, may cut timber, or any other trees standing or growing in or
upon his said customary tenement, for repairs of his ancient
customary messuages, with their appurtenances, and for estovers and
other necessary things to be used upon such his customary tenement,
without the licence or assignment of the lord of the said manor, but
not for building new messuages for habitation.
"Custom 22. That no customary tenant of the said manor can cut,
sell, or dispose of any trees growing upon his customary tenement,
without the licence of the lord of the said manor, unless for
repairs, estovers, and other necessary things to be used upon his
customary tenement.
"Custom 23. That any tenant seized of any estate of inheritance in
any of the customary tenements of the said manor, may cut down timber
trees or other trees, standing or growing in or upon one of his
customary tenements, to repair any other of his customary tenements,
within the said manor.
"Custom 24. That no tenant of any customary tenement of the said
manor, may cut any timber trees or any other trees from off his
customary tenement, nor give or dispose of the same, for repairing of
any customary tenement, or any other customary tenement within the
said manor.
"Custom 25. That the said customary tenants, and every of them, may
cut down any old trees, called decayed pollard trees, standing or
growing in or upon his customary tenement, and sell and dispose of
the same, at his and their will and pleasure.
"Custom 26. That the lord of the said manor for the time being,
when, and as often as his mansion-house and the outhouses called
Merdon Farm House, shall want necessary repairs, may cut, and hath
used to cut down, one timber tree from off one farm or customary
tenement, once only during the life of the customary tenant of such
one farm, or customary tenement, for the necessary repairs of the
mansion-house and outhouses called Merton Farm House.
"Custom 27. That the lord of the said manor, for the time being,
cannot cut down more trees than one, from any one customary tenement
in the life-time of any customary tenant thereof, for the repairs
aforesaid, nor can he take the loppings, toppings, boughs, or bark of
such trees so by him cut down, nor can he carry the same away.
"Custom 28. That upon any surrender made before the reeve or beadle,
with two customary tenants of the said manor, or before any two
customary tenants of the said manor without the reeve or beadle, no
herriot is due to the lord of the said manor, if the estate thereby
made and surrendered be from the right heir.
"Custom 29. That by the custom of the said manor, the jury at the
Court or Law-day held for the said manor, have yearly used to choose
the officers of and for the said manor, for the year ensuing, viz. a
Reeve, a Beadle, and a Hayward, and such officers have used, and
ought to be sworn at the said Court, to execute the said offices for
one year until they are lawfully discharged.
"Custom 30. That the Hayward's office hath been to collect and pay
to the lord of the said manor such custom money as was agreed for in
lieu of the custom works."
The boundaries of the manor of Merdon, including Cranbury, and up to
the brook at Chandler's Ford, have been kept up by "progresses" round
them. Probably the "gang" or Rogation procession was discontinued by
either Sir Philip Hobby or Richard Maijor; but on the borders between
Hursley and Baddesley, at a spot called High Trees Corner, near the
railway, is marked in the old map, "Here stode Gospell Oke." It is
not far from Wool's Grave, the next corner towards the Baddesley
road. There, no doubt, the procession halted for the reading of the
Gospel for Rogation week.
There are two curious entries in the old accounts:-
Chirurchets {67} vi Hennes and Cockes as apereth }
in the old customary which I had from John } 44
Seymour. }
And in the old book of Fines written in 1577 -
The Reve doth gather by his scores - 37 pounds 18 2.
The Bedell gathers the escheats.
The Reve the rents and eggs and is keeper of the West heth.
A small farm near the church was held by Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, having probably been granted by Bishop Richard Fox, the
founder, who held the See of Winchester from 1500 to 1528. The
bearing in his coat of arms was a "pelican in her piety," and the
Pelican was the name of the public house and of the farm that
succeeded it down to the present day. The title as well as that of
the college are of course connected with the emblem of the Pelican
feeding her young from her own breast. Little pelicans, alternately
with Tudor portcullises, profusely adorn Fox's chantry in Winchester
Cathedral.
CHAPTER VI - CRANBURY AND BRAMBRIDGE
Great changes began at the Restoration. Robert Maunder became vicar
of Hursley in 1660, on whose presentation is unknown; but that he or
his curate were scholars is probable, since the entries in the parish
registers both of Hursley and Otterbourne begin to be in Latin.
