Old Times at Otterbourne

by Charlotte Mary Yonge

  Thomas Sternhold, who together with Hopkins put the Psalms into metre for singing, lived in the outskirts of Hursley.

  When the plunder of the Monasteries was exhausted, the Tudor Sovereigns, or perhaps their favourites, took themselves to exacting gifts and grants from the Bishops, and thus Poynet who was intended in the stead of Gardiner gave Merdon to Edward VI, who presented it to Sir Philip Hobby. It was recovered by Bishop Gardiner, but granted back again by Queen Elizabeth. Sir Philip is believed to have first built a mansion at Hursley, and his nephew sold the place to Sir Thomas Clarke, who was apparently a hard lord of the manor. His tenants still had to labour at his crops instead of paying rent, but provisions had to be found them. About the year 1600, on the arrival of a hogshead of porridge, unsavoury and full of worms, the reapers struck, and their part was taken by Mr. Robert Coram, who then owned Cranbury, so hotly that he and Mr. Pye, Sir Thomas Clarke’s steward, rode at one another through the wheat with drawn daggers. Lady Clarke yielded, and cooked two or three bacon-hogs for the reapers.

  The old road from Winchester to Southampton then went along what we now call the Old Hollow, leading from Shawford Down to Oakwood. Then it seems to have gone along towards the old Church, its course being still marked by the long narrow meadows, called the p. 11Jar Mead and Hundred Acres, or, more properly, Under an Acre. Then it led down to the ford at Brambridge, for there was then no canal to be crossed. The only great personage who was likely to have come along this road in the early 17th century was King James the First’s wife, Queen Anne of Denmark, who spent a winter at the old Castle of Winchester, and was dreadfully dull there, though the ladies tried to amuse her by all sorts of games, among which one was called “Rise, Pig, and Go.”

  James I gave us one of the best of Bishops, Lancelot Andrewes by name, who wrote a beautiful book of devotions. He lived on to the time of Charles I, and did much to get the ruins made in the bad days round Winchester Cathedral cleared and set to rights. Most likely he saw that the orders for putting the altars back into their right places were carried out, and very likely the chancel was then mended, but with no attention to architecture, for the head of the east window was built up anyhow with broken bits of tracery from a larger and handsomer one. The heir of the Clarkes sold the property at Hursley to Mr. Mayor, to whose only daughter Oliver Cromwell married his son Richard.

  What happened here in the Great Rebellion we do not know. An iron ball was once dug up in the grounds at Otterbourne House, which may have come from Oliver’s Battery; but it is also said to be only the knob of an old pump handle—

  “When from the guarded down

  Fierce Cromwell’s rebel soldiery kept watch o’er Wykeham’s town.

  They spoiled the tombs of valiant men, warrior, and saint, and sage;

  But at the tomb of Wykeham good angels quenched their rage.”

  Colonel Nathanael Fiennes prevented harm from being done to the College or the monuments in the Cathedral; but there was some talk of destroying that holy place, for I have seen a petition from the citizens of Winchester that it might be spared. It is said that some loyal person took out all the stained glass in the great west window, hid it in a chest, and buried it; but when better times came, it could not be restored to what it was before, and was put in confusedly, as we now see it.

  p. 12Stoneham had a brave old clergyman, who kept possession of his church and rectory all through the war, and went on with the service till he died, no man daring to meddle with him. But Otterbourne was sure to follow the fate of Hursley. The King’s Head Inn at Hursley is thought to have been so called in allusion to the death of King Charles I. A strange compliment to the Cromwells.

  Richard had a large family, most of whom died young, as may be seen on their monument in Hursley Church. It was at this time that the customs of the Manor were put on record in writing. The son, Oliver, lived till 1705, and was confounded in the country people’s minds with his grandfather.

  There is an odd, wild story, that Cromwell sunk all his treasure in the great well at Merdon Castle, in Hursley Park, 300 feet deep. It was further said, if it were drawn up again, that no one must speak till it was safe, otherwise it would be lost. A great chest was raised to the mouth of the well, when one of the men said, “Here it comes!” The rope broke, it fell back, and no one ever saw it more. Most likely this is an old legend belonging to the Castle long before, and only connected with Oliver Cromwell because he was an historical person. Certain it is that when the well was cleared out about 30 or 40 years ago nothing was found but two curious old candlesticks, and a great number of pins, which had been thrown down because they caused those curious reverberations in the great depth. Another legend is that Merdon Well is connected with the beautiful clear spring at Otterbourne called Pole Hole or Pool Hole, so that when a couple of ducks were thrown down the well, they came out at Pole Hole with all their feathers scraped off.

