A Bedhampton Miscellany Compiled by Ralph Cousins
Bedhampton Road circa 1910.
Borough of Havant History Booklet No. 50
March 2019
£6
Contents
Timeline of Bedhampton – John Pile
The Landscape Setting and Early History – John Pile
Medieval Bedhampton – John Pile
Bedhampton's Royal Visitors Remembered – John Pile
Some Notes on the History of Bedhampton – Graham R. Eeles
A Brief History of Bedhampton – Mavis Smith
Hidden Bedhampton – Alan Palmer
A Remarkable Episode in the History of Bedhampton – John Pile
Havant Police Court – John Pile
Notes on a Medieval Deer Park at Bedhampton – John Pile
Belmont Camp – Bob Hind and John Pile
Smugglers – Charles G. Harper
Three Bedhampton Ghosts – John Pile
The Portsdown Shutter Telegraph – Bob Hunt
The Portsdown Semaphore – Bob Hunt
View all booklets at: thespring.co.uk/heritage/local-history-booklets/
2 Time Line of Bedhampton
The springs between Havant and Bedhampton attracted early settlement 4200-3000 BC Bevis’s Grave Neolithic long barrow on Portsdown c.1100 Bedhampton Deer Park enclosed from the Forest of Bere c.1140 Chancel arch, the earliest architectural feature of St Thomas’s Church built c. AD 600-900 Anglo-Saxon cemetery on Portsdown 1208 and 1213 King John visited 1297 King Edward I visited 1320-21 Hugh le Despenser the elder’s manor of Bedhampton laid waste by his enemies 1325 King Edward II visited 1338 Fulling mill at Bedhampton mentioned 1496 Documentary evidence for Hermitage Chapel of St James c.1536 Sir Richard Cotton (c.1497-1556) rewarded by Henry VIII with stewardship of Bedhampton Park 1592 Queen Elizabeth I visited ‘Mr Carrells house’ c.1600 Bedhampton Deer Park disparked 1632 Watermills in Bedhampton: a malt mill, fulling mill, paper mill and a wheat mill 1688 St Thomas’s Church parish registers began 1730s Belmont House built 1778 William Haines, engraver and painter, born 1789 Charles Wentworth Dilke, newspaper editor and writer, born c.1790 Belvedere erected on Portsdown in the grounds of Belmont House. Later enlarged as Belmont Castle 1800 Customs officers, with the assistance of the Havant Volunteers, seized contraband spirits and tobacco from smugglers near Bedhampton 1819 John Keats wrote his poem The Eve of St Agnes at the Old Mill House 1822 Admiralty semaphore telegraph station on Camp Down commissioned
3 1846-1860 Sir James Stirling, first Governor of Western Australia from 1829- 1839, owned Belmont House 1847 Camp Down semaphore station decommissioned owing to the introduction of the electric telegraph 1854-6 Biscuits baked for the Crimean War 1859 Customs officials seized contraband spirits at the Shepherds Hut 1860 Havant pumping station opened by Borough of Portsmouth Waterworks Company 1868 Construction of Fort Purbrook completed. Farlington Redoubt, to which it was connected, was probably completed shortly afterwards 1868 Bedhampton National School, designed by Richard William Drew, opened 1872 Cosham, Havant and Emsworth Water Order empowered Portsmouth Waterworks Company to supply water to Bedhampton, Havant and Warblington, et alibi 1875 Catholic Church of St Joseph opened in West Street 1878 Primitive Methodist Church opened in West Street 1881 Hulbert Road opened, linking Havant and Bedhampton with Waterlooville 1906 Bedhampton Halt opened 1910 Havant Gas Company gained public lighting contract with Bedhampton Parish Council 1911 Fred T Jane, founder of Jane’s Fighting Ships, moved to Hill House, Bedhampton Hill Road c.1913 Fred T Jane started a Scout Troop 1950 Former sick-bay of Belmont Naval Camp bought by Bedhampton Parish Church Council for use as parish rooms 1957 St Thomas More’s Catholic Primary School opened in Hooks Lane 1973 Queen Elizabeth II passed through Bedhampton on her way to Portsmouth Dockyard 1985 Bedhampton County Infants’ School closed
4 The Landscape Setting and Early History
John Pile
In geological terms, Bedhampton is situated in the extreme south-eastern corner of the Hampshire Basin, a depression formed by folding after the chalk had been laid down under deep sea conditions and subsequently filled with sand and clay sediments beneath much shallower waters. The Portsdown ridge, which rises to a height of a little under 400 feet at Fort Southwick, is an upward fold or anticline and it is this ridge that deflects the southerly flow of underground water towards
5 the village of Bedhampton that is responsible for the numerous springs that are such an important feature of the area. The lower southern slopes of Portsdown and the coastal plain are covered with Coombe deposits and Brickearth, the latter producing a particularly fertile soil. The Coombe deposits are a mixture of small chalk rubble and flints derived from the former chalk surface under freeze and thaw conditions. The Brickearth consists of flood deposits and, possibly, fine wind-blown material formed in a very cold and dry climate. The parish church, the manor house and Belmont Park House were all built on the Reading Beds of sands and clays, and they are slightly raised above the immediately surrounding area on a low but clearly defined ridge.
Abundant water supply, the chalk ridge facilitating east to west communications, the light and fertile soils of the coastal plain, the resources of the forest to the north and the sea to the south, combined to form a very attractive environment from the earliest times, and there is abundant evidence for the presence of man in this area from the Stone Age onwards. 6 Sir Barry Cunliffe, who directed the first excavations on the site of the Roman palace at Fishbourne, suggested that the Chichester to Bitterne Roman road was built during the early stages of the Claudian invasion. Its route westward is defined by the modern Bedhampton Road as far as its junction with Hulbert Road from where it continues through the Belmont Estate on the same alignment to Purbrook where Purbrook Heath Road takes up the route. A section of the road was seen in a builder’s trench in May 1938 when the site of Belmont Park was being prepared for a new housing development and another section was uncovered in 1953 when building recommenced after World War Two.The Roman road was clearly the focus for subsequent settlement as Roman pottery, tile, tesserae and a Greek coin were found in the garden of a house in Roman Way and a little further west, near South Downs College, a villa and a tile-works have been excavated. The Saxon period is represented by the cemetery which was deliberately sited on the Bevis’s Grave Neolithic long barrow on Portsdown, a little to the west of Belmont Castle. Two or three of the earliest Saxon graves were probably pagan, but the 71 burials uncovered by David Rudkin between 1974 and 1976 were Christian, being aligned west to east. It is likely that the 8th or early 9th century settlement served by the cemetery was nearby, also on the Portsdown ridge, but this remains unlocated. It was probably later in the 9th century that the Christianised population moved down to the site of the present village where a cross or a wooden church – the precursor of the present parish church – would have been erected. Very little can be said with certainty about Belmont in the Middle Ages, except that the estate, which was later to bear this name, did not yet exist. The site of the future Belmont House and park were demesne lands of the manor of Behampton and a few acres of church glebe land. An aerial photograph taken shortly after World War Two shows what is unmistakably medieval ‘ridge and furrow’, formed by the action of the ox-plough, on the northern edge of Bidbury Mead, adjacent to Bedhampton Road. As this road did not exist in the Middle Ages – being an early 19th century turnpike road – the medieval ploughland would have extended over at least part of what later became the parkland surrounding Belmont House.
Extract from: Belmont Park, Bedhampton the Estate, the House and its People – John Pile, June 2012
7 Medieval Bedhampton
John Pile – May 2011
The medieval manor of Bedhampton comprised the whole of the parish, a strip of land and sea that extended six miles from north to south and about a mile and a half from east to west. At the extreme north of the parish, within the Forest of Bere, lay Padnell Common, accessible to the tenants of the manor through a fenced and gated deer park that occupied half the land area of the parish. The deer park provided the lord of the manor with venison and contained fishponds, a rabbit warren and a keeper's lodge. The best agricultural land was on the coastal plain where the lord's demesne and his tenants' plough-lands formed strips in the open fields, sown in rotation and thrown open to be grazed in common after harvest. Here too were the enclosed pastures, the pasture by the sea and the valuable meadows that provided the hay essential for over-wintering livestock. Bidbury Mead where the Summer Show takes place was largely hay-meadow as its name suggests. The eastern flank of Portsdown was sheepwalk and Langstone Harbour with its mudlands and islands, covering one-third of the area of the parish, provided fish and wildfowl in season. Domesday Book, compiled in 1086, records two watermills in Bedhampton for the use of 'the hall' and these continued to grind corn for the next 800 years. A fulling mill is recorded in 1286 and this suggests that cloth-making was an important activity. Domesday Book also records two salt-houses where seawater was evaporated to produce salt. Together with the copious springs of excellent water these resources combined to provide an estate of considerable value to its lords. Although a small community, clustered around the church and manor house, Bedhampton was by no means isolated as it lay on an important route connecting the feudal castles of Lewes, Bramber and Arundel with Portsmouth, Portchester, Southampton and the West Country. It is known from documents signed and sealed at Bedhampton that King John stayed overnight in 1208 and 1213, as did Edward I in 1297 and Edward II in 1325. In 1591 Elizabeth I dined at Bedhampton. In 1086 the manor of Bedhampton was held by Hugh de Port, a Norman baron from Port-en-Bessin near Bayeux, as a sub-tenant of the Abbot of Winchester, but for most of its later history the manor was in the gift of the king who granted it with other estates to his relatives.
8 These great feudal lords were rarely, if ever, resident in Bedhampton and the manor was merely a source of revenue. However, the manor house was on at least two occasions occupied 'in dower' by the widows of deceased manorial lords, when the Bishop of Winchester granted them licence to have a private chapel so that the dowager ladies of the manor were not obliged to attend the parish church. The population of Bedhampton in 1086 was probably around 120 and it would have grown steadily for the next two and a half centuries, perhaps reaching 300 or so before a series of poor harvests and the Black Death in 1348 reduced the population by a third or even a half, if comparisons with better-documented parishes may be made. Most of the inhabitants of Bedhampton lived in the village where they had their farmyards and paddocks and went out to work daily in the open fields, though a few families such as the park-keepers and the millers lived where they worked. The Church played an important part in the medieval community and a church in Bedhampton is mentioned in Domesday Book. Whether this was a Saxon church, probably of timber construction, or a Norman one built by Hugh de Port is not known. The oldest part of the present building is the chancel arch of c.1140 so it is likely that this is the date that an earlier church was replaced. The medieval dedication was probably to St. Nicholas as it appears in later records, but this Is uncertain. A list of rectors from the beginning of the fourteenth century has been compiled from records of institutions in the bishops' registers, and their patrons were the lords of the manor. A small chapel dedicated to St James, probably the ‘Greater’, the patron saint of pilgrims, stood close to the bridge that carried the king's highway across the Hermitage Stream. We know this because in 1496 and 1498 bishop Langton issued letters to permit a hermit to receive alms here for his own needs and for the maintenance of the bridge.
Bedhampton's Royal Visitors Remembered
Bedhampton has been visited by royalty on surprisingly numerous occasions; one reason being that the village lay on the main coast road between Chichester and Southampton. The road through Bedhampton was laid down by the Romans immediately after their conquest of Britain in 43 AD and it is by no means fanciful to suggest that the future emperor Vespasian travelled along it on his way to subdue the Iron Age tribes of Dorset. Royal travellers used the route through Bedhampton when visiting the baronial and royal castles along the south coast - Lewes, Bramber, Arundel, Portchester 9 and Southampton – and as the kings and queens of medieval England were constantly on the move they transacted royal business and sealed and dated letters wherever they happened to be, enabling historians to work out their itineraries. King John dated letters from Bedhampton on 1st April 1208 and again on 14th and 15th June 1213 when he was en route for Portchester. King Edward I was at Bedhampton on 25th May 1297 and his ill-fated son Edward II was here on 18th May 1325. Queen Elizabeth I's royal progresses are legendary and her harbingers are recorded as making arrangements for her to dine at 'mr Carre11s house at Bedhampton' on 2nd August 1591. Details of George I's son's progress through Chichester, Havant and Portsmouth in 1761 are sketchy, but the future king's joumey, made during his father's absence in Hanover, would certainly have taken him through the village. Questions also surround the frequently quoted story told by a former rector of Bedhampton, the Reverend Stokes, that Princess Victoria stayed at Belmont Park with her father the Duke of Kent, although attempts to verify it have so far failed. However, there can be no doubt that Queen Victoria's coffin passed through Bedhampton on the Royal Train as the coffin made its way from Osborne House on the Isle of Wight to Victoria Station on Friday 1st February 1901. One account suggests that owing to earlier delays the funeral train made up for lost time by reaching a speed of 80 miles per hour between Cosham and Havant. Royal trains have passed through Bedhampton on several occasions since Queen Victoria's reign, but one Royal occasion that will be remembered by many visitors to this year's Bedhampton Show will be that on Friday 20th July 1973 when our present Queen came by car along Bedhampton Road on her way to Portsmouth Dockyard, the route being lined by local schoolchildren eager to catch a glimpse of her.
John Pile. 30th April 2012. Revised 1st November 2012.