Cranbury had passed from Dean Young to his brother Major General
Young, and from him to his daughter, the wife or Sir Charles Wyndham,
son of Sir Edmund Wyndham, Knight Marshall of England and a zealous
cavalier. Brambridge, closely bordering on Otterbourne, on the
opposite side of the Itchen, though in Twyford Parish, was in the
possession of the Welles family. Brambridge and Otterbourne are
divided from one another by the river Itchen, a clear and beautiful
trout stream, much esteemed by fishermen. In the early years of
Charles II. a canal was dug, beside the Itchen, for the conveyance of
coal from Southampton. It was one of the first formed in England,
and for two hundred years was constantly used by barges. The
irrigation of the meadows was also much benefited, broad ditches
being formed - "water carriages" as they are locally called - which
conduct the streams in turn over the grass, so that even a dry season
causes no drought, but they always lie green and fresh while the
hills above are burnt brown.
Another work was set in hand during the reign of Charles II., namely
the palace he designed to build in rivalry of Versailles. Sir
Christopher Wren was the architect. The grounds were intended to
stretch over the downs to a great distance, and on the highest point
was to stand a pharos, whose light would be visible from the Solent.
Fountains were to be fed from the Itchen, and a magnificent palace
was actually begun, the bricks for it being dug from a clay pit at
Otterbourne, which has ever since borne the name of Dell Copse, and
became noted for the growth of daffodils. The king lodged at
Southampton to inspect the work, and there is a tradition (derived
from Dean Rennell) that being an excellent walker, he went on foot to
Winchester. One of his gentlemen annoyed him by a hint to the
country people as to who he was, whereupon a throng come out to stare
at him, at one of the bridges. He escaped, and took his revenge by a
flying leap over a broad "water carriage," leaving them to follow as
they could.
His death put an end to his design, when only one wing of the
building was completed. It was known as "the King's House" and was
used as barracks till 1892, when it was unfortunately burnt to the
ground.
Boyat, or Bovieres, as it once was called, had been a "hundred," and
was probably more of a village than at present, since up to 1840
there was a pound and stocks opposite to the single farm-house that
remained. The lands stretched from the hill to the river, near which
was a hamlet called Highbridge, just on the boundary between Twyford
and Otterbourne. Here was an endowed Roman Catholic chapel, a mere
brick building, at the back of a cottage, only distinguished by a
little cross on the roof. There is reason to think that a good many
dependants of the Brambridge family lived here, for there are entries
in the parish register that infants had been born at Highbridge, but
the curate of Otterbourne could not tell whether they had been
baptized.
A new parchment parish register was provided in 1690, and very
carefully kept by the curate, John Newcombe, who yearly showed it up
to the magistrates at the Petty Sessions, when it was signed by two
of them. A certain Augustin Thomas was a man of some property,
comprising a house and two or three fields, which were known as
"Thomas's Bargain," till one was used as a site for the Vicarage.
Several surnames still extant in the parish are found in the
register, Cox, Comley, Collins, Goodchild, Woods, Wareham - Anne and
Abraham were the twin children of John and Anne Diddams, a curious
connection with the name Didymus (twin), which seems to be the
origin.
There must have been extensive repairs, if such they may be called,
of the church, probably under the influence of Sir Charles and Lady
Wyndham - for though Cranbury House stands in Hursley parish, it is so
much nearer to Otterbourne that the inhabitants generally attend the
church there, - and two huge square pews in the chancel, one lined
with red baize, the other bare, were appropriated to Cranbury, and
might well have been filled by the children of Sir Charles and Dame
James his wife - Jacoba in her marriage register at Hursley - for they
had no less than seventeen children, of whom only five died in
infancy, a small proportion in those days of infant mortality. The
period of alteration is fixed by a great square board bearing the
royal arms, with the initials W. and M. and the date 1687. No notice
was taken of the Nassau shield, and indeed it must have been put up
in a burst of enthusiasm for the glorious Revolution, for the lion,
as best he can be recollected, had a most exultant expression, with
his tongue out of one side of his mouth.
The black-letter Commandments on the chancel arch were whitewashed
out, and a tablet in blue with gold lettering erected in their stead
on each side of the altar. The east window had either then or
previously been deprived of all its tracery, and was an expanse of
plain glass with only a little remains of a cusp at the top of the
arch. The bells were in one of the true Hampshire weather-boarded
square towers, of which very few still exist in their
picturesqueness. There were the remains of an old broken font, and a
neat white marble one, of which the tradition was that it was given
by a parish clerk named David Fidler, and it still exists as the
lining of the present font.
