POPULAR COUNTT HISTORIES. HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE, INCLUDING THE ISLE OF WIGHT. BY T. W. SHORE, F.G.S., ETC. LONDON : ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1892. -17 3 1982 16 PREFACE. THE history of every county has been affected to some extent by its natural features, and this is especially the case in respect to that county whose history is sketched in this volume. The County of Southampton or Hamp- shire has been much favoured by nature, and its natural advantages must have commended it to its early inhabitants, whose connection with it are traced in these pages. The surface of the county consists largely of well- wooded plains or valleys, and dry chalk hills which stretch across it in a broad belt, having on the north and south of them two other broad areas of clays, and sandy loams. Hamp- shire is, and always has been, a woodland county, and its forests have been much concerned with its history. Its natural features have had a great influence on the growth of its forests, for oak grows on the clay lands in all parts of the county, while beech flourishes on the loamy soils lying upon the slopes of the chalk hills, and upon similar soils in the north and the south, and those areas which contain more sand than clay can be distinguished by a growth of pines and firs. Much of the land on the chalk vi Preface. hills was formerly old downland, a great part of which was the common pasture-land of the ancient manors until the time of the inclosures, since which time most of it has been broken up and cultivated in large fields, under the modern system of sheep farming. A considerable part of the land in the south of the county rests on a substratum of gravel which keeps the soil dry, and has in modern times assisted in attracting a large residential population. Its landlocked harbours, its double tides in South- ampton Water, an estuary which stretches into the interior of the land, and leads into the long valleys of the Test and the Itchen, and the many eligible sites for occupation, must have invited settlements at as early a period as any part of Britain. The materials for the History of Hampshire are more abundant than those of most English counties, as will be seen in the following pages. No county offers a richer field for the study of prehistoric or medieval archaeology. A peculiarity in its history is the great part it has played in national history, and especially during the Saxon and Norman periods. Its history has not been adequately written. An attempt was made more than twenty years ago to produce a reliable history of this county, and the late Mr. B. B. Woodward collected valuable material for it and began the work but he ; resigned the undertaking. The publishers of the proposed history asked the late Rev. T. C Wilks, to continue Mr. Woodward's work. He did so, and was assisted, in respect to the part relating to the Isle of Wight, by the late Mr. C. Lockhart. Their work was issued in three quarto volumes in 1870 in an incomplete form, for Preface. vii many places in the county of great historical interest are not even mentioned. In the preface he wrote, Mr. Wilks acknowledged its many imperfections. Probably the magnitude of such an undertaking and the cost of its publication has deterred other students from attempting to write a comprehensive history of this county. The materials for its history have greatly increased since the date of the above-mentioned publication, and every year is adding to the bulk of this information. Owing to the increase of historical knowledge, the time for attempting to write the history of such a county as Hampshire, in one comprehensive work, may have passed away. Some valuable contributions to Hampshire history have been published within the last few years, such as the ' History of the Parish of St. Mary Bourne,' by Dr. Joseph Stevens the ' of the Rev. ; and History Basingstoke,' by Dr. Millard and Mr. F. J. Baigent. Two county societies are now engaged in collecting and publishing historical and antiquarian information relating to Hampshire viz., the Hampshire Field Club, which is concerned with Archaeology as well as Natural History, and whose annual papers and proceedings are awakening a interest in the and the great county antiquities ; Hamp- shire Record Society, which is engaged in printing its hitherto unpublished MS. treasures. It is intended by the Record Society to publish the episcopal registers preserved at Winchester, the chartularies and other MS. remains of the abbeys, priories, and other religious houses, some of the MSS. of the ancient municipal corporations, of the old Hampshire Courts, and other valuable historical matter. It is hoped that the large and valuable historical MS. Vlll Preface. collections relating to Hampshire, and especially to its ecclesiastical affairs, made by Mr. F. J. Baigent, of Winchester, may be published under that gentleman's direction. Their publication would be of service to all historical students, and would be welcomed by all who are interested in the history of this county. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. PREHISTORIC HAMPSHIRE ..... I II. THE FIRST CELTIC CONQUEST . l6 III. THE CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT OF THE BELG^E . 27 IV. THE COMING OF THE ROMANS . -37 V. THE WEST SAXON CONQUEST . -49 VI. EARLY WESSEX . 6 1 VII. EARLY KINGS OF WESSEX . -7 VIII. LATER KINGS OF WESSEX . -79 IX. THE DANISH CONQUEST AND ITS RESULTS . 89 X. THE EARLY NORMAN PERIOD . -99 XI. LATER NORMAN AND ANGEVIN RULE . .Ill XII. MONASTIC LIFE . .123 XIII. OTHER PHASES OF MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS LIFE . 137 XIV. MANORS AND HUNDREDS . -147 XV. REMAINS AND LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES . 163 XVI. THE ISLE OF WIGHT . .176 XVII. WINCHESTER . 2OO XVIII. WINCHESTER IN DECAY . 2l6 XIX. SOUTHAMPTON . .227 XX. PORTSMOUTH ...... 242 XXI. LATER MEDIEVAL AND GENERAL HISTORY . 253 XXII. CONCLUSION . .265 HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE. CHAPTER I. PREHISTORIC HAMPSHIRE. THE earliest inhabitants we can trace in this part of England are those who made rude stone implements by chipping flints into the form of hatchets, spear-heads, and other weapons, and are known as the Palaeolithic people, or men of the Early Stone Age. They have also been named the River Drift men, from the circumstance that these relics are found in beds of gravel, which have been formed by the drifting power of rivers and floods that have washed the gravel down from higher parts of the country. The beds which contain these implements in Hampshire are found capping the sea-cliffs at Barton, Hordle, Stubbington, Hill Head, Lee-on-Solent, along the shores of Southampton Water, and in similar situations, in some instances as high as 100 feet above sea-level, so that the water which deposited the beds of gravel must have flowed at a greater elevation, a circumstance which points to a further exten- sion of the land seawards than occurs at present, the rivers probably flowing down a gentle slope to their outlets, or junction with a larger river further out, where the English Channel now is. Other beds of implement-bearing gravel are found inland, in terraces along the courses of the streams, or those of former rivers. Near Southampton I History of Hampshire. some of these terraces are 100 feet above the present level of the rivers, and examples of the stone implements which have been found in them are to be seen in many of the principal geological museums in England. The gravel- beds on Southampton Common, and at Highfield, about a mile to the eastward, have yielded many fine examples of implements, of various shapes. Similar worked flints have been found in gravel-beds higher up the Itchen, near Winchester and Alresford. They have also been discovered in the terraces along the course of the Test near Romsey, Stockbridge, and St. Mary Bourn. They have been found along the course of the Avon, near Christchurch and Fordingbridge. They have been also met with along the course of the Loddon, and in other parts of the county. Palaeolithic man has left us nothing in Hampshire except his stone implements and weapons. No caves, such as he may have used in Devonshire, have been found in this county, for the chalk and most of the other strata in Hampshire are so soft that caverns could not have been formed in them by natural means as in harder limestones, and, if formed artificially, would not under ordinary circum- stances have lasted long. The remains of some of the animals which lived in this part of the country contemporaneously with Palaeolithic man have, however, been found. The teeth of the early elephants {Elephas antiquus and E. primigenius}, a horn of a reindeer, and another of an ibex, have been obtained from the gravel near Southampton, or found below the peat in the new dock excavation there. Elephant remains have also been found near Winchester, Romsey, and Fresh- water. The Palaeolithic period is so remote from our own, that England at that time must have been very different from what it is now. It was probably connected with the Con- had tinent, or not long been separated from it, otherwise the animals whose remains are found could not have migrated so far. Prehistoric Hampshire. The valleys through which the Hampshire streams now flow were then only in process of formation. These streams have since that time deepened their channels, and rain and local floods have smoothed down the valley slopes. The rivers in the Palaeolithic period all flowed at higher eleva- tions than they do at present, and the whole surface of the country was higher than it is now.