Some Notes on the History of Bedhampton
Graham R. Eeles
My first acquaintance with the village of Bedhampton and its history came about earlier this year when I was asked to mount an exhibition on the history of the village to mark the occasion of the 850th anniversary of the Parish Church of St Thomas. Having been allowed only a matter of weeks to raise myself from a state of total ignorance of the village to a state of absolute knowledge of everything 10 appertaining to its history, and being besides of an exceedingly idle nature, I decided that the easiest course, before bothering to look at any of the original records, would be to get hold of whatever had already been written on the history of Bedhampton, and to use that to provide a framework for the exhibition. Unfortunately my attempt to crib the work of previous scholars came rather unstuck. I did indeed discover no fewer than three publications on the history of Bedhampton; these comprised the relevant section from the Victoria County History of Hampshire, a guide to the history of Bedhampton written by an incumbent of the Parish Church of St Thomas, Bedhampton, early this century, and a far more recent and attractively presented history of Havant and Bedhampton published during the 1970s. Remarkable, I thought. Such a small village, and yet so much written on its history. Simply use their accounts as a framework to be illustrated by whatever original records I could lay hands on. Unfortunately it wasn't to be quite so easy. I decided to start with the Victoria County History of Hampshire, published in 1908. What a pity it's not a little more up to date, I thought, but of course the Victoria County Histories are the standard work for the study of any locality, and are bound to be useful. I noted the copious footnotes with satisfaction: how thoughtful to give a documentary source for practically every statement made relating to Bedhampton. Yet as I read the account, I became increasingly concerned that the Victoria County History's view of the history of Bedhampton was not exactly what I had hoped to find. It neither told me a great deal about the lives of dead generations of Bedhamptonians nor would it, I suspected, provide an adequate framework for the original records of Bedhampton's history that were accessible to me. The Victoria County History's description begins with a short note on the derivation of the name of the village, and then continues with a topographical account of Bedhampton as it was in 1908. Great care is taken to note the names of the contemporary occupiers of the largest houses in the village – something of only ephemereal relevance – but less care is taken in the correct spelling of the names of local features, as I discovered when I consulted a map. The description continues with a long and detailed account of the lords of the manor of Bedhampton, a 'who begat whom' list worthy of the Old Testament. At the end of this list is a brief description of the manor house 'pulled down in 1881' – in fact it's still standing, and an even briefer list of references to water-mills and salt-pans in the manor from Domesday on. Then follows a detailed architectural description of the Church, and a brief reference to the church plate and registers, giving 11 inaccurate dates. The account of the history of the village then draws to a close with another long 'who begat whom' list of the descent of the advowson of the church, and a bald reference to an intriguing local charity begun in 1875, and dedicated to the further education of girls. So what did I hope to find, you may ask. Well, a topographical description of the village certainly, but one with rather more historical depth and with some geographic basis also: some indication, in fact, of the factors which caused a village to grow up on that site. Certainly an account of the manor, but one paying more attention to the water-mills and salt-pans and less to the lords of the manor, to most of whom Bedhampton Manor was only one of many from which they drew their income, and who would probably have spent little or no time in the village, leaving the manor and manor house to be administered by a steward. I would have liked, that is, to find more about the economic and social basis and the development – or decline – of the village, more about the lives of the people who actually lived there. So I consigned the Victoria County History, and its footnotes, to outer darkness. Secondly, I looked at the little illustrated guide to the history of Bedhampton produced by one of the incumbents of the Parish Church of St Thomas, Bedhampton, during the early part of this century. Actually I should have been warned by its publication date a few years after the Victoria County History of Hampshire: the good rector had plagiarised that work shamelessly, and the guide was little more than a watered down version of the Victoria County History's account of Bedhampton's history with a few extra mistakes added for good measure. Even the illustrations were so small and of such poor quality that they were useless for exhibition purposes. In any case, the photographs were mainly of the church, manor house and other large houses in the village that still look more or less the same! So I consigned that booklet also to outer darkness. Finally I turned in desperation to the third account of the history of Bedhampton. Here also I was to be disappointed, despite the fact that the book – on Havant and Bedhampton – was published as recently as the 1970s and might reasonably have been expected to reflect the views on the writing of local history of such people as Professor Hoskins. I can do no better than quote Nigel Yates' review of the book which appeared in the first volume of the Portsmouth Archives Review: Despite the writings of Professors Hoskins and Pugh, and the work of the Department of English Local History at Leicester University, the Standing Conference for Local History and others, the structure of most parish 12 histories has remained virtually unchanged for more than a century: an obsession with the usually unhelpful local references in the Domesday Book, an interest in the church (though normally only from an architectural viewpoint), a belief in the virtue of agriculture as opposed to industry, a strange delight in the origin of place-names and the careers of local eccentrics. The present work falls within the established foundation; it is a useful collection of materials for the history of two communities, but it is not a study of the development of those communities. Exactly; however, when I attempted to use this volume simply as a sourcebook for the history of Bedhampton, I soon encountered problems. The author gives many useful facts – including for instance population figures for the village at various dates during the middle ages – but irritatingly he does not state the sources of his information. My irritation changed to downright suspicion when I found documentary proof that some of the author's statements were false. For example, he states that during the eighteenth century (and here I quote) in order to bring more land into cultivation locally the park at Bedhampton was ploughed up and divided into farms; this increase in arable farming and the enclosure of the Park made a tremendous difference to the value of the estate. In fact, a survey of the manor of Bedhampton taken in 1632, and now in the Portsmouth City Records Office, records the fact that the Park at Bedhampton had already been 'disesparked’ and turned to arables and pasture' before 1632. Unfortunately the author shows more interest in retailing long anecdotes concerning mythical medieval ladies of the manor of Bedhampton than in establishing fact. Even where he does establish fact, its value is questionable: for instance, the claim is made that this is the first historical account of twentieth century Havant and Bedhampton, yet this account is on the level of the Eclipse football team merged with Havant Rovers in 1903 and they won the Midhurst Six-a-side Tournament in 1908. So I consigned that account of Bedhampton's history to outer darkness also. However, this unfortunately left me with the problem of formulating my own structure for a history of Bedhampton. I could, I suppose, simply have gone to whatever records were available and arranged whatever material was available on the history of the village into some semblance of order. This is after all the method of many local historians, but it seems to me to leave too much to chance, since the emphasis on any particular subject will depend not upon the importance of that subject, but merely upon the amount of available documentary evidence. That way leads a purblind antiquarianism, and antiquarianism is not history. Antiquarian-ism consists in the recording of a random collection of facts 13 concerning the past; the facts are unassimilated and unselected and no attempt is made to establish their significance or relationship. History on the other hand, as the great French historian, Marc Bloch, once wrote, is the answer to a series of intelligently posed questions. And local history, it seems to me, must meet this academic criterion if it is to be taken seriously. So finally, I started to think, not so much along the lines of what records survive relating to Bedhampton but more what questions should I be seeking answers to when I look at those records. And the three questions that seemed essential were, why did people settle here, how did they support themselves and how many were they. I shall now attempt to answer these questions in relation to Bedhampton. In any historical survey of a particular area, an initial study of the geology, geography and topography of the area in question seems to me essential, for without a knowledge of these matters we cannot answer the question why did people decide to settle in this place' – and that question is surely the fundamental one to ask in any local historical study. So why was a settlement established at Bedhampton? An adequate water supply is essential to any community, and this was amply provided at Bedhampton by the numerous freshwater springs rising in the area. Another prerequisite is the provision of means of obtaining food. In this respect the land around Bedhampton was remarkably diverse and rich: forest to the north, sheltering game and providing fodder for pigs; a belt of good arable land south of the forest; rich meadows and pasture land along the shore of Langstone Harbour; and also the harbour itself as a source of fish and the Binness Islands within Langstone Harbour which houses colonies of seabirds, whose eggs would provide valuable food. A further natural feature which would have encouraged people to settle in the Bedhampton, Havant and Warblington area is their position at a natural crossroads, for here the route along the coast is intersected by a gap in the downs, where a gravel valley, the bed of a prehistoric estuary, cuts through the hills. Having established the reasons why Bedhampton was a favourable site for settlement, the next question to ask is, How did people gain a livelihood at Bedhampton? – in other words how did the local economy function. We can, I think, learn much about the economy of Saxon and early medieval Bedhampton from the Domesday survey of 1086. Bedhampton at that time had eight ploughlands and three acres of meadow, two mills and two salterns, and extensive woodland which provided fodder for numerous pigs. From this we can deduce that the local economy was already diversified, comprising both animal husbandry and cereal production, and also the manufacture of salt. In addition, a further aspect 14 of the economy of medieval Bedhampton is illustrated by a much later document, the survey of the manor of Bedhampton taken in 1632. The survey contains the following passage:
There is within the manor of Bedhampton one piece of ground compassed about with the sea containing four acres of ground not flowed with the sea, where are yearly bred and taken forty dozen of fowl called pewitt. And there is likewise within the manor of Bedhampton a creek or piece of ground flowed with the sea at every full sea called the fowling grounds, wherein are yearly taken winter fowl, that is to say ducks, mallards, wigeons and other fowls called wild fowl of great profit and commodity and wrack of sea and hath been time out of the memory of man. So I think we are safe in assuming that, throughout the medieval period, fishing (much is mentioned elsewhere in the survey) and fowling in winter would have formed part of Bedhampton's economy. The reference to wrack of sea, or seaweed, is also interesting – this was presumably used as manure to improve the land and, when dried, as fuel. So the medieval economy of Bedhampton was relatively diverse and rich; indeed it is interesting to note that at the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, Bedhampton was accounted as being of greater value than neighbouring Havant. Furthermore, from the inquest held after the death of the lord of Bedhampton manor in 1286 to ascertain the value of the manor, we learn that by that date a fulling mill had been set up at Bedhampton to process woollen cloth. We may, I think, presume from this that sheep rearing at Bedhampton was now on a larger scale than in 1086, when only three acres were given over to pasture. However, the Black Death of 1348 and 1349 must have had drastic effects on the economy of Bedhampton. An inquest post mortem taken in 1331 shows the value of the manor as over £67; by the time of the next inquest, in 1353, the value of the manor has been cut by more than a half to £33. This stagnation in the local economy continued into the next century, for even by 1434 the value of the manor was little over half of what it had been before the Black Death. The situation in Bedhampton thus mirrored what was happening all over England. The drastic drop in population consequent on the Black Death affected arable production more adversely than pastoral, since cereal production was more labour intensive than animal husbandry. In the local situation in Bedhampton, with its existing woollen cloth industry, this probably meant that the balance of the economy swung sharply
15 from arable to pastoral products and that cloth production had become the staple of Bedhampton's economy by the fifteenth century. An invaluable source for the economic history of Bedhampton during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is provided by the Survey of the Manor of Bedhampton taken on the 20 June 1632. This document has its own strange history: having been separated at some date from the main body of the Bedhampton manorial archive, it turned up in 1975 at a general auction in Gosport; the purchaser then offered it as a swap on Radio Solent's 'Swop-Shop' programme, and it changed hands again; subsequently the lady who acquired it as a swap sold the document to Portsmouth City Records Office. So what can we gather from this survey of Bedhampton in 1632, on the eve of the English Civil War? The overall impression is of a community in transition. The medieval parish had been dominated by the Park: not an ornamental garden in our sense, but a game forest which had occupied half the area of the parish. By 1632 'the Park', to use the surveyor's own words, wherein were game of deer is now disesparked and converted into pastures and arables. The medieval common, 100 acres in extent and called Padnell or Paddell, was still partly wooded and manorial tenants might graze their beasts there, but encroachment of settlement onto the common land had begun: Joan Carter, for instance, held a cottage and half an acre of land on Paddell waste. Rationalisation of holdings and enclosure of the medieval open fields had taken place: the dominant field-pattern is now one of 'closes' or enclosed parcels of land and only very occasionally is any mention made of a surving open-field strip, or 'stiche' in the local dialect. One of the few examples runs thus: Margery Perkins holdeth from year to year one stiche of land lying within the lands of Mathew Haraes. The field-names of the new enclosures are often quite poetic: Shamblers, Sommerburyes, Foxcrofts, Bean-crofts, Milksopps, Golddivings, Chalcrofts. Other field-names survive today as place-names: Hooks, Duncebury, Bidbury Mead. Although much of the medieval woodland had been cleared, creating fields called 'stubbings', the parish still contained several hundred acres of wood and coppice. This was an important part of the local economy: some trees were allowed to grow large for use as house-timbers, others were 'coppiced' or cut after only a few years growth and used for making hurdles or wattles. A typical entry for Bedhampton woodland in the survey of 1632 runs thus: There is a coppice called the Little Park Coppice containing 60 acres wherein are under woods at 9 years' growth to be sold at 50s an acre. Fishing and wildfowling, to provide fresh meat during the winter, were of course still in
16 evidence in 1632, in addition to the collecting of seaweed for fuel and fertiliser. The medieval salterns were also still in production. More importantly, by 1632 a mill for the manufacture of paper had been set up at Bedhampton. Only one earlier reference is known to a paper mill in Hampshire and – an interesting thought – this survey of Bedhampton may well be written on paper made in Bedhampton. The description runs as follows: There is one paper mill with a very fair paper house covered all with shingles and all necessaries fit for the making of paper with a dwelling house for the paper maker near the said mill’. The annual rent of this paper mill was £30, whereas the rental for the entire wheat mill malt mill and fulling mill all under one roof, together with land adjac- ent, was only £40. The paper mill seems therefore in 1632 to have been of considerable importance to Bedhampton's economy, though how long it was in operation we do not know. The mention of a malt mill indicates that brewing was also carried out in Bedhampton. However, the basis of the local economy was still clearly agricultural rather than industrial. As we have seen, by the fifteenth century the production of wool had probably become of greater importance locally than the production of cereals. The exact time-scale is unclear, but during the sixteenth or seventeenth century in Bedhampton, this imbalance was evened out, and by 1632 the production of wool and cereals seem to be of equal importance. The Survey gives the use and acreage of most of Bedhampton's fields, and neither arable nor pasture seems to predominate. The interesting feature though is the conversion of Bedhampton Park – half the total area of the parish – to arable and pastoral use during this period. Such a large extension of the agricultural land of Bedhampton at some date during the sixteenth or early seventeenth century clearly indicates an increased market for both arable and pastoral products. However, during the seventeenth century the English woollen industry was hit by foreign competition and severely disrupted by the English Civil War, and it seems unlikely that Bedhampton's part in this industry would have survived the century, although of course some sheep would still have been reared on the coastal meadows which were unsuitable for arable production. The trend in corn production on the other hand was all the other way. During the eighteenth century the population of England began to rise sharply, and more especially the population of towns. Since towns could not produce their own corn, they must import it from rural areas. Bedhampton was thus ideally situated to supply a growing Portsmouth with bread, and indeed its cereal crop might go even further afield: in the early eighteenth century Daniel Defoe in his Tour through the 17 whole island of England and Wales, described how all the countryside around Chichester Harbour and Langstone Harbour was given over to corn production, the corn being ground in the local mills and sent to London by sea 'in the meal'. Certainly the land below Portsdown was suited to corn production: the agricultural propagandist William Cobbett travelled through the area in the summer of 1823 and found that the harvest here was the earliest in the kingdom, and that the crops grown – wheat, barley and turnips – were of the finest quality. However, although production was easy, transport of produce from Bedhampton before the advent of railways was always a problem. Transport by sea was in fact the best way, for although Bedhampton was situated on the main Southampton to Chichester road, its condition, like that of most roads of the time, was deplorable. During the eighteenth century there were constant complaints that it was in disrepair, but the parish (which was responsible for the upkeep of the road) had great difficulty in maintaining it because of the small size of the population and consequent small income from the rates. In 1762 the road was taken over by the Cosham and Chichester Turnpike Trust, which paved the road but derived its income by charging heavy tolls for its use, so that the sea route was still cheaper. During the early nineteenth century the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal was constructed which, since it passed through Langstone and Chichester Harbours, might have improved Bedhampton's communications, but it was a failure from the outset and soon ceased operation. The railway between London, Brighton and Portsmouth was completed in 1847, with a station at Havant. Bedhampton's communication and transport problem was thus solved, yet too late to sustain the local agricultural economy. From the 1870s English agriculture as a whole strove increasingly unsuccessfully to compete with cheap imports of grain from North America and meat from New Zealand. In Bedhampton the corn mills closed one by one, and by the turn of the century all had ceased production. However, the freshwater springs which had always hitherto been used to drive the mills of Bedhampton now gained a new use and importance as the source of Portsmouth's water supply. As each mill closed, it was bought, together with its water supply, by the Borough of Portsmouth Waterworks Company. This company had had a pumping station at Havant for a number of years, but, in the face of increasing demand from Portsmouth's rapidly growing population, in 1889 a second pumping station was opened, this time at Bedhampton. In 1902 the capacity of the Bedhampton pumping station was increased, and for the next 25