Sir Charles Wyndham died in 1706, his wife in 1720. A small monument
was raised for them in Hursley Church, with an inscription on a
tablet now in the tower, purporting that the erection was by their
daughters, Frances White and Beata Hall.
Frances was married to a man of some note in his day, to judge by the
monument she erected to his memory in Milton Church, near Lymington,
where his effigy appears, an upright figure cut off at the knees, and
in addition to the sword in his hand there is a metal one, with a
blade waved like a Malay crease, by the side of the monument. The
inscription is thus -
THOMAS WHITE Esq., son of
IGNATIUS WHITE Esq. of Fiddleford in Dorsetshire.
He served three kings and Queen Ann as a Commander in the guards, and
was much wounded. He was in the wars of Ireland and Flanders.
He had one son who dyed before him. He departed this life on the
17th of February in the year 1720.
This monument was erected by his widow Frances, one of the daughters
of Sir Charles Wyndham, in the county of Southampton.
Mrs. White thus lost her husband and her mother in the course of the
same year. Her brother sold the Cranbury property to Jonathan
Conduitt, Esquire, who was a noted person in his day. He married
Catherine Barton, the favourite niece and adopted daughter of Sir
Isaac Newton. It may be remembered that this great man was a
posthumous child, and was bred up by his mother's second husband,
Barnabas Smith, Rector of North Witham, Lincolnshire, so as to regard
her children as brothers and sisters. Hannah Smith married one
Thomas Barton of Brigstock, and her daughter Catherine (whose name
mysteriously is found as suing for the price of property sold to
Charles II. for the site of the King's house at Winchester), lived
with Sir Isaac Newton, was very beautiful, and much admired by Lord
Halifax for her wit and gaiety. It was even reported that she was
privately married to him, but this of course was mere scandal, and
she became the wife of Jonathan Conduitt, educated at Trinity
College, a friend and pupil of Newton, who had for many years
assisted in the harder work of Master of the Mint, and wrote an essay
on the gold and silver coinage of the realm. He was member of
Parliament for Southampton. Sir Isaac made his home with his niece
and her husband till his death in 1727, when Mr. Conduitt succeeded
to his office as Master of the Mint, and intended to write his life,
but was prevented by death in 1737. Among the materials which Mr.
Conduitt had preserved is the record of Newton's saying, "I do not
know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have
been only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself
in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than
ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before
me."
A very curious relic of Sir Isaac survives in the garden at Cranbury
Park, viz. a sun-dial, said to have been calculated by Newton. It is
in bronze, in excellent preservation, and the gnomon so perforated as
to form the cypher I. C. seen either way. The dial is divided into
nine circles, the outermost divided into minutes, next, the hours,
then a circle marked "Watch slow, Watch fast," another with the names
of places shown when the hour coincides with our noonday, such as
Samarcand and Aleppo, etc., all round the world. Nearer the centre
are degrees, then the months divided into days. There is a circle
marked with the points and divisions of the compass, and within, a
diagram of the compass, the points alternately plain and embossed.
There is no date, but the maker's name, John Rowley, and the arms of
Mr. Conduitt, as granted in 1717. Quarterly 1st and 4th Gules, on a
fesse wavy argent, between three pitchers double eared or, as many
bees volant proper.
2nd and 3rd Gules, a lion rampant argent between six acorns or.
Impaling argent 3 boars' heads sable for Barton.
Crest - Two Caducean rods with wings, lying fesse ways or. Thereon a
peacock's head, erased proper.
The motto - "Cada uno es hijo de sus obras." "Each one is son of his
deeds" - translates the Spanish.
The 1st and 3rd quartering belongs to the old family of Chenduite,
from which Jonathan Conduitt may have been descended. Probably he
could not prove his right to their Arms, and therefore had the fresh
grant.
Mr. Conduitt died in 1737, leaving a daughter, whose guardians sold
Cranbury to Thomas Lee Dummer, Esquire, from whom it descended in
1765 to his son of the same name.
Catherine Conduitt married the son of Viscount Lymington, afterwards
created Earl of Portsmouth.
CHAPTER VII - THE BUILDING AT HURSLEY
In the year 1718, Hursley was sold by Cromwell's two surviving
daughters for 36,000 pounds to William Heathcote, Esq., afterwards
created a baronet.