  It was in the time of the Commonwealth, in 1653, that our first parish register begins. Some parishes have much older ones, so, perhaps, ours may have been destroyed. The first entry in this old parchment book is that Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Cox, of Otterbourne, and Anne, his wife, was born ---. A large stain has made the rest of this entry illegible. There are only three births in 1653, p. 13and seven in 1654, one of these William, son of Mr. William Downe, of Otterbourne Farm, and Joane, his wife, is, however, marked with two black lines beneath the entry, as are his sisters, Elizabeth and Jane, 1656 and 1658, apparently to do honour to the principal inhabitant.

  It is to be observed that all the entries here are of births, not of baptisms, departing from the general rule of Church registers, and they are all in English; but in 1663 each child is recorded as baptized, and the Latin language is used. This looks much as if a regular clergyman, a scholar, too, had, after the Restoration, become curate of the parish. He does not sign his registers, so we do not know his name. In 1653 the banns of William Downe and Jane Newman were published September 17th and the two Lord’s Days ensuing, but their wedding is not entered, and the first marriage recorded is that of Matthew Dummer and Jane Burt, in 1663. The first funeral was Emelin, wife of Robert Purser, in 1653.

  Also, there was plenty of brick-making, for King Charles II had planned to build a grand palace at Winchester on the model of the great French palace of Versailles, and it is said that Dell copse was formed by the digging out of bricks for the purpose. It was to reach all over the downs, with fountains and water playing in them, and a great tower on Oliver’s Battery, with a light to guide the ships in the Channel. There is a story that Charles, who was a capital walker, sometimes walked over from Southampton to look at his buildings. One of the gentlemen who attended him let the people at Twyford know who was going that way. So they all turned out to look at him, which was what the King by no means wished. So he avoided them, and punished his indiscreet courtier by taking a run and crossing one of the broad streams with a flying leap, then proceeding on to Winchester, leaving his attendant to follow as best he might.

  After all only one wing of the intended palace was built. For a long time it was called the King’s House, but now it is only known as the Barracks. The work must have led to an increase in the population, p. 14for more baptisms are recorded in the register, though not more than six or seven in each year, all carefully set down in Latin, though with no officiating minister named. There is an Augustine Thomas, who seems to have had a large family, and who probably was the owner of the ground on which the vicarage now stands, the name of which used to be Thomas’s Bargain.

  There must have been a great quickening of activity in Otterbourne soon after the Restoration, for it was then that the Itchen canal or barge river, as it used to be called, was dug, to convey coals from Southampton, and, of course, this much improved the irrigation of the water meadows. This canal was one of the first made in England, and was very valuable for nearly two hundred years, until the time of railways.

  In 1690, a larger parchment register was prov
ided, and every two years it appears to have been shown up to the magistrates at the Petty Sessions, and signed by two of them.

  At this time there seem to have been some repairs of the church. Certainly, a great square board painted with the royal arms was then erected, for it bore the date 1698, and the initials “W. M.” for William and Mary. There it was, on a beam, above the chancel arch, and the lion and unicorn on either side, the first with a huge tongue hanging out at the corner of his mouth, looking very complacent, as though he were displaying the royal arms, the unicorn slim and dapper with a chain hanging from his neck.

  Several of our old surnames appear about this time, Cox, Comley, Collins, Goodchild, Woods, Wareham. John Newcombe, Rector of Otterbourne, who afterwards became Bishop of Llandaff, signs his register carefully, but drops the Latin, as various names may be mentioned, Scientia, or Science Olden, Philadelphia Comley, and Dennis Winter, who married William Westgate. Anne and Abraham were the twin children of John and Anne Didimus, in 1741.

  The first church rate book only begins in 1776, but it is curious as showing to whom the land then belonged. The spelling is also odd, p. 15and as the handwriting is beautiful, so