18 years the freshwater springs of Bedhampton were the main source of Portsmouth's water supply. Bedhampton had thus by the turn of the century lost an independent economic structure of its own, and become merely an adjunct of Portsmouth. This process was hastened after 1906 with the opening of Bedhampton Halt on the railway. It became possible for the inhabitants of Bedhampton to travel daily to work in Portsmouth, and with ever fewer jobs available locally, Bedhampton settled into its modern role as a dormitory suburb feeding the economy of Portsmouth. Illustration of the transition of Bedhampton from an agricultural community to a suburb is provided in a rough and ready fashion by the baptism registers of the parish. From 1812 these gave details of the occupation followed by the father of each child baptised, and by examining how frequently various occupations occur at different periods, the changing picture emerges. Thus during the period 1813-1822, the occupation mentioned in the Bedhampton baptism registers more often than all other occupations combined, is that of agricultural labourer. Millers are also much in evidence, and to a lesser extent farmers and agricultural craftsmen: wheelwrights, blacksmiths, shoemakers, a basketmaker. One innkeeper and one soldier appear, together with various maritime occupations: fishermen, mariners, lightermen, a pilot. No 'gentlemen' of independent means occur; more detailed research would be necessary to ascertain the reason for this. The overall impression thus gained of Bedhampton around the year 1820 is of a purely agricultural community. During the period 1870-1879, the occupation of agricultural labourer still occurs almost as frequently in the Bedhampton baptism registers, and both millers and farmers are still much in evidence. However, the agricultural crafts and marine occupations have almost entirely disappeared. Railwaymen now appear in some numbers, as do brickmakers, bricklayers and joiners, denoting an increase in building activity. Middle class professional and commercial occupations also appear for the first time: greengrocers, an accountant, a chemist. 'Gentlemen' of independent means now appear quite frequently, and indeed their servants – gardeners, coachmen, bailiffs, gamekeepers - form the second largest group after the agricultural labourers. The armed forces also appear in larger numbers. So the picture we get of Bedhampton around 1875 is of a community in transition from an agricultural to a commercial economy. During the period 1927-1936, the Bedhampton baptism registers indicate that the occupation of agricultural labourer is in sharp decline, and the most common occupations are now general labouring and the armed forces. The farmers are 19 much fewer in number, and the millers have totally disappeared. Railwaymen still appear, and bricklayers in even greater numbers. Commercial occupations, both middle and working class, form a considerable group: shop assistants and managers, bank clerks, commercial travellers. Another sizeable group of occupations are those based on motor transport: lorry and van drivers, chauffeurs, mechanics, an AA patrolman. The 'gentlemen' and their servants appear in declining numbers, but the professional group – teachers, dentists, solicitors is growing. The impression thus gained of Bedhampton around 1930 is of a moribund agricultural economy: work is no longer found locally, by and large, but mainly in the commercial and naval economy of Portsmouth. In other words, Bedhampton has completed its transformation from a village to a dormitory suburb. The third question we must ask when considering the history of any community is how many people were there in that community. The quantity of evidence available to answer this question in respect of Bedhampton is surprisingly large but, for the period prior to the inauguration of decennial civil censuses in 1801, the quality of the evidence is low. The only indisputable fact that emerges is that Until this century the population of Bedhampton was very small, numbering no more than a few hundred people. (I should mention here that I am indebted to Mr Stapleton of Portsmouth Polytechnic for supplying me with much of my demographic data relating to Bedhampton, though the responsibility for its interpretation rests on me alone.) Partly because of the nature of the evidence, and partly because I believe it enables us to visualize the local community more easily, I have concentrated more on establishing the number of households or economic and social units in Bedhampton at various periods than on attempting to guess vaguely at the total population. Indeed, even if we could establish exact population figures for past centuries, the figures would be delusive, for they would contain a far higher proportion of children (many of whom would not survive childhood) and a lower proportion of economically active adults than we are used to today. The Domesday Survey of 1086 indicates that at that date there were 19 tenants of the manor of Bedhampton, and seven ministers attached to the church. Havant was at this time of a similar size; its subsequent relative growth is perhaps attributable to the lack of any demesne land there: in Bedhampton the manorial tenants held their land in return for work on the lord's demesne, whereas in Havant the development of commercial and industrial life was necessary so that the tenants could pay a cash rent for their land. 20 The inquest following the death of the lord of the manor of Bedhampton in 1327 shows considerable growth in the size of the village, for by that date there were 45 manorial tenants. Even supposing that only 40 of these lived at Bedhampton (the others merely holding land there), the village probably had twice as many households in 1327 as in 1086. However, as we have seen, the Black Death of 1348-1349 reduced the value of the manor by half, and obviously had a drastic effect on the population of the village. Even by 1525, when we have the evidence of the Lay Subsidy Rolls, the number of taxpayers was only 26: allowing for those exempt on grounds of poverty this still indicates only about 35 households, fewer than in 1327 and not many more than in 1086. Worse was to come: in 1558 and 1559 an influenza epidemic hit the entire country. Hampshire was in fact the first county to be affected, and though we have no direct evidence for Havant or Bedhampton, the Farlington burial register which survives from this period shows that there, almost twice as many burials took place in 1558-9 as in the whole of the previous 20 years. The Lay Subsidy Rolls for Bedhampton in 1586 show only 10 taxpayers, as opposed to 26 only 60 years previously. Allowing for exemptions, we may perhaps assume a figure of about 15 households in the village in 1586 – fewer indeed than 500 years previously! The Ecclesiastical Census of 1603 called for a parish-by-parish count of the number of communicants – in other words Anglican men and women but not children. The figure for Bedhampton was 55, which might indicate about 25 households, but unfortunately this projected estimate is vitiated by the fact that we do not know the strength of recusancy in the parish at this period. The manorial survey of 1632 names 33 tenants which, allowing for those who resided elsewhere, perhaps indicates about 28 households in Bedhampton – fewer than 300 years previously. The survey actually allows us to compute the amount of land held in the manor by each tenant, from the 200 acres of Nicholas Binsted to the one acre of Joan Carter. Roughly a third of the tenants in fact had such small amounts of land that they must be classed as impoverished. This estimate of the incidence of poverty in the village fits in well with the local returns for the Hearth Tax of 1665; 26 households, including seven exempt on grounds of poverty. The ecclesiastical census of 1676 – the Compton Census – gives the number of communicants in Bedhampton parish as 48 (as opposed to 55 in 1603) and the number of recusants as seven. This may indicate again about 26 households in the
21 village; the slight decline in population during the century being attributable perhaps to the general dislocation of life caused by the Civil War in mid-century. From 1686 the parish registers of Bedhampton survive. Because of the relatively high level of recusancy in the area, emanating from the Cotton family of Warblington Castle, lords of the manor also of Bedhampton, I am exceedingly wary of attempting to compute population figures from the Anglican registers. Furthermore, the effectiveness of registration may well have varied at different periods: at certain periods the registers have obviously been compiled with care, whereas during for example the 1730s a semi-literate curate seemed to have been entrusted with registration, with devastating results. However, I do think that general trends can be established by a comparison of annual baptism and burial figures, and that local population crises – such as epidemics – can be identified. Between 1686 and 1760, years when baptisms predominate occur only slightly more frequently than years when burials predominate. After 1760 this pattern changes markedly, and years when baptisms predominate become the norm; indeed, during only six years between 1761 and 1850 do burials outnumber baptisms. Furthermore, from about 1800 the actual number of baptisms begin to rise rapidly, whereas burials stay at the same rate. In fact, given the small population of the parish, what this actually means is that after 1800 the annual rate of baptisms went into double figures whereas the annual burial rate stayed in single figures! To return to years of population crisis in Bedhampton, I had an idea that these, whether caused by poor harvest or epidemic, ought to be reflected also in the Havant and Farlington burial registers, as well as in those for Bedhampton. However, this proved to be only partly true. Years of population crisis in Bedhampton were 1705, 1729, 1732, 1746-7, 1759, 1820 and 1847. These were always reflected either in Havant or Farlington, but never in both together. The most interesting years were 1746-7, when over 100 people died in Havant (three times the average) and 20 people in Bedhampton, and 1759, when 13 people died in Bedhampton, 12 of them in October and November of that year. Twelve people also died at Farlington in 1759; unfortunately the contemporary Havant Burial Register contains a note that the entries from 1758-1761 were 'destroyed by accident’. The evidence derived from the Bedhampton parish registers regarding local population trends – namely of a static level of population until about 1760 and a steady rise thereafter – is borne out by the population figures given in the two eighteenth century Episcopal Visitation returns for the parish of Bedhampton. In 22 1725 there were apparently 161 inhabitants of the parish, including 69 papists, described as farmers and others of little note - illustrating the strength of recusancy in the parish and the relative weakness of the Church of England. In 1788 there were about 270 inhabitants – a considerable rise, although this figure includes only 20 papists, including children and servants, and about six protestants. By 1801, as we learn from the first national civil census, the population had risen slightly to 305. By the time of the 1901 census, a century later, the population of the village had risen again to 712. Thus during the course of the nineteenth century Bedhampton's population more than doubled; however, to put this into perspective, it is worth noting that the population of Portsmouth over the same period rose six times from 32,000 to 190,000 people. Bedhampton was in fact experiencing relative stagnation during the nineteenth century, but was to achieve its apotheosis during the present century as a suburb of Portsmouth. For while the population of Portsmouth itself between 1901 and 1971 rose only marginally from 190,000 to 197,000 people, Bedhampton grew from a village of 712 people in 1901 to a suburb of 6,275 people in 1971 – a nine fold increase in 70 years! However, we must not fall into the error of seeing Bedhampton as a stable community, with families staying in the village for centuries. In fact preliminary research suggests quite the opposite. Only four of the ten surnames which appear in the 1586 Lay Subsidy return for Bedhampton are to be found among the 1632 manorial survey's 33 surnames. Some purely local migration during these 50 years is evident: seven surnames which occur in Havant in 1586 and one which occurs in Farlington are to be found in Bedhampton by 1632. Nevertheless, this still means that of the 33 surnames found at Bedhampton in 1632, only 12 can be traced in the area 50 years previously – in other words nearly two-thirds of the population of the village had no long-term connection with the area. Similarly, of the 33 Bedhampton surnames occurring in 1632, only nine can be traced in the parish registers between 1686 and 1720, again indicating that roughly two-thirds of the population had migrated into the village within the previous 50 years or so. Two families do however have a long history in the village. The surname Mengham is mentioned first in a fourteenth century court roll of Bedhampton, and survives in the area to the present day – in the current telephone directory for the Portsmouth area, eight Menghams appear, six of whom live in the Havant/ Leigh Park/Bedhampton area. Originally weavers, the Menghams were extremely numerous but also poor by the eighteenth century. The surname Hipkin, though 23 less common in Bedhampton than Mengham, first occurs locally in the sixteenth century and again is still to be found in the area today. Their fortunes seem to have improved over the centuries. In fact by using the techniques of family reconstitution on the raw material provided by the Bedhampton parish registers, it would be possible to discover much about the class structure of the village and the changes therein over the centuries. I am aware that all I have done in this talk is to supply the bare bones the skeletal structure of a history of Bedhampton. I am aware that there are many aspects of the history of the village on which I am ignorant and have not therefore attempted to speak. I am aware that there are interesting and important parts of the history of Bedhampton which I have passed over in my talk since they could not be fitted into its general scope. I have, for instance, for the purposes of this talk ignored widow King, who in 1696 was chosen as one of the two 'overseers of the poor people' of the parish – a surprisingly early instance of a woman appointed to a parish office. I have similarly ignored during ray talk the intriguingly progressive resolution passed unanimously in 1832 by the Vestry or parish council of Bedhampton, when it was decided 'after the most mature consideration that the only plan to give effectual relief to the poor will be by rendering their minds independent and it is therefore resolved unanimously that a parcel of ground as near as possible of ten acres be hired by the parish and let out in half-acre plots to such persons as the parish may judge most worthy and deserving of such benefit' Interesting as these and other such details are, they are after all only flesh on the bones of Bedhampton's history, and I have judged it more useful to give you the skeleton of that history rather than merely the boneless and disjointed flesh. I hope in conclusion that you will not pass on me the judgement of an anonymous nineteenth century wit:
Yes you can spout and you can preach, But what does all your talking teach? We know as much when you have done, As when you that long speech begun.
Editor's Note. This is the text of a lecture delivered by Mr. Eeles to a joint meeting of the Friends of Portsmouth City Records Office and the Portsmouth Museums Society on 21 October 1982.
24 A Brief History of Bedhampton
Mavis Smith
In A.D.501 Saxons invaded Portsmouth, defeated the inhabitants and took possession of all the surrounding countryside, including Bedhampton. During the next three hundred years development and changes took place, as records exist that in A.D.837 the Manor of Bedhampton and its land were granted to the Cathedral Church of Winchester by Egbert, King of Wessex. During the reign of the Saxon King Alfred, Danish invasions commenced, pillaging the village and laying it to waste. Further invasions took place until all England was conquered and Canute proclaimed King. Story has it that it was at nearby Bosham where Canute demonstrated he was unable to repel the sea. Soon after his death in 1035, Bedhampton Manor was let to Alsi who held it until the Normans took possession in 1066. In 1086 William The Conqueror ordered a census of the whole land – the Domesday Book – and under the heading “The land of St. Peter, Winchester”, Bedhampton has the distinction of a direct mention. The entry states “Hugo de port ten. de abbatia BETAMETONE.” (Hugo de Port holds BETAMETONE from the Abbey). As time progressed Bedhampton’s name changed from Betametone to Bethameton and Bethametona (one source dates these uses from 1167 and 1242) to Bedhamton through to Bedhampton. In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson’s Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Bedhampton like this:
Bedhampton, a village and a parish in Havant district, Hants. The village stands on Langston harbour, adjacent to the South Coast railway, 1 mile W of Havant; and it has a post office under Havant, commands a charming sea-view, and is noted for its fine springs. The parish comprises 2,416 acres of land and 190 of water. Real property, £4,182. Pop., 576. Houses, 119. The property is divided among a few. The manor once belonged to a dowager Countess of Kent, who took a nun’s vow in grief for the death of her husband, afterwards married Sir Eustace Dabrieshes-court, founded a chantry in penance for her marriage, and died here in 1411. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Winchester. Value, £328 Patron, E. Daubeny, Esq. The church is a small, old, substantial edifice, with pointed steeple.”
25 Bedhampton
Bedhampton, a former village, is now a suburb located in the Borough of Havant. It is to be found at the northern end of Langstone Harbour and at the foot of the eastern end of Portsdown Hill and is close to the A27, M27 and A3(M) roads. Modern Bedhampton has a railway station one mile west of Havant with services to Portsmouth, Brighton and London together with connections to Southampton, Bristol and South Wales. The Havant to Portsmouth railway was opened in 1847 but Bedhampton Halt did not open until April 1, 1906. In the late 1940s it came under the control of Havant for staffing. During August 2007 the old platform surfaces were upgraded, new shelters and railway gates added in addition to Platform 1 (eastbound) being extended to make it suitable for longer trains.
Churches
There has been a church in Bedhampton since 1086. The present Parish Church of St Thomas The Apostle, situated in Lower Bedhampton, dates from the 12th century. In 1953 a church centre was built and dedicated to St. Nicholas. There is also a Methodist church in Hulbert Road. A Gospel Hall built between 1901 and 1902 with funds provided by a local benefactress, Miss Isabella Dennistoun Meiklam, was closed in 2010.
Parks
Bedhampton is well served with open spaces where people can relax. The Hermitage Stream Walk runs to the north of the parish, from New Road to Purbrook Way. In the centre of Bedhampton is a large open space bounded by Hooks Lane, part of which is home to the Havant Rugby Football Club. To the south of Bedhampton Road is Bidbury Mead, a large tree lined recreation ground, which is home to the Bedhampton Mariners Cricket Club and the Bedhampton Bowling Club. People also enjoy the space and facilities provided at Scratchface Recreation Ground situated to the north-west of the village.
Schools
The House of Commons Education Enquiry, 1835, records that there were two ‘Dame Schools’ in Bedhampton in 1833. The old Bedhampton School was built in 1868 on the corner of Bedhampton Road and Kingscroft Lane to the design of Richard William Drew, a London architect. Miss Dust was the original mistress, serving at the school until 1876. On reviewing her logbook she records that she 26 had to “reprove a boy for fighting”. Further she appears to have been frequently visited by the squire, William Stone, M.P. and the rector, Revd Edmund Daubeney, B.A. Bedhampton School Board was formed in 1871, the land and school was leased to the Board in 1873 to be used as a school, Sunday school and public meeting rooms. Also in 1873 the school was enlarged and again in 1895 for about 180 children. The school closed in 1985 and for a time was the Bedhampton Arts Centre but has now been converted in to flats. However, this Grade II listed building still remains largely intact. After World War II, school places were at a premium and extra places were created by converting part of the former HMS Daedalus III Naval Camp into Stockheath Primary School. This was located where Tarrant Gardens has now been built. In 1974 Hampshire County Council decided to split the primary intake. A new school, for the older children, was built on land adjacent to Hooks Lane Recreation Ground; this school was named Bidbury Middle School. A long campaign commenced to move the Stockheath First School to the same site. This eventually took place in February 1985 and in 1994 they became Bidbury Infant and Junior schools. Bedhampton is also home to a Roman Catholic Primary School, St Thomas Moore’s.