The Heathcotes belonged to a family of gentle blood in Derbyshire.
Gilbert Heathcote, one of the sons, was an Alderman at Chesterfield,
and was the common ancestor of the Rutland as well as the Hursley
family. His third son, Samuel, spent some years as a merchant at
Dantzic, where he made a considerable fortune, and returning to
England, married Mary the daughter of William Dawsonne of Hackney.
He was an intimate friend of the great Locke, and assisted him in his
work on preserving the standard of the gold coin of the realm. He
died in 1708, his son William and brother Gilbert attained to wealth
and civic honours.
Sir Gilbert was Lord Mayor in 1711 and was the last who rode in
procession on the 9th of November. Both were Whigs, though the
Jacobite Lord Mayor, whose support was reckoned on by the Stuarts,
was their cousin.
At about twenty-seven years of age, William Heathcote married
Elizabeth, only daughter of Thomas Parker, Earl of Macclesfield, and
had in course of time six sons and three daughters. He was M.P.
first for Buckingham and afterwards for Southampton. He was created
a baronet in 1733.
There were plans drawn for enlarging the old lodge in which the
Hobbys and Cromwells had lived, but these seem to have been found
impracticable, and it was decided to pull the house down and erect a
new one on a different site. Tradition, and Noble in his Cromwell,
declared that the change was from dislike of the Cromwell opinions
and usurpations, but Mr. Marsh considers this "mean and illiberal"
and combats it sharply.
The new and much more spacious building was placed a little higher up
on the hill, with a wide bowling-green on the south side, where in
dry summers the old foundations of the former house can be traced,
the walnut avenues leading up to it. The house was in the style that
is now called Queen Anne, of red brick quoined with stone, with
large-framed heavy sash windows and double doors to each of the
principal rooms, some of which were tapestried with Gobelin arras
representing the four elements - Juno, with all the elements of the
air; Ceres presiding over the harvest, for the earth; Vulcan with the
emblems of fire; and Amphitrite drawn by Tritons personifying water.
There was then a great central entrance-hall, in the middle of the
northern side of the house, with stone steps going up at each end,
outside, but, as we see from drawings and prints of the time, with no
carriage-approach to the house, so that people must have driven up to
the front door over the grass.
Sir William died in 1751, fifty-eight years old. His son, Sir
Thomas, born in 1721, was the builder of old Hursley Church, which
was begun in 1752, and completed the next year, only the tower being
left of the former edifice. In 1808 some few capitals of the old
pillars remained in parts of the village, and were adjudged by Mr.
Marsh to be Saxon. It was said that the inside was very dark, the
ground outside being nearly on a level with the windows, and six or
eight steps descending to the floor.
It was all swept away, and the new structure was pronounced by Mr.
Marsh to be exceedingly "neat, light, and airy." It was 82 feet
long, and 49 broad, with two aisles, and an arched ceiling, supported
on pillars. It might well be light, for the great round-headed
windows were an expanse of glass, very glaring in sunshine, though
mitigated by the waving lime-trees. The plan and dimensions followed
those of the old church, and were ample enough, the north aisle a
good deal shorter than the chancel, and all finished with gables
crow-stepped in the Dutch fashion. It was substantially paved
within, and was a costly and anxiously planned achievement in the
taste of the time, carefully preserving all the older monuments. A
mausoleum in the same style was built for the Heathcote family in the
south-western corner of the churchyard, and gradually the white-
washed walls of the church became ornamented (?) with the hatchments
of each successive baronet and his wife, the gentlemen's shields with
the winged globe as crest, and the motto Deus prosperat justos; the
ladies' lozenge finished with a death's head above, and Resurgam
below.
Sir Thomas was twice married and had eight children. He died at
sixty-five years of age on 29th of June 1787. He was succeeded by
his eldest son, the second Sir William, who was born in 1746, and was
member for the county in three Parliaments. He was a man of great
integrity, humanity, and charity, very affable and amiable, and
unassuming in his manners, "and he died as he had lived, fearing
God." He married Frances, daughter and co-heiress of John Thorpe of
Embley, and had seven children.
His eldest son, Sir Thomas, married the heiress of Thomas Edwards
Freeman, of Batsford, Gloucestershire, in 1799, and was known as Sir
Thomas Freeman Heathcote. He was member for the county from 1808
till 1820, when he retired. He is reported to have known an old man