The Roman Catholic Church
Christine Houseley
The present Roman Catholic Church in West Street was built in 1875 to replace the chapel in Brockhampton Lane, which was too small to serve the needs of a growing community. By this date, the Brockhampton Chapel was also considered to be too far from the town centre, though its secluded position must have been greatly in its favour in the days before the passing of the 1791 Catholic Relief Bill. Throughout penal times Havant played a vital part in the preservation of the ‘Old Faith’ in Hampshire. The Elizabethan Settlement, which imposed fines for non- attendance at the services of the established Church of England, was strongly resisted throughout the county. Havant was a centre of this resistance, both because of the position of the town near the sea routes to the continent, and because of the adherence to the catholic faith of many of the local families of 27 gentry. In addition, Havant had been since the Middle Ages one of the manors belonging to the Bishops of Winchester, and as such was outside the direct jurisdiction of the ordinary ecclesiastical authorities. This fact may help to explain why a mission flourished there at a time when there was no catholic church or chapel in either Portsmouth or Chichester. Portsmouth was in Brockhampton Parish until after the passing of the Catholic Relief Bill, when a chapel was built at Portsea. A Catholic Mission with a resident priest was established at Langstone in about 1711. Before that date the catholics in the area were ministered to by visiting priests, and by the chaplains secretly maintained at some of the great houses in the area. The mission moved to Brockhampton in 1750 or 1751, and a house and chapel were built near Budds Farm by Father David Morgan.
The altar in St Joseph’s Catholic Church.
28
St Joseph’s Catholic Church.
These were completed in 1752. The Bulbeck manuscript, written between 1896 and 1899, describes:
29 A very substantially built house and chapel. The house is in the front, the chapel over the kitchen, scullery, pantry and staircase from the outside leading to it – stables for the use of the congregation.
Existing photographs show that the exterior of the building effectively concealed the chapel. Built at a time when the penal laws against catholics were still in force, the chapel contained a hiding place for the priest in a tiny choir loft. Even when the laws were relaxed, the notice board at the door only said: Afternoon Prayers on Sundays (not Mass). Two priests were based at Brockhampton to minister to catholics over a wide area. Writing to Bishop Douglas in London in 1814, Father Richard Southworth (a descendant of the martyred John Southworth, and parish priest of Brockhampton for 30 years), described his congregation as follows:
The whole, including men, women and children, servants in protestant families and others, from what I can calculate amount to nearly 200 souls; all of whom may be considered as belonging in one way or other to this mission. A good many live at a considerable distance in various directions: and of these several do not frequently come to the chapel; and some few but seldome, owing to greater distance or difficulty.
This is scarcely to be wondered at in a parish which stretched from Chichester to Portsmouth and beyond. For those who did not own horses, it must have been well-nigh impossible to attend chapel regularly. The Bulbeck manuscript mentions an old lady who could remember people coming to take their horses for £5 each from their farmyard to get to mass on Sundays. The priests, too, were forced to do a great deal of travelling. The Brockhampton Registers record baptisms at Hilsea, Fareham, Portchester and Portsmouth to the west, and Chichester, Fishbourne and West Wittering to the east. It was during Richard Southworth's time at Brockhampton that the chapel became known as St Joseph's. Father Southworth described in a letter how he had put his flock under the special patronage of St Joseph, as he had received holy orders on the feast day of that saint. The first of the Baptismal Registers kept at the present church in West Street, bears on its title page the inscription: Liber Baptisatorum in Ecclesia Sancti Josephi Apd. (Brockhampton) Havant. The volume records baptisms during the period 1855–1956, with no mention of the change of building. After the move from Brockhampton to West Street, the old chapel was used as a ballroom and a fruit and vegetable storeroom until it was destroyed by fire. 30 The present church was built for the sum of £3,000, including the presbytery and school. The money was raised by the sale of property in the town and by a subscription started in 1836 by John Bulbeck. A field was bought at Town's End, through which the Hayling Billy Leisure Trail now passes, and plans were drawn up by Mr Scoles. Very hideous – that would have settled the attempt to build if there had been nothing else to do so! remarks the writer of the Bulbeck manuscript. It seems that other people agreed with him as Mr Scoles' plans were never used. When the present church was built on a site in West Street donated by Mr West the architect was Mr J Crawley of Bloomsbury, London. Mr West also gave the window over the altar and built the wall round the cemetery. The Hampshire Telegraph's account of the opening of the church on 15 August 1875, states that: The great feature in the church is the altar, which is one of the best, if not the best, we have seen in the district. The altar was the gift of the same John Bulbeck who started the subscription for the church. Its carved panels represented scenes in the life of Saint Joseph. With the rearrangement of the sanctuary in 1974, the panel depicting the death of St Joseph was moved from the base of the original altar to the front of the new free- standing altar table. Admission to the church on the occasion of its opening in 1875 was by ticket only, which cost 5s. (25p) each, a great sum in those days. Nevertheless, the church was crowded with people, including many of the poorer members of the faith, to hear mass and a sermon preached by Cardinal Manning. After the service, the clergy and a large number of the congregation proceeded to the town hall where luncheon was served by Mr J Purnell of the Dolphin Hotel. The church was consecrated 32 years later on Thursday 18 April 1907. The ceremony, with its three processions round the church for the blessing of the walls and the consecration of the altar stone, began at 9.15am and ended at 12.15pm. In the evening the church was again full of people gathered for a special service of thanksgiving. By the time the move was made from Brockhampton Lane to West Street, the mission was served by one priest only instead of two. The opening of other catholic churches in the neighbourhood had diminished the area that the Havant priests were expected to serve, although baptisms at Portsmouth are recorded in the registers as late as 1877. However, with the building of the Leigh Park housing estate, the number of people in the parish became very much greater than at any time in the past. In 31 1950 a Mass Centre was started in Emsworth, and the priest at St Joseph's was granted the help of a curate in 1952. Leigh Park became a separate parish in 1964. St Joseph's Church celebrated its centenary in 1975, with a special mass said by Bishop Worlock of Portsmouth and watched on closed circuit television in the parish hall by those who could not squeeze into the church.
Hidden Bedhampton Compiled by Alan Palmer Introduction
For many people Bedhampton is just a few more houses on the way to Portsmouth, but there has been a village here for at least a thousand years. The old village is only a few yards from a busy railway line, and the A27 trunk road, but it remains quiet and peaceful. You can stroll along a lane that hasn't changed much in two hundred years, then drive to the motorway in two minutes. Why not follow the Bedhampton Trail and discover this delightful place with its mixture of old and new?
Bedhampton Village Trail
A circular walk starting and ending in Bidbury Lane car park.
Go through the gate into the churchyard, and follow the path, bearing left past the Church to the other gate. There are several interesting tombs here, especially the Snells and the Snook family to the right of the path, the Lee family under the yew tree, and by the other gate, Miss Isabella Meiklam – you will find their influence later on. The Parish Church of St Thomas is 12th century, and probably stands on the site of an earlier Saxon church. It has been extensively changed and adapted, rebuilt and modified, over the years, not always to universal approval. There is a very readable guide book to the Church, which gives full details of the building and its history, and also contains information on the early history of the village and the Manor. Opposite the Church, on the corner of Bidbury Lane and Mill Lane, is Bidbury House, a Georgian residence dating from about 1760, with a very unusual asymmetric frontage. Note the characteristic local brickwork on the north wall, facing the Church, where warm red bricks are used in contrast with the blue-black headers. Bidbury House has had many owners or tenants over the years, a mixture of clerics, tradesmen, military officers, and gentlemen. The best-known was
32 Commander William Snell, who bought it to let in 1895, when he retired after a distinguished naval career. As you leave the churchyard, turn right into Bidbury Lane. The next large house, sadly concealed behind its high wall, is the Rectory. Another imposing 18th-century building, it has many interesting architectural details, such as blind windows. It became too large for modern church use, and so the much smaller new rectory was built next door in 1958. Turn up Edward Gardens opposite the rectory to the Manor House. The core of the house is probably 16th century, but can only be seen from the rear. The side wings and the facade are Victorian additions in the Tudor Style. Rescued from demolition in 1967, the Manor House, together with The Elms and The Lodge, is now owned by the Manor Trust which provides homes for the elderly. Retrace your steps to Bidbury Lane, turn right, and continue along the road until you reach the junction by the stream. Ahead of you as you approach the junction is The Elms. Originally built in the 17th century, it was altered and extended in the 18th in a bold Gothick style, providing a sophisticated contrast to the conservative Georgian houses in the old village. On the north side is a castellated and ornamented tower, with the arched entrance to a fine ballroom said to have been built specifically to entertain the Duke of Wellington. The Duke was related to the owner, Sir Theophilus Lee, whose family tomb with its sad inscription you may have seen in the churchyard. The Waterloo Room is now well looked after by the Manor Trust and is home to their annual Art Exhibition in May, and many Bedhampton Society events. Also worth a look at this point is Manor Cottage (originally a pair) on the left hand side. Note that the familiar red and blue coloured brickwork is not exclusive to the grander houses. Turn right and walk up beside the brook which would have provided early Bedhampton with its water supply. It is fed by a spring in the garden of one of the houses at the north end of the road, and by a stream from the other side of the main road which is now channelled through a culvert. Cleaning the stream is a popular annual event which demonstrates the fondness local people have for their brook. Brookside Road was the main street of the village, and until the early 19th century was the main Chichester to Portsmouth road. Note how the character of this 1,000-year-old village is continuously changing – there is now only one building on this stretch much more than fifty years old. This is Spring Lawn
33 House, halfway up on your left. Built in the early 19th century this pleasant- looking house demonstrates the sense of elegance and proportion of its time. As you reach the main road, keep to the right hand side. Pause and look straight ahead across the road. There is a visible kink in the boundary walls and fencing opposite, which indicates the original alignment – until about 1800 the road went straight on at this point and then made a sweeping curve, of more than 90 degrees, to the right. Two important events probably influenced the construction of the new Bedhampton Road to your right – the building of Belmont House around 1735, and the establishment of the Cosham to Chichester Turnpike Trust in 1762, with its objective of improving and maintaining the main road. Belmont House was built on the slight rise across the main road, ahead and to the right of where you are now, very close to the original road. You will get a better view of the location later on. The new straight stretch to your right cut off the long curve, and replaced the road leading past Belmont House. Part of the old road was retained as the carriage drive to the house, with gates and a lodge opposite Brookside road. The other new section, up the hill to your left – Bedhampton Hill – provided a straight if rather steep alternative to the narrow and twisting original road at the bottom of the village. On the other comer of Brookside Road, facing the junction, there was from the 1880s until 1971 a row of shops, run over the years by four generations of the Coldman family. As well as a grocery store, there was a bakery and butcher's shop, and for many years Bedhampton Post Office. The bakery is still remembered for its superb cottage loaves. In the sharp angle between Bedhampton Hill and Portsdown Hill Road, facing east (downhill), was the original Belmont Tavern. With the pub, shops on the corner, and quieter, narrower roads, and the entrance to the big house, this was a focal point of the village, although the buildings here were not particularly attractive or elegant in themselves. Now turn right and continue along Bedhampton Road. On the other side of the road you can see houses built in the 1950s on the site of Belmont House – Bedhampton's 'Big House'. Belmont House was built about 1735 for the Rt Hon William Talbot, later Lord Talbot. The house faced east, standing roughly just beyond the pub, where Norman Way is now. The estate was about 150 acres, stretching as far as the top of Portsdown Hill. Belmont had a succession of colourful owners, but perhaps the most important were Sir George Prevost (1767-1816) and Sir James Stirling (1791-1865). 34 Prevost lived at Belmont from about 1805 when he was created 1st Baronet of Belmont, taking his title from his new residence. As a Major-General he was Lieutenant-Governor of Portsmouth Garrison from 1806 to 1809, and then held high office in Canada and British North America. Unfortunately, his unsound strategy in the 1812 war with the United States led to him being ordered home for court-martial, but he died before it could be convened. Stirling explored the Swan river in Western Australia, founded the site of the future city of Perth, and remained there as the first Governor of Western Australia until 1839. He owned Belmont from 1846 to 1860. In 1937 the remaining portion of the estate was sold for housing development, and the house was demolished in 1938. A few houses were built before World War II, then the site was used by the Royal Navy for a transit camp. The new Belmont pub was built in 1969 complete with its misleading sign – "Belmont" means 'Beautiful Hill' – nothing to do with bells! As you continue along Bedhampton Road, on your right, behind the hedge, traces of a mediaeval field system, with its characteristic long narrow strips, could be detected until the modern houses were built. Pause for a moment by the traffic lights, where three roads meet. The turnpike road was new in the 1800s, Hulbert Road, opposite, was built about 1880, but the main road on towards Havant was first built by the Roman army, soon after the invasion in AD43. Some people say that parts of the present surface are original too. Continue past houses built in the 1930s in ‘ribbon development’ along the main road, before such expansion was curtailed by the planners. On the other side of the road, the houses and shops date mostly from the 1920s and mark the start of rapid expansion of the village. After a few hundred yards, you will see ahead of you the original village school, built in 1868, and now converted in to flats. The new village school was built in 1974, on the other side of the main road, out of sight behind the houses. You are now approaching the eastern half of the village, and some of the buildings here date back to the 18th century. Bedhampton grew up in two distinct parts, separated by fields and parkland. The halves did not join together until 1950s housing closed the gap. Cross the lane and walk on along the main road past the old school. Most of the architectural interest here is on the other side of the road. The office of the tyre workshop is very old and was once a pub called The Wheelwright's Arms. The Gospel Hall, now converted in to flats, dates from 1901/2, and its manse, 35 Dennistoun House next door from 1904/5. Both were built for Miss Meiklam, who was a leading local figure in the contemporary religious movement away from the Anglican church (but still managed to get herself buried right outside the door of the Parish Church of St Thomas). The Golden Lion, next door, has been licensed since the early 18th century. There are some old buildings below the pub, some of which were shops in earlier times. At the bottom of the hill is the railway, built in 1846-47, although there was no station here until 1906. The route of the original Roman road, and 18th century turnpike, continues through the level crossing and on towards Havant. New Road, sweeping away to the left, and now the major road. Legend says this was built at the insistence of Sir George Staunton of Leigh Park, to bypass the two level crossings he found in his way when driving to Portsmouth. In fact he probably went this way as it was across his field and created a track which was later constructed as a proper road by William Stone. There was a toll gate on the turnpike road, approximately where the railway level crossing is. Traditionally the small cottage next to the railway footbridge is supposed to be the toll keeper's cottage, but maps show that this was on the other (north) side of the road. There was a fine Victorian signal box on the Havant side of the gates, on the left-hand side. Unfortunately this was demolished in 1979. On the right-hand side immediately after the railway crossing is the site of Bedhampton's original Primitive Methodist Chapel, built in 1891, and finally demolished in 1997, although the Methodists had moved to Hulbert Road in 1958. Now retrace your steps to the old school. Cross over Kingscroft Lane, and bear left along the footpath. This takes you into Bidbury Mead, with its football and cricket pitches. The footpath across the Mead will take you back to the car park. In the corner, behind the playground, there are springs. There are more near the railway, and many more south of the line. There is not much to see from here, but this is the edge of a huge system stretching away into Havant, that provides much of the water for the entire Portsmouth region. On the left, across Bidbury Lane, on both sides of the railway, was once an industrial area, with mills and an army biscuit factory. When you reach the car park, note the new extension to the Church, built in 1993 to blend in with the old construction. The churchyard wall is also worth a look. By the graveyard, it is made of knapped (fully shaped) flints. Further along, where it becomes the garden wall of the Manor, there is some superb old brickwork, and a very old door set in the wall. From here, you can just see the original timber framed centre section of the Manor House. 36
More
If you have time and energy, there's plenty more. From the corner of the car park by the churchyard wall, cross the road and walk along Mill Lane, with Bidbury House on your right. Take another look at the unusual Georgian frontage, and the successive later additions on the south side. The huge holm oak tree above you was planted when the house was built. The next building along the lane is ‘The Old Granary’. It was built in 1868 as a grain store, during the boom years of the corn trade. Note the ornate frontage for what is basically an industrial building. In the 1930s it was converted into a squash court, and is now a private residence. In the field opposite was a biscuit factory, said to have supplied the army during the Crimean War. The factory had its own railway sidings, one of which came up to level with the granary. Factory and sidings were demolished in the 1890s. Continue up to the crest of the bridge, and take a look at the view to the left eastwards towards Havant. In front of you, one field away, the lanes can be seen to converge on the railway from both sides, and there was a level crossing here, complete with the gate-keeper’s cottage and a signal box. There were sidings on the south (right-hand) side, which although long disused, were not removed until 1964. Most of the visible buildings to the south of the railway belong to the Portsmouth Water Company. Originally there were two corn mills here. The Upper Mill has vanished without trace, but stood at the top of the present pond. Bedhampton Mill was at the other end of the pond. If you walk a little further down the slope, there is a gap in the trees through which you can see the Old Mill House (17), the home of John Snook, mill owner and friend of the poet John Keats. The poet's visits to Bedhampton are mentioned on a plaque at the back of the house, which reads:
"In this house in 1819 John Keats finished his poem "The Eve of St Agnes" and here in 1820 he spent his last night in England"
Unfortunately, this is as close as you can get to the house and its plaque. On your right you will see a sign-posted footpath, which doubles back under the bridge and goes along beside the railway to the water works, then continues to Havant. Even if you don't feel like following the path, it is worth walking the few yards under the bridge, then looking back to get a close-up view of the actual skew arch over the railway line. It is a superb example of the Victorian bricklayer's art. 37 Mill Lane once continued southward to a private quay belonging to the mill, but it has now become a rather muddy footpath popular with dog-walkers. It leads to a footbridge over the A27 trunk road, and then into modern landscaped industrial sites and coastal amenity areas, almost all on land reclaimed over the last fifty years or so. There are several possibilities for pleasant walks in this area, which is very different in character but just as much part of modern Bedhampton as the historic old village.
Diversions
Diversions from the above village walk, of interest to more energetic types – lots of uphill. If you stand at the roundabout at Belmont Junction, you can see two roads up the hill – Bedhampton Hill to the left and Portsdown Hill Road to the right. In earlier times, these were known as the Front Hill and the Back Hill. Both are worth a walk, but note the gradient!
Front Hill
There are some interesting houses on Bedhampton Hill. On the right hand side going up, look out for the first house, much rebuilt but retaining early 19th century brickwork and interesting windows. Number 10 resembles the fashionable Victorian houses built by Thomas Ellis Owen in Southsea, with interesting details reminiscent of contemporary railway station architecture. Further up, number 38 has a superb 1930's frontage. On the left hand side there are three pairs of semi-detached houses (nos. 19 to 29) which take the late 19th-century fashion for ‘long and narrow’ to remarkable limits. On the right hand side, just over the crest, on the original straight alignment, is the site of the home of one of Bedhampton's most famous former residents, Fred T. Jane, Bedhampton Scoutmaster in 1914, and originator of Jane's Fighting Ships and Jane's All the World's Aircraft. Jane was proud of the fact that his house was built on the site of the 'Cat and Fiddle', an old inn with smuggling associations. The turnpike road originally continued on its dead straight course until it met the old road through the village at a dangerous bend at the bottom of the hill, known as Fir Tree corner. It was diverted to the roundabout in 1978 when the A3(M) motorway was built.
38 Back Hill
Continue up Portsdown Hill Road. The houses here are a mixture of mostly 20th century styles. On the corner of The Dell stands a well-proportioned Victorian house which was once Belmont Farm House. All the land to your right, on the north side of the road, was once part of Belmont Park. A little way up the hill, the hollow on the left, which used to contain a bowling alley and a DIY centre, and now a housing development, was once a chalk pit which produced chalk and quicklime for agricultural and building purposes. Continue across the bridge over the motorway, and little further on, you reach Belmont Castle. This dramatic house, known as ‘The Towers’ for many years, was built about 1800 on the site of a 'belvedere' or viewpoint, and belonged to the Belmont estate until about 1860. Miss Meiklam acquired it in 1894. At this point, the road originally went straight on, roughly where the gate into the field now stands. This is the course of a prehistoric ridgeway along the crest of the hill, dating from times when to the north was impenetrable forest full of wild animals and evil spirits, and to the south was swamp and marsh. A short distance along the track is a site known as Bevis's Grave, where there are remains of a neolithic long barrow and a sixth and seventh century Saxon burial ground. The road was realigned to its present position between 1860 and 1868, to make room for a string of forts along the length of Portsdown Hill. The first one was about half a mile further along. The last house along this stretch is worth a look. Called ‘Sunspan’, it is a classic example of Bauhaus architecture, but it is difficult to see properly from the road. It was featured as 'House of the Year' in the 1934 Ideal Home Exhibition. Retrace your steps down the hill. Stop for a moment on the motorway bridge and take in the view southwards, towards the sea. Two hundred years ago this was some of the best corn-growing land in England.
North Bedhampton
What about north of the main road? Nothing much as far as the village is concerned except Belmont Park, until the 1920s. Originally, Scratchface Lane ran round the edge of Belmont Park, and through the woods to Purbrook. The Bedhampton end of the lane was made up during the 1960s. Park Lane, which takes its name from the mediaeval deer park, provided access to the farms and hamlets to the north. Hulbert Road was built privately and opened in 1881 to provide a link through the forest to Waterlooville. Haphazard house building began on these roads around 1900 and gathered pace during the 1920s. This 39 results in an interesting if untidy mix of styles now on these roads. Very rapid expansion followed in the 1950s, when South Hampshire was said to be the fastest growing area in England. The pressure to build more homes continues unabated to the present day.
Long walk
A longer walk, mostly within old Bedhampton, about an hour or so, circular from the car park. Follow the footpath across Bidbury Mead to the old school, then turn right down the main road as far as the railway crossing. So far you are still on the Village Trail. From the railway crossing, follow the old road towards Havant, past mostly 19th-century houses (some originally shops), over the Hermitage Stream which used to be the boundary between Bedhampton and Havant, and take the next right turning into Meyrick Road. Continue along Meyrick Road, noting the 1957-built scout hut, with its resourceful use of recycled materials, on your right. There are some imposing Victorian or Edwardian houses here, now surrounded by modern development. Go straight on along the concrete track, and follow it round to the Water Company's gates. The footpath off to the left is known as Jubilee path. Follow the path, then at the stile turn right over the bridge, crossing the Hermitage Stream again. All around you at this point are signs of the Portsmouth Water Company's activities. Look behind you for glimpses of the huge engine house of Brockhampton pumping station, probably the biggest building in the area when it was built in 1925. The landscape to the south (away from the village) is completely modern – the A27 bypass which you can probably hear if not see was built in 1965, and the factories are about the same age. Before this time, this prospect was bleak and empty marsh all the way to Langstone harbour. Ahead of you, attractively set in the trees at the far end of the lake, is the old Mill House, associated with the poet John Keats. Details can be found in the Village Trail. The path will take you past the 1939-built pumping station on your left, and you can also see the Victorian pumping station to your right. Other than these buildings, there is little outward sign here of this vital industry, but you are now in the middle of a complex of springs that provide vast quantities of fresh (and very hard) water. Several of the springs produce a million gallons a day, and one near the railway sometimes goes up to more than two million.
40 At the end of the path, follow the lane up to the railway. The site of the level crossing is easy to see. On the far side of the line a modern house stands on the site of the original signal box and gate-keeper's cottage. To your left is a new footpath, provided when the railway crossing was closed. This path will take you to Mill Lane, where you can pick up the Trail again. At the start of the path, you pass very close to the site of the Upper Mill, mentioned in the Trail. After the first fifty yards or so, you can see the remains of railway sidings in the paddock on your left. The lake you can see from here was the mill pond for the lower mill, which stood near the house. Approaching from this direction, you get a good view of the railway bridge. Be sure to take a close look at the brickwork of the skew arch over the railway line. How was it done? Follow the path underneath the arches, and up to the lane, then turn sharp left and walk over the railway. From here, Mill Lane will take you back to the car park.
Editorial team: Alan Palmer, Jan Palmer, John Pile, Judith Worley Historical advisor: John Pile Original inspiration: Dean Clarke With invaluable assistance from the members of The Bedhampton Society, especially Harry and Elaine Bradley, June Crate, Jennifer Kyle, Paddy and Michael Williams.
A Remarkable Episode in the History of Bedhampton:
Elizabeth Juliers and Sir Eustace Dabrichecourt, K.G.
The manor of Bedhampton came into the possession of the cathedral church of Winchester by a grant of Egbert, king of Wessex early on the 9th century. The gift is recorded by Sir William Dugdale in his Monasticon Anglicanum, but unfortunately the original charter has not survived. (1) By the 11th century Bedhampton belonged to Hyde Abbey, and just before the Norman Conquest it was held by Alfsi, a tenant of the abbot. At the time of Domesday Book, 1086, Bedhampton was in the hands of the powerful Norman baron Hugh de Port who took his name from Port-en-Bessin, a fishing village in Calvados, about 5 miles from Bayeux. (2) Initially, Hugh held Bedhampton as a tenant of the abbot of Hyde, but his descendants eventually obtained the overlordship, though by what means is unclear.
41 It is not proposed to attempt to follow the descent of the manor of Bedhampton in detail, but to turn to the 14th century, a particularly interesting period in its history. In 1316 Bedhampton was in the hands of Hugh le Despenser the elder, a supporter of the deeply unpopular king Edward II by enfeoffment (under the feudal system, to give someone freehold property in exchange for their support) from John son of Reginald Fitz Peter and his wife Joan. (3) After the death of the king's notorious favourite Piers Gaveston in 1312, Hugh and his son (Hugh the younger) became Edward's closest companions. Bedhampton was in Edward's gift at the time and it was one of the many manors that contributed to his friend's income. However, owing to Edward's infatuation with Gaveston‒well known through Christopher Marlowe's play Edward the Second‒he was estranged from his French wife Isabella who had taken Roger Mortimer as her lover. When the pair returned from France with the nucleus of an army, they had no difficulty in recruiting more malcontents.
Hugh le Despenser was captured at Bristol and executed in 1326. His son was taken a few days later with the king and hanged at Hereford. The king was deposed two months later and died under circumstances that are still far far from clear.
Hugh le Despenser's manor of Bedhampton passed to Edmund Fitzalan, 2nd earl of Arundel, who, although originally an opponent of Gaveston, eventually returned to the king's side. This proved his undoing and he became one of Isabella and Mortimer's prime targets, Edmund, was captured at Shrewsbury and executed at Hereford on 17th November 1326 having enjoyed the lordship of Bedhampton for only a matter of weeks. It was the practice, following the death of a crown tenant to send a commission to the manor to assess its value and to ascertain who the heirs might be. It has long been a puzzle to Bedhampton historians why the capital messuage had become ruinous and worth only 5 shillings ‒ less that the former value of its garden. (4) The answer is to be found in the Calendar of Close Rolls for 1322 where it is recorded that Roger Mortimer's followers had, some four years earlier than the coup of 1326 systematically destroyed Hugh le Despenser's manors across the kingdom, including Bedhampton and Crookhorn. (5) How they managed to cover the ground as thoroughly as Hugh's complaints suggest ‒ from Hampshire to York and from Lincoln to Gloucester ‒ is not explained, but the fact that Bedhampton was indeed destroyed and remained ruinous for the best part of a century bears witness to the deed.
42 Following Edmund Fitzalan's death in 1326 Bedhampton went to Edward I's son, Edmund of Woodstock, another of Isabella and Mortimer's enemies. (6) Remarkably, although several years had passed since Edward II had been deposed and presumably murdered, the pair managed to convince Edmund that the king, his half-brother, was still alive. When Edmund set about rescuing him he was arrested and sentenced to death as a traitor and executed outside Winchester city walls on 19th March 1329. Bedhampton was then granted by Edward III to John Maltravers, steward of the household, in consideration of his agreement to always stay with the king (7), but upon the attainder of Edmund of Woodstock being revoked in favour of his son Edward, 2nd earl of Kent, in 1330 the manor passed to him. (8) Edward, a minor when he received Bedhampton, died on 5th October 1331 aged 5 and the manor passed to his brother John, then only a baby. (9) However, John survived and in or about 1350 he married Elisabeth von Jülich (Juliers in French, which she preferred). (10) Jülich was a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire, between Aachen and Cologne, and John's marriage was probably arranged as part of the plan to gain the support of the strategically important counts and margraves of the Low Countries and Germany in Edward III's wars against the French during the 'Hundred Years War'. John died a day or two after Christmas 1352 leaving Elizabeth childless and in possession of Bedhampton in dower. (11)
Following her husband's death Elizabeth made a vow of chastity and assumed the veil before bishop Edington in the abbey church of Waverley but later fell in love with the gallant and renowned knight Sir Eustace Dabrichecourt, K.G. and was secretly married to him at Wingham in Kent without the necessary licence of the Archbishop of Canterbury and before the sun rose on Michaelmas Day 1360. (12) When Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury heard of this he summoned the couple to his house at Mayfield in Sussex where he imposed the following penance upon them: 'that they should find a Priest to celebrate divine service daily in the chapel of our Lady within the church of Wingham [...] for them the said Sir Eustace and Elizabeth and him the said Archbishop; and that the Priest should every day say over the seven penitential psalms with the litany for them and all faithful Christians, as also Placebo and Dirige for all the faithful deceased; likewise that every morning being risen from his bed that he should say five Paternosters and Aves, kneeling, looking upon the wounds of the image on the crucifix, and as many every night in like sort; moreover, that they, the said Sir Eustace and Elizabeth should find another Priest, continually residing with one of
43 them, to celebrate divine service for them in the same manner as the Priest at Wingham was to do, and to say the seven penitential psalms and the fifteen gradual psalms, with the Litany, Placebo, and Dirige, and commendation of souls from the quick and the dead; and also appointed him the said Sir Eustace and her, that the next day after certain nuptial familiarities they should competently relieve six poor people, and both of them that day to abstain from some dish of flesh or fish whereof they did most desire to eat; and lastly that she the said Elizabeth should once every year go on foot to visit that glorious martyre St Thomas of Canterbury, and once every week during her life take no other food but bread and drink and a mess of potage, wearing no smock and especially in the absence of her husband.' (13)
Whether the penance was observed in every detail is not known, but there is evidence that over the course of the years the demands were reduced. In 1366 bishop William Edington granted Elizabeth a licence to have a private oratory at her manor of Bedhampton, perhaps an indication that this was now her permanent residence. (14) In 1369 she was granted a dispensation to feed one poor person for a certain number of days in lieu of her annual pilgrimage to St Thomas of Canterbury and for certain days of abstinence. (15)
Sir Eustace, who was a Founder Knight of the Order of the Garter (1348), was prominent in several of the battles of the Hundred Years War and his exploits were recorded by Jean Froissart in his Chronicles, composed between c.1380 and c.1405.(16) The following extract describing an incident in the Battle of Poitiers (1356) conveys something of the style of Froissart's writing: 'I related earlier, when describing the battle-order of the French, that the Germans who were on the flank of the Marshals all remained mounted. Sir Eustace d'Aubrecicourt lowered his lance and gripped his shield and spurred his horse out between the armies. A German knight called Sir Louis de Recombes, whose arms were argent, five roses gules, while Sir Eustace's were ermine, two humets gules, came out from the Count of Nassau's detachment to which he belonged, and lowered his lance to meet him. They hit each other at full speed and were both unhorsed, but the German was wounded in the shoulder and could not get up as quickly as Sir Eustace. When the latter was on his feet, he grasped his lance and rushed at his fallen opponent, full of determination to press home the attack. But he had no chance of doing so, for five German men-at-arms leapt upon him and bore him to the ground. He was so overpowered, lacking support from his own men, that he was captured and taken to the Count of Nassau's people, who paid little attention 44 to him just then. I do not know whether he made a formal surrender, but they tied him on a baggage-cart with their spare gear.' Sir Eustace had previously been present at the Siege of Calais, 1346-7 and it is likely that he was at Crécy in 1346. In 1364, four years after his marriage, he was back in France where he fought at the Battle of Auray. He appears to have returned to England where he and his wife presented to the living, as patrons of Bedhampton Church, on 27th June 1372. (17) Having returned to France, he died shortly after on 1st December of the same year in the comté of Évreux, possibly once more on active service. (18)
A series of documents in the National Archives; Chancery: Extents for Debts dating from 1361, reveals that Eustace Dabrichecourt, knight of Surrey and Thomas de Garlick of Cheshire were jointly indebted to John Devenish, citizen and skinner of London and Eudo Purchase, citizen and draper of London to the amount of £336 which the creditors were evidently having difficulty retrieving. (19) Why Sir Eustace and Thomas owed such a large sum or how the two men were associated is not explained, neither is the final outcome of the case, but the proceedings disclose that since his marriage to Elizabeth in the previous year, Sir Eustace now possessed the manor of Bedhampton worth £25 per annum after expenses and the pleas and perquisites of the manorial court valued at £10. He also possessed considerable properties and rents in Somerset worth £178 in total also by right of his marriage. In 1375, in the first year of his archiepiscopacy, Simon of Sudbury ordered that masses be said at Blean in Kent for the souls of Sir Eustace and Elizabeth for works of piety done in the hospital of St Thomas the Martyr in Canterbury, and in 1377 Elizabeth was licensed to choose her own confessor. (20) It is likely that Elizabeth Juliers regarded Bedhampton as her principal residence, on or close to the present manor house, particularly after her husband's death, and it was there that she made her will, It is worth quoting the will as summarised in the Testamenta Vetusta: 'Elizabeth Juliers, Countess of Kent, at Bedhampton, Monday 20th April 1411, 12th Henry IV. My body to be buried in the Church of the Friars Minors in the City of Winchester, in the tomb of John late Earl of Kent, late my husband. To divers churches, to pray for the soul of the said John, and all the faithful deceased. To my dear sister Alice, Countess of Kent, a large portiforum: and I will that after her decease she dispose of the said book to pious purposes, for the health of her soul and mine; to Joan, Countess of Kent, a small missal and a large legend; to the Prioress of Moreton; my manor of Bedhampton. And I appoint Henry Beche, John Mersedon, Chaplain, Gilbert Bammebury, and
45 John Gyles, my execuutors. Witnessed by the Prior of Southwyke, John Uvedale, Bernard Lucas, Thomas Coke Rector of the Church of Bedhampton, Thomas Pulter, Rector of the Church of Wykeham, and others. Proved 29th June 1411.' (21)
It is curious that the prior of Southwick, Thomas Curteys, is not named in the list of witnesses to the will and the impression might be given that it was John Uvedale. Uvedale, however, was lord of the manor of Wickham whose father had been a close friend of William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester. John Uvedale's distinguished parliamentary career as Knight of the Shire (M.P.) for Hampshire began on 3rd November, just four months after he witnessed the will. He was to serve in a further five parliaments. (22)
The remarkable episode of Elizabeth Juliers and Sir Eustace Dabrichecourt's presence in Bedhampton allows us some insight into the political and social history of the parish in the uncertain times of the 14th century. It followed the advent in 1348 of the Black Death with its further visitations, particularly in 1361 and the instability of the lordship of the manor including the raid consequent upon the ten years of Hugh le Despenser's stewardship which virtually destroyed it if the account can be believed. All this against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War, made all the more immediate by the comings and goings of Sir Eustace. Despite her personal problems, resulting mostly, it would appear, from the remarkable hold the Church had over the private lives of even its aristocratic subjects, Elisabeth Julier's long residence in Bedhampton must have given her tenants some sense of stability during this difficult period. Whether she provided any material comfort to the poor of the parish can only be guessed at, but it is very likely considering the terms of her penance.
References
(1) Dugdale, Mon. Angl, 1, 210; Leland, Collectanea, 1, 613 (2) Domesday Book, Hampshire, ed. Julian Munby, Chichester: Phillimore, 1962 (3) Feudal Aids, 2, 120 (4) Inquisitions post mortem, 20 Edw II, No.49 (5) Calendar of Close Rolls, 15 Edw II (1322) (6) Calendar of Charter Rolls, 1 Edw III (1327), No. 82, m. 43 (7) Calendar of Patent Rolls, 4 Edw III, pt. 1 (1330), m. 25 (8) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004, art. Edmund [Edmund of Woodstock], first earl of Kent 46 (9) Feudal Aids, 2, 335 (10) Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families, 1, 2nd. ed, 2011, 483‒85 (11) Ibid. (12) Surrey Archaeological Collections, 3 (1865), 209; Hampshire Repository, 2 (1801), 149‒50 (13) Register of Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury 1349‒1366, fols. 166 & 167; Hampshire Repository, 2 (1801), 150 (14) The Register of William Edington, Bishop of Winchester 1346‒1366, No. 492, Hampshire.Record Series, 7 (15) Richardson op. cit. (16) Froissart, Chronicles, ed. Geoffrey Brereton, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968 (17) Richardson op. cit. (18) Ibid. (19) The National Archive, Doc. Refs. C 131/14/19, C 131/187/8, C 131/17/6 (20) Richardson op. cit. (21) Testamenta Vetusta, pt. 1, 179‒80 (22) John Uvedale (d. c.1440), of Wickham, Hants, biography in The History of Parliament on line: www.historyofparliamentonline.org (accessed 16.9.2018)
John Pile
HAVANT POLICE COURT.
THURSDAY.–Before Admiral O’Callaghan, Captain T. Hodgkinson, and H. Spencer, Esq.
A CONTRACTOR’S FOREMAN ROBBING HIS MASTER.– Charles Holland, a mason, was brought up on remand, charged with stealing a piece of Bath stone, value 14s., the property of Alfred Smith.–Mr. H. Ford appeared for the prosecution.–The prosecutor stated that he was a contractor and builder, residing at Portsmouth. He had been engaged for some time past in doing some work at Farlington Church. During the time he had been there he had not authorised anyone to sell any stone for him. The prisoner was in his employ as foreman of the job, and had never been authorised to sell any stone, either to Mr. Stallard or anybody else. The prisoner had never asked his permission to do so. In consequence of information received, he charged prisoner with having sold some stone. During the week before Easter a man named Cole, the prisoner, and he (prosecutor) were working together in the churchyard, when Cole asked him if he had let Stallard have some stone, and he replied “No.” The same question was
47 repeated in the afternoon, when he (prosecutor) said “What does this mean?” Cole then said “Your stone has gone away in Stallard’s cart.” After this he (prosecutor) said to prisoner “Charlie, what does this mean,” and called his attention to a particular piece of stone which he (prosecutor) had marked previously, and which stone was missing. He asked the prisoner what he had done with it, and the prisoner said it was just the thing for labels, and he had worked it up. On the 2nd inst. He saw the prisoner at the Havant railway-station, and said “Charlie, you have done wrong; you had no business to rob me, as you know the frost has caused great delay and loss on the job.” The prisoner said “I’m very sorry, but I should never have attempted to rob you, if Mr. Stallard had not asked me to do so for him, as he wanted the stone to finish up his job at the Catholic Church.” Mr. Stallard was a builder at Havant, and was contractor for the building of the Catholic Church.–In answer to Captain Hodgkinson, prosecutor said he had not held out any inducement to the prisoner to confess that he had taken the stone.– Cross-examined by the prisoner: The marked stone was about five inches thick, more or less. It stood against the tomb at the entrance to the church.–Thomas Burry, a labourer in the employ of the prosecutor, stated that he had been at work for him for some time at Farlington Church. He remembered seeing the stone in question near a tomb in Farlington Church. Some little time ago the prisoner said to him, “Tom, give us the pull of a saw.” He said “Yes, Charlie,” and then he and the prisoner cut the piece of stone referred to in two with a saw. The prisoner then, pointing to one of the pieces, said “Help me to put this piece into the cart.” A cart which was, he believed, Mr. Stallard’s property, was standing outside, and was in charge of a man named Ketchlow. He helped the prisoner to put one of the pieces of stone into the cart. Afterwards the prisoner called him out of the church and asked him to help him put another piece of stone into the cart, which he did.– William Cole, a bricklayer in the employ of the prosecutor, working at Farlington church, stated that about five weeks ago Mr. Stallard’s cart came to the church between five and six o’clock in the evening. He saw two pieces of Bath stone in the cart, and they were taken away in it. He remembered being at the “Fountain” public-house on the 30th of March, and seeing the prisoner there. The prisoner asked him not to tell Mr. Smith about the stone. He (witness) said he had not done so, and the prisoner said “You have been talking about it.” Witness said “I have only told Davis,” and the prisoner then said “When Mr. Smith pays me, I will pay him.” Subsequently he told the prosecutor that some stone had been taken away in Mr. Stallard’s cart.–A mason named Davis, in the employ of the prosecutor, stated that he worked at the Catholic Chapel after he left work at the Church, and the 48 prisoner paid him for his overtime. On the Thursday before Good Friday he told the prisoner that the stone he saw had not been paid for, and the prisoner said it had.–Mr. Henry Farmer, clerk of the works at Havant Church, deposed to having had a conversation with the prisoner on the subject of the rumour about his (prisoner’s) having sold the stone to Mr. Stallard, when the prisoner said he should not have taken it had he not been tempted to do so. The prisoner said he had taken 7ft. 9in. of stone, which would be worth 2s. 6d. per foot after it was cut.–Mr. George Stallard, a builder, living at Havant, said he was contractor for the works at the Catholic Chapel, Havant. The chapel was partly built of stone. He knew the prisoner. He had two pieces of stone from Farlington Church, for which he paid the prisoner. He had no communication with the prosecutor. The prisoner and the witness Davis were employed by his foreman at the Catholic Chapel after they left work at Farlington Church. He paid 18s. for the stone, and the prisoner gave him a receipt. He was fully under the impression that he was purchasing the stone from Mr. Smith. He entered the stone as being received from Mr. Smith, but the receipt he took for the payment was in the name of the prisoner.–James Bridger, foreman of bricklayers to the last witness, stated that he was sent by his master to Farlington Church to see Mr. Smith about some stone. He saw the prisoner the same evening, and said “Holland, we want to finish the stonework.” The prisoner said “I’ll see Mr. Smith, and I’ve no doubt he will let Mr. Stallard have a piece of stone.” The next night the prisoner said “It’s all right, you can have the stone.” The stone was delivered with a paper, on which was written the measurement of the stone. The paper was handed to Mr. Stallard, who said “I’m much obliged to Mr. Smith.”–P.S. Byles deposed to apprehending the prisoner on a warrant at Sandown. On telling the prisoner the charge, he (prisoner) said “I took the stone, and I shall pay for it when Mr. Smith pays me the money he owes me.”–The prosecutor was recalled, and said he did not owe the prisoner any money.–The prisoner elected to have the case summarily disposed of, and pleaded guilty.–Mr. Farmer gave the prisoner a good character.–Admiral O’Callaghan said the prisoner had placed himself in a very painful position. He would be sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment with hard labour. He cautioned Mr. Stallard to be more careful in his dealings in the future.
Hampshire Telegraph, 17th April, 1875. Transcribed by John Pile, 4th July, 2010.
49 NOTES ON A MEDIEVAL DEER PARK AT BEDHAMPTON
JOHN PILE
The origins of Bedhampton Park are obscure, but John Reger is of the opinion that it was created by Hugh de Port who held the manor of Bedhampton from Hyde Abbey at the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086. (1) There is no mention of a park at Bedhampton in the Domesday Survey, but as the later park would have consisted largely of the wooded part of the estate, the reference to woodland worth 30 swine is significant. In common with the practice in all the south-eastern counties, the value of woodland was assessed in terms of 'swine-rent' (or swine- render) and the 30 swine referred to in the Bedhampton entry appear to represent the rent in kind paid by tenants for pannage in the lord's woodland. The figure 30 is suspiciously round and no definite ratio between swine-rent and the actual number of tenants' swine or acreage of woodland has been shown to exist. (2) The question has long exercised the minds of Domesday scholars and in any case it is likely that the rent varied from one manor to another. Swine-renders of between 1 in 7 and 1 in10 have been proposed and if applied to Bedhampton it would suggest that the manorial tenants may have turned out between 210 and 300 pigs on the park during the mast season. The medieval park at Bedhampton covered most of the northern part of the parish with the probable exception of an area of common land, called Padnell Common in 1632, then 100 acres in extent, to the north of the park. Scratchface Lane probably represents part of the south-western boundary of the park. Reger seems to suggest that Park Lane formed the eastern boundary of the medieval park, but this is not to be supported by the evidence of subsequent land-ownership or the 1842 Tithe Award which shows that the park extended from the boundary between Bedhampton and Farlington on the west and Havant on the east; that is the total width of the manor/parish. I would suggest that the origin of Park Lane lies in a track used by tenants to both access the park for pasturage and to reach Padnell Common beyond. An account of c.1800 states that although disparked and converted to farmland, the area of the park was still defined by a railing eight miles in circumference. Unless the park extended beyond the parish boundaries, the greatest possible circuit would have been about 6½ miles, enclosing some 1,200 acres. However, it appears that the greater figure was based on customary rather than statute measure. The Bedhampton customary acre, still in use in 1800, was two-thirds the size of the statute acre and the customary furlong was therefore approximately 50 four-fifths of the length of a statute furlong, hence the difference in the figures. The red line on the accompanying map indicates the extent of the park according to the Tithe Survey of 1842. Although the park had been long disparked by this date, its former area could be determined accurately as the various owners of the former park paid a modus in lieu of tithe and this arrangement had survived because the proportion of the modus payable on each improved field was far smaller than the tithe rent would have been. The continued existence of a park pale after disparkment is surprising, but it may have served to keep deer off the farmland, for even today deer may sometimes be seen in the area. The remains of a boundary bank may be traced around much of the park. Between SU 695 092 and SU 697 102, the Bedhampton parish boundary probably formed the park boundary which here consists of a broad flat-topped bank about 15 feet wide and a shallow ditch on the park side. A deeper, narrower, V-shaped ditch occurs on the other side of the bank. The total width across the bank and both ditches is about 30 feet, The original deer park boundary probably consisted of the bank and inner ditch. The inner ditch increased the height that deer would have to leap to clear the park pale to get out, but the absence of an outer ditch would allow them to enter the park without difficulty. The bank would have been surmounted by a pale, and the ditch would have been considerably deeper than it appears today. The outer ditch was probably added after disparkment to convert the park bank to a conventional property boundary. Rackham provides a section through the boundary of Monk's Park, West Suffolk, which is remarkably similar to that of Bedhampton Park which I have described. Rackham comments that the broad flat type of bank seems to be associated with woods connected with early deer parks. (4) A park with wild animals, including pasture, pannage, and underwood worth 13s 4d is recorded in an Inquisition post mortem of 1286. (5) And in 1327, following the execution of Edmund Earl of Arundel, an inquisition records park with wood and windfalls at 5s per annum, and "pasture there" valued at £6 per annum. A reference to pannage valued at 8s 6d per annum may also refer to the park. (6) Another Inquisition post mortem, held in 1353 refers to pasture and pannage of park worth 100s. (7) During the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries the Patent Rolls record instances of persons breaking into the park at Bedhampton and hunting deer. Two such documents of 1281 and 1283 appear to relate to a single incident when the authorities were informed of unknown persons who had broken into the park of Reginald son of Peter (ancestors of the baronial Fitz-Herberts who held the manor 51 between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries) and had hunted and taken deer. (8) Another, similar, incident occurred when the commissioners of oyer and terminer were notified in 1329 when the manor was in the hands of Edmund of Woodstock earl of Kent. (9) In 1454 on the occasion of the assignment by King Henry VI to Margaret duchess of Clarence of the Manor of Bedhampton, the agistment (pannage and pasture) of the park of Bedhampton was worth 40 shillings per annum, indicating that at this period at least, the park was being used by the tenants of neighbouring lands when it did not interfere with its primary function as a hunting park. This secondary use of the park may have been well-established at this period, or it may have been a temporary arrangement to increase the income of the manor. The Fine Roll of 1434 also states that the site of the Manor of Bedhampton was at this time "waste and ruinous". (10) A statement in a Patent Roll of 1547 (11), relating to the grant of the manor of Edward VI to Richard Cotton, throws a little light on the management of the park, when a payment of £6 I6d was made to the keeper of Bedhampton Park. Whether this payment represented the annual salary of the keeper is unclear, but Cantor gives the wages of the parker of Madeley Great Park in Staffordshire, as £3 8d in the year 1439/40. (12) Incidentally, the reference to a keeper at Bedhampton in 1547 shows that disparkment had not yet occurred. By 1632 Bedhampton Park had been disparked and converted into pasture and arable farmland, and at this date there appear to have been six farms within the bounds of the former park with a total acreage of about 1,050 acres:
The House paster new pale and Branecroftes 180a Colehill 100a Simoneshill and the Trenche 250a Lodge Grownd 200a The Newe Grownd 80a Duncbury (sic) 240a Total 1,050a
In addition there was "one part of the park copice wood called the litle park", which may be the "copies called the litle park copies contayinge 60 acres", and several other references to land associated with the park. A 'little park' was quite a common appendage to a hunting park, but its purpose is not always clear. Referring to little parks in Hertfordshire, Anne Rowe (14) suggests that they were 'a fashionable adjunct to the lordly residence' but I do not think that could be the 52 case here. The Bedhampton Little Park is at some distance from the manor house and, in any case, the house was rarely occupied by the lord of the manor in medieval times. It may have been fashionable to merely possess a little park, but it is more likely that it served a more practical purpose, perhaps as a place where the deer could be kept during the winter when it might be necessary to feed them. The practice of breaking up deer parks into farmlands became common by the end of the sixteenth century, and the process whereby the owners of parks leased their lands to a series of lessees in turn, each paying progressively higher rents as they improved the quality of the land, is described by Brandon as it occurred in Sussex. (15) A note in the 'Vieuwe' of 1632 explains "that the liberties and bounds of the said park is and ever hath bine 18 foot of grownde from the pale pine (sic) in the outside of the park in every mans lands adioying to the park". Another entry refers to Joan Carter, a customary tenant, who held a cottage and half an acre of land by copy of court roll, built on the waste on condition that she "loke well to the parke gatt at her house on paddell (Padnell) otherwise stat to be void". This gate was probably where the old track from Bedhampton left the park and entered Padnell Common at SU 7017 1063. The later line of Park Lane past Dunsbury Hill Farm was further to the west. It is likely that there was another gate on Park Lane at the point where it entered the park on its southern boundary, at SU 7044 0732, where a typical funnel-shaped exit may be seen on early maps. Remnants of this may be seen in the scraps of roadside verge alongside Park Lane at this point. Although none of the documentary sources examined refer to a rabbit warren within the park, an area of woodland to the north of Middle Park Farm is called 'The Warren' on the 1909 edition of the 6-inch Ordnance Survey map. It is also likely that a tributary of the Hermitage Stream flowing through the park was dammed to form fish ponds. (16) The 'Giant Steps', the Warren Dam flood defences at SU 7051 0897, appear to have been built on an earlier earthen bank shown on the Tithe Map and this, it is suggested, formed the dam between the two medieval fish-ponds mentioned in the 1286 Inquisition Post Mortem of Reginald Fitzpeter, lord of the manor of Bedhampton. It is also suggested that the park- keeper's lodge stood on the site of the later Middle Park Farm farmhouse from which both the fish-ponds and the rabbit warren would have been visible. At the time of the Tithe Survey of 1842 (17) the park appears to have been divided into three farms under different ownership and tenanted by three different farmers. Two further areas which may have formed part of the park were both owned and farmed by John Snook and John Osmond. Little Park Wood and 53 Stubbings Row were owned and occupied by W.P. Snell. The remainder of the area considered to have been former parkland was owned by the Lord of the Manor, Lord Sherborne, and was occupied by his tenant Woodthorpe Clarke. The area occupied by the six farms of 1632 (1,050 acres) agrees closely with that occupied by the three farms of I842 (1,058 acres) and it is likely that the same area is represented. Little Park Wood and the former woodland between it and Park Lane appears to have been a separate land unit in 1632 and was subject to tithe rather than a modus in 1842, and this may represent a distinct 'Little Park' adjacent to Bedhampton Park, the earlier function of which, as suggested above, is not understood. The three principal areas of farmland indicated by the Tithe map and schedule are unnamed, but the farms may be readily identified by ownership. However the names may be supplied from the near-contemporary map of Lewis of 1835 and I would tentatively equate the divisions of the park as follows:-
1631 1842 1833 Owners Lewis’ Map Duncbury 240a ) Dunsbury Farm Colehill 100a ) E. F. Maitland 422a Upper Farm The New 80a ) Ground
Lodge Ground 200a Sir George Staunton, 196a Middle Park Farm etc.
Simonds Hill 250a ) West Farm The Trench ) ) Lord Sherbourne 440a The House 180a ) Lower Park Farm Pasture New Pale and Branecroftes
Totals 1,050a 1,050a
I am indebted to Mr. Graham Eeles of Portsmouth City Record Office for the use of his transcript of the 1632 Vieuwe of the manore of Bedhampton, (abbreviated Vieuwe below).
54
Bedhampton deer park in the early nineteenth century
55 References
(1) Reger, A J C, Havant and Bedhampton Past and Present, Havant, 1975, p 33; reprinted with amendments as Borough of Havant History Booklet No 104, 2018, p 33 (2) Rackham, O, Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape, London: J M Dent & Sons Ltd, 1976, p 61 Darby, H C and Campbell, E M J, The Domesday Geography of South-East England, Cambridge: University Press, 1962, p 320 (3) The Hampshire Repository, vol 2, Winchester, 1801, p 153 (4) Rackham, op cit, p 115 (5) Inquisition post mortem (InqPM), TNA C 133/45, no 2, m 14, quoted by Reger, Bedhampton in 1286 in Hampshire Archaeology and Local History Newsletter (May 1967), vol 1, no 5, pp 60 - 61 (6) InqPM, TNA C 134/103, no 1, m 4, quoted by Reger, Bedhampton in the Middle Ages: part 2 in Hampshire Archaeology and Local History Newsletter (November 1967), vol 1, no 6, pp 76 - 78 (7) InqPM, TNA C 135/118, m 30, quoted by Reger, ibid (8) Calendar of Patent Rolls (CalPR), 10 Edw I and 11 Edw I (9) CalPR, 3 Edw III (10) Calendar of Fine Rolls (CalFR), 12 Edw VI (11) CalPR, 1 Edw VI (12) Cantor, L (ed), The English Medieval Landscape, London: Croom Helm, 1982, p 78 (13) Vieuwe (14) Rowe, A, Medieval Parks of Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire: University Press, 2009, p 12 (15) Brandon, P, The Sussex Landscape, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974, pp 163 - 164 (16) Pile, J, A note on two medieval fish-ponds at Bedhampton in Hampshire Field Club Newsletter, No 13 (1990), pp 14 - 15 (17) Bedhampton Tithe Map, 1842 (based on the Parish Map of 1825), and Schedule, 1842, Portsmouth City Records Office, Ref No CHU26/3/1
______
This article is a revised version of one published under the same title in Hampshire Field Club Local History Section Newsletter, No 1, pt 7 (1983), pp 145 - 148, 150
56 Belmont Naval Camp Bob Hind and John Pile
When Harold Wigan, the owner of the Belmont Park Estate, died in 1937, the house and some 28 acres of land were immediately put up for sale in accordance with his will and were purchased by Messrs Bailey and White of Portsmouth with a view to its development as a residential estate. The builder, John Compton Nicholls of Cosham, started building in 1938 and when war broke out in September 1939 he had completed ten detached houses. Building stopped and the Admiralty took over the estate for a Royal Navy transit camp. Four of the completed houses were requisitioned: No. 2 Queen Anne's Drive became the Commanding Officer's residence and the three houses in Parkside became administrative offices and the camp dentist. The other houses; five in Queen Anne's Drive and one in Roman Way remained in private occupation and were accessed from Hulbert Road by means of narrow pathways between wire fences. No. 22 Parkside retained a number of features from its life as the administrative offices until recent years. The front garden wall was whitewashed to render it visible when approached from Queen Anne's Drive during blackout and the inside of a coal-store at the back of the house was also whitewashed. Inside the house, small screw-holes were visible on the doors to some of the rooms, showing where notices had been fixed to indicate their various uses.
The former naval camp, that was called Belmont, is in the same location as the Belmont estate. Even the road layout is the same. The camp was built within the grounds of Belmont House north of the A27. Its southern frontage ran from the junction of the A27 and Maylands Road to the west to the junction of the Hulbert Road and A27 in the east. The northern boundary was Scratchface Lane.
The main gate was located where the present entrance to the estate from the A27 by the Chinese restaurant car park. The building was as a replacement to the Belmont Tavern, opposite is a small parade of shops. The guardhouse was constructed of corrugated iron and would have stood within what is now the car park.
Across the road from the main gate in a field was located an anti-aircraft gun battery hard against the hedgerow. It appears to have been operated by army gunners, local defence volunteers or the navy depending on who I talked to! It also depended on what part of the war we were talking about. I do know that a sailor Alan ‘Buck’ Taylor manned the gun at one period. 57
Belmont consisted of about 100 Nissen huts along with several brick built buildings. It could hold upwards of 1,500 people at any one time. There was also a detachment of fifty wrens. G.K. Boston of Scarborough told me the camps was called Belmont II and was included in the coastal address for HMS Victory Portsmouth. (Victory Barracks.)
Why Belmont II I do not know as in all my researches I could not find a Belmont I. The camp was well manned with experienced officers and in the sick bay were doctors and dentists. A large house at the junction of Queen Anne’s Drive with Hulbert Road was used for administration and Divisional Office. Defaulters had to parade in the road outside the house.
In this view down Belmont Grove we can see many servicemen walking about. Have a look to the left of the photograph and there are two sailors on guard, standing at ease with .303 rifles. There is some kind of large tunnel opening behind them. I wonder what this was? Notice the amount of flowers down the side of the road. To the right of the photo is the short length of road leading to the main gate and Bedhampton Road.
58
The flowers have all gone and modern housing replaces the Nissen huts. The unnamed road to the right now contains a parade of small shops.
In 1955 Mr and Mrs Morgan bought the franchise for the Bedhampton post office and moved into a wooden hut they had built in Norman Way opposite the shops. They were there for three-and-a-half years until February 1959 when they moved into their new house and premises in Park Lane.
59
Plan of Belmont Camp drawn by John Pile from an aerial photograph with all the roads named. Whether they were named during the war is not known. The main gate was at Bedhampton Road. At the junction of Queen Anne’s Drive and Parkside, three houses have been completed. These were taken over by officers.
60 Smugglers
Among the many smuggling nooks along the Hampshire coast, Langston Harbour was prominent, forming, as it does, an almost landlocked lagoon, with creeks ramifying toward Portsea Island on one side and Hayling Island on the other. There still stands on a quay by the waterside at Langston the old Royal Oak inn, which was a favourite gathering-place of the ‘free-traders’ of these parts, neighboured by a ruined windmill of romantic aspect, to which no stories particularly attach, but whose lowering, secretive appearance aptly accentuates the queer reputation of the spot. The reputation of Langston Harbour was such that an ancient disused brig, the Griper, was permanently stationed here, with the coastguard housed aboard, to keep watch upon the very questionable goings and comings of the sailor-folk and fishermen of the locality. And not only these watery folk needed watching, but also the people of Havant and the oyster-fishers of Emsworth. Here, too, just outside Havant, at the village of Bedhampton, upon the very margin of the mud, stands an eighteenth-century mill. It would have been profitable for the coastguard to keep an eye upon this huge old corn-milling establishment, if the legends be at all true that are told of it. A little stream, issuant from the Forest of Bere, at this point runs briskly into the creek, after having been penned up and made p. 108to form a mill-leat. It runs firstly, moat-like, in front of a charming old house, formerly the miller’s residence, and then to the great waterwheel, and the mill itself, a tall, four-square building of red brick, not at all beautiful, but with a certain air of reserve all the more apparent, of course, because it is now deserted, bolted, and barred: steam flour-mills of more modern construction having, it may be supposed, successfully competed with its antiquated ways. But at no time, if we are to believe local legend, did Bedhampton Mill depend greatly upon its milling for prosperity. It was rather a smugglers’ storehouse, and the grinding of corn was, if not altogether an affectation, something of a by-product. You may readily understand the working of the contraband business, under these specious pretences, beneath the very noses of coastguard and excise; how goods brought up the creek and stored in this capacious hold could, without suspicion incurred, be taken out of store, loaded in among the flour-sacks in the miller’s wagons, and delivered wherever desired. Of course, that being the mill’s staple business, it is quite readily understood that when the business of smuggling declined such milling as went forward here did by no means suffice to keep the great building going. 61 The house, which appears now to be let as a country residence for the summer to persons who neither know nor care anything about the story of the place, has an odd inscription on its gable: The gift of Mr. George Judge at Stubbington Farm at Portsea Hard, in Memory of his very good Friend, Mr. George Champ, Senr. 1742.
That sporadic cases of smuggling long continued in these districts, as elsewhere, after the smuggling era was really ended, we may see from one of the annual reports issued by the Commissioners of Customs. The following incident occurred in 1873, and is thus officially described: On the top of a bank rising directly from high water-mark in one of the muddy creeks of Southampton Water stands a wooden hut commanding a full view of it, and surrounded by an ill-cultivated garden. There are houses near, but the hut does not belong to them, and appears to have been built for no obvious purpose. An old smuggler was traced to this hut, and from that time, for nearly two months, the place was watched with great precaution, until at midnight, on May 28th, two men employed by us being on watch, a boat was observed coming from a small vessel about a mile from the shore. The boat, containing four men, stopped opposite the hut, landed one man and some bags, while the remainder of the crew took her some two hundred yards off, hauled her up, and then proceeded to the hut. One of our men was instantly despatched for assistance, while the other remained, watching. On his return with three policemen, the whole party went to the hut, where they found p. 110two men on watch outside and four inside, asleep. A horse and cart were also found in waiting, the cart having a false bottom. The six men were secured and sent to the police-station; a boat was then procured, the vessel whence the men had come was boarded, and found to be laden with tobacco and spirits. The result was that the vessel, a smack of about fifteen tons, with eighty-five bales of leaf-tobacco, six boxes of Cavendish, with some cigars and spirits, was seized, and four of the persons concerned in the transaction convicted of the offence.
62 Extract from Charles G. Harper’s, The Smugglers: picturesque chapters in the story of an ancient craft, London: Chapman & Hall, Ltd, 1909. A rather fanciful story as there is no evidence that the mill was ever used as a smugglers’ storehouse.
Lower Mill, circa 1908
63 Three Bedhampton Ghosts JohnPile
The Hulbert Road Cyclist
I first heard this story about forty years ago when I was coming home from Cowplain School, where I was teaching, in my friend’s car. We were driving south towards Bedhampton before the A3(M) was built and had reached the bend in the road just before its junction with Purbrook Way, which, if my memory serves me right, had only recently been constructed. I cannot remember what had prompted the conversation, but Bob told me a story about an earlier occasion when another motorist driving this way saw a cyclist in front of him, just at that bend. The cyclist rounded the bend and was lost to the motorist’s view, but when the motorist had turned the bend, only seconds later, the cyclist was not to be seen. As the road was fenced and thickly wooded on both sides and the cyclist was travelling too slowly to have passed out of sight, the only possible explanation was the supernatural one. Further enquiries elicited suggestions that a cyclist had been killed in an accident at that very spot some years before. The truth the matter might be revealed by press reports, or perhaps the story has other and possibly earlier origins. However, there is a date before which a road accident could not have occurred, as the road, built at the personal expense of the landowner George Alexander Hulbert (1827-1894) was first opened to the public on 23 May 1881. There was a gate at each end and it is said that it was made with many curves so that horses could not gallop too quickly along it. Marion Newton and G.H.M. Jackson, The rise and fall of Stakes Hill Lodge: 1800-1973, privately printed, 1981).
The Ghost of the Golden Lion
Information about the ghost that is said to haunt the Golden Lion in Bedhampton is scanty and may be summed up by the following account in The News, Monday, 4 April 1994:
The site [of the Golden Lion] dates back more than 400 years although some customers say there has been a pub their (sic) for nearly 1,000 years. A ghost is reputed to haunt the premises. “It’s supposed to be a
64 servant of the Black Prince although we’ve never seen it,” said Mac [Alisdair MacFarlane, landlord in 1994].
There is another pub in West Street, only a short distance from the Golden Lion, called The Black Prince and it seems likely that the identity of the ghost is due to some kind of mental conflation of the two premises. The significance, locally, of the Black Prince is that during the 14th century he was linked with the lordship of the manor.
Another piece of local folklore that is probably related to the Golden Lion ghost is that Kings Croft Lane, nearly opposite the pub, is popularly believed to have been named following a visit of Edward I. Such a royal visit did take place, but the lane is in fact named after a Mr. King who owned a farm on the site of the old school at the junction of the lane and Bedhampton Road. It can therefore be seen that these stories are many-layered and compounded from scraps of knowledge and half-knowledge – something read, something heard at school many years earlier, and so on.
The Ghost of Roman Way, Bedhampton.
The following story was given to me on Wednesday, 20 June, 2007 by a near neighbour whom I have known for many years and whose daughter experienced the events concerned. To protect my neighbour and the family now living in the house in Roman Way from unwelcome attention I have withheld their details, but otherwise the events are exactly as described.
65 About thirty to thirty-five years ago (from 2007) when my daughter was a girl, she spent the night with her friend who lived in Roman Way. In the morning she was found very agitated and sitting on the pillow on her bed. Her friend’s mother was aware that there was a ghost, said to be that of a Roman soldier, in the house, but it had not been a nuisance and she was happy for it to remain there. On one occasion, the sound of someone walking across the hall was heard, and it was assumed that it was the elderly grandmother who was staying in the house at the time and sleeping downstairs, but on being asked whether she had been up during the night, she replied that she had not left her room. As the ghost was beginning to disturb visitors, the mother, who was a Catholic, decided that the best course was to ask the parish priest to conduct an exorcism. This was done and the ghost has not been heard since.
This is not a verbatim account, but it contains the essential facts as I was told them.
There are a number of points about this story that may be considered relevant. The fact that the house is in Roman Way is obviously important. The road is on a small housing development begun just before the start of World War Two on the grounds of Belmont House, which had been demolished in 1938. Just a few houses had been built before construction stopped and the intervening unused plots were used as a Royal Naval camp. The sick-quarters, now converted into a church hall, incorporated a mortuary. Roman Way was probably so-named because a Roman road, from Chichester to Winchester via Wickham, crossed the housing estate and this had been discovered and excavated when the estate was laid out.
66 The Portsdown Shutter Telegraph
Bob Hunt
By the end of 1792 the French were leading the way in an astounding new system of signalling based on a plan evolved by the six brothers Chappe. The French Empire was using 'levered Semaphores' situated on towers nine to ten miles apart and were able to send messages over hundreds of miles at around 1.75 words per minute. The Admiralty (the Royal Navy Headquarters) in London took note of this because the Napoleonic Wars were now being fought out and a machine was needed which could send and receive any desired message between them and their fleet based at Portsmouth. At this time all messages had to be delivered by Horsemen which at the very best took 4.5 hours. The Reverend John Gamble had invented such a machine and was sent to Portsmouth to carry out trials. This was a five shutter machine allowing 32 (2 power 5) different signals. It was erected on Portsdown and on 6 August 1795 he reported that it was complete and in working order. However the Admiralty had decided to use a design by Reverend Lord George Murray instead. This machine consisted of 6 shutters in two columns in a vertical frame 20 feet high. Each shutter could be either closed or open which gave 64 different permutations (including all open and all closed). During September 1795 successful experimental trials were carried out on Wimbledon Common. Murray was awarded £2,000 for his invention, and Mr. George Roebuck was made Superintendent of Telegraphs on a salary of £300 per annum. The Admiralty to Portsmouth telegraph became known as the 'Portsmouth Shutter Telegraph Line' and during March 1796 work commenced on building it. It was ready a few months later. There were 10 signalling stations. These are listed together with their modern location: It seems that the Telegraph was never meant to permanent but was intended for use only until the end of the Napoleonic Wars, as the construction of the signal stations was little better than a sturdy hut with two rooms and a coal shed. It was very successful however taking about 7.5 minutes to send a signal from Portsmouth to London. Its main drawback was that it could only be used in good visibility and during the daylight hours.
1 Roof of the first Lord's house - Whitehall 2 Chelsea - Royal Hospital 3 Putney - near Telegraph Inn 67 4 Cabbage Hill - near Chessington Zoo 5 Netley Heath - 'Telegraph', Blind Oak Gate 6 Hascombe - Telegraph Hill 7 Blackdown - Tally Knob 8 Beacon Hill - Harting Down Portsdown Hill - various references: "Cosham Road Junction - south of 9 crossroads" "near Cliffdene Cottage" 10 Portsmouth - Southsea Common by Clarence Pier
There were probably four men at each station. Two men watched through telescopes - called Glassmen - for a signal from the stations on either side of them. When they saw the signal 'all shutters closed' or 123456, they would call the two 'ropemen' who would operate the station's shutters to relay the message along the line. The Glassmen and Ropemen would have interchangeable jobs and one of them would be the Foreman. There may or may not have been a RN Officer with them. On 18 May 1814 peace was proclaimed, Napoleon was banished to the Isle of Elba. On 6 July 1814 the Portsmouth Shutter Telegraph Line was ordered to 'immediately discontinue'. Napoleon had other ideas. He escaped from his prison island and landed in France on 1 May 1815. Once again England was at war and the Portsmouth Shutter Telegraph was re-established. Seven weeks later on the 18 June 1815 Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and ten days later on the 28 June 1815 the Admiralty announced plans to establish a permanent system of stations using Semaphore - a machine with movable arms.
The arrow shows the location of the Portsdown Shutter Station. It was near Cliffdene Cottage which was demolished in the 1980s?, and south of Cosham
68 junction which refers to the B2177 / London Road crossroads slightly to the east of the arrow.
This is a model of the Portsdown Shutter Station showing the six open shutters and their control gear. The construction was clapper board with a brick chimney (left). A lean-to coal shed would be constructed on the right side. The label on the roof shows the number 178 for reasons unknown.
The Glassman is reading the signal from the next station in the line and the A view inside the station showing Ropemen are relaying the message on. two Glassmen on telescopes and two The inset shows the outcome of their Ropemen operating the shutters. efforts - the number 13.
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The Portsmouth terminal station located on Southsea Common. This would send and receive messages from the Portsdown station 5.5 miles to the north. All the shutters are set to open - station idle. They went to all closed as a signal that a message was about to be sent.
Looking east on top of Portsdown 2004. The Portsdown shutter station was located here. To the left is the site of the former Cliffdene Cottage. Centre left the white walls of the George Pub can just be seen, then a road sign on the B2177. Interestingly on the far left is the Shutter Station's modern day counterpart. 70 The Portsdown Semaphore
On 29 June 1815 and act of Parliament was passed enabling the Government to acquire land for the new Semaphore Telegraph Stations. These were to be a permanent replacement for the Shutter Telegraph described previously. From March 1816 when the Shutter Line was closed until the end of June 1822 when the Semaphore opened, Portsmouth was without a telegraph communication. In most cases the location of the new Semaphore stations were not the same as those of the old Shutter stations. There were various designs submitted for the new Semaphore Telegraph, but the Admiralty chose a design by Rear-Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham. His idea was to use two signalling arms, instead of the three used by the French, at different heights on a mast 30 feet high. By July 1816 an experimental line had been constructed between the Admiralty and Chatham and was in working order. The Semaphores were made by Messrs Maudslay and the telescopes were supplied by Dollond. On 19 February 1818 Mr Thomas Goddard, a Purser from the Royal Yacht - Royal George - was instructed to carry out a survey of the route of the old Portsmouth Shutter line with a view to working it with Popham's semaphore. After much delay in acquiring land and with building work, the stations began working at the end of June 1822. The cost of maintaining the stations was £3,000 per annum.
1 Admiralty - London SW1 2 Chelsea - London SW3 3 Putney Heath - London SW15 4 Coombe Warren - Kingston-on-Thames 5 Cooper's Hill - Esher 6 Chatley Heath - Cobham 7 Pewley Hill - Guildford 8 Bannicle Hill - Goldalming 9 Hastle Hill - Haslemere 10 Holder Hill - Midhurst 11 Beacon Hill - South Harting 12 Compton Down - Compton
71 13 Camp Down - Portsdown Hill 14 Lumps Fort - Southsea (needed to avoid the smog of Portsmouth) 15 Portsmouth Dockyard - Portsmouth
The new Semaphore Stations were of far more substantial construction than the Shutter Stations they replaced. There were four different designs to suit the different geographical locations. The one at Portsdown was an ordinary looking country bungalow of five rooms each about 13 feet by 11 feet. The roof was slated and the walls were rendered brick. The Semaphore room was 8 feet by 7 feet 9 inches and sat on top of the building which was unique to this station. The telescopes were located in tubes set in holes cut through the walls. There was no well and all water had to be transported by the station's own water cart for which a horse had to be hired. The station crew consisted of an RN Lieutenant and a Handyman - or Signalman - who was often a retired sailor. The mechanical Semaphore was finally overtaken by modern technology in 1847 with the coming of the Railways and the Electric Telegraph. Wires were laid alongside the LSWR line into the Royal Clarence Yard at Gosport and then by submarine cable under Portsmouth Harbour to HM Dockyard Portsmouth. On the 13 September 1847 the stations' crews received their redundancy notices and were finally stood down on 31 December 1847.
An 1870 map showing the location of "Semaphore House" on Camp Down. In fact by 1870 the station had been demolished and the roadway moved 208 yards south to accommodate the construction of the Palmerston Forts in the 1860s. The forts never appeared on these early maps for reasons of national security, in fact some never appeared until 100 years later.
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A 2004 map, the 'X' showing the location of the Semaphore station. Notice that the roadway (B2177) has moved south something which caused me some confusion whilst researching this subject. The position for the above plot was obtained by transferring the 12 figure grid ref (468875,106412) from the 1870 map. The course of the original roadway, which was Pre-historic/Roman, exactly follows the west/east fence line above the 'X'. It was moved south because Farlington Redoubt on the left would have sat bang on top of it.
An aerial photo showing the location of the Semaphore Station (X). The course of the original roadway is clearly defined as the boundary between the two different coloured fields. The polygonal scar is what's left of Farlington Redoubt. The ROC is known to have used this area in WWII, and the tiny mark in the field just above and right of the 'X' is possibly the base of a Nissen Hut, there are two others to the east of it out of shot. Camp Down is also reputed to have been the training ground of many of England's Archers and is the site of Bevis Long Barrow.
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Camp Down (2004) looking east towards Belmont Castle (now a rest home and not a castle at all) on the middle left. The Semaphore Station would have been in the mid-ground where the darker patch is. One acre of land was allocated to the station for vegetable growing, chickens etc. and it was surrounded by a hedge and later a railed fence. The original roadway ran where the fence is on the left.
A representation of the the Semaphore stations used on the Portsmouth Line. The masts were 30 feet high with two arms 8 feet long and 1 foot 4 inches wide. When at rest the arms folded inside the mast.
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The photo above shows the Putney station which was of similar design to the Portsdown Semaphore Station of which no photographs appear to exist. However the Portsdown station had an extra floor where the semaphore mast is shown with the mast on top of this. Portsdown was also the only station not to have a cellar though this is contradicted in some documents.
This article has been reproduced by kind permission of Bob Hunt, [email protected]
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The Wheelwright’s Arms.
The Home Stores, 1958, formerly the Wheelwright’s Arms. Alan Bell 76
The Prince of Wales public house and the horse and cart are in Havant but the people are standing in Bedhampton.
Before the Havant War Memorial Hospital was built Sunday fundraising demonstrations (parades) by Friendly Societies were held to support the Emsworth and Portsmouth Hospitals. This Parade was held on Sunday 5 August 1906 and is seen at the level crossing.
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The Rectory where Alice and Pelham Stokes lived.
Brookside Road circa 1928.
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The stream Brookside Road.
The Elms.
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Cattle at rest
Where cows once chewed the cud cars are now parked. Bob Hind
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A rural scene circa 1905.
Bedhampton crossing circa 1960s. The original Act stipulated a road bridge was to be provided here. It has yet to be built. Author.
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The level crossing and traffic queuing in New Road.
Scratchface Lane, Hulbert Road and Park Lane
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New Road.
New Road and bread van.
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View from the Mill Lane bridge showing the railway siding to the Upper Mill and waterworks.
Bedhampton Halt.
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In 1984 the Bidbury Mead Women’s Institute decorated the station with baskets and tubs of flowers, firstly on their own initiative and then as part of the Beautiful Britain project run jointly by British Rail and the WI. The Keep Britain Tidy group awarded them a special mention certificate in the annual Queen Mother’s Birthday Awards. Holding the watering can is ‘Station Master’ John Arter, a railway servant for 46 years, 36 of them at Bedhampton, assisted by Christine Baldwin and Margaret Green.
Bedhampton Road.
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Bedhampton Road
Stirling Stent and his family at Beechlands, Bedhampton Hill. When the main drainage was installed in Havant traffic was diverted through the park, which meant the fountain had to be removed. It was put in Councillor Stent’s garden for safe keeping but never returned.
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Wounded service men being entertained at Bedhampton by Mr and Mrs Stirling Stent. August 1916.
The Lodge Gates, Belmont House circa May 16, 1908.
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Belmont House circa 1907.
Coldman’s Stores and Post Office at the Belmont.
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Belmont.
A pre-war Southdown bus, possibly a No. 31 service, at the Belmont Tavern.
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The Rest, Bedhampton Hill, circa 1914.
Bedhampton Hill.
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At Bedhampton circa 1912.
A Portsmouth Corporation DD bus, on probably on the 148A or 148B service, approaches Fir Tree Corner. Lower Road is on the right. Alan Bell.
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Belmont Hill [Portsdown Hill Road].
View of the chalk pit circa 1908. The Crown public house was located just inside of its entrance.
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The Towers circa 1908.
A Portsmouth Corporation Atlantean bus on the 143A or 143B service to Leigh Park at the junction of Hulbert Road and Purbrook Way before the roundabout was built.
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Lion Terrace, Main Road. Alan Bell
The origin of the name is not known, but the small roundel beneath the eaves above the central doorway is said to have contained the figure of a lion. Lion Terrace, which stood immediately to the east of North Street has been demolished and its place taken by a block of two-storey flats.
Lion Terrace comprised five cottages, each containing four rooms, presumably 'two-up-and-two-down'. How the cottages were arranged and entered from the three doorways seen in the photograph is uncertain, and it is puzzling that there are three chimney stacks each having three chimney pots.
Three of the cottages were occupied by labourers: one described in the 1911 census as a general labourer, another as a railway labourer and the third as a builder's labourer. The remaining heads of households were female: an 'OAP' and a charwoman. John Smith, the builder's labourer, had a family of eight including William – later to be killed in the First World War – so his cottage would have been overcrowded. The other cottages in the terrace had between two and six occupants.
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Bedhampton Primitive Methodist Band, 1 August 1921. Photograph kindly provided by Sylvia Colenutt, née Treagust.
The Manor House.
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Bedhampton Village Sign.
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; It will never pass in to nothingness.”
John Keats, 1795-1821
In 2002 the Bedhampton Society organised the erection of the village sign, which includes an inscription from the works of John Keats, who stayed and wrote at the Lower Mill house in 1819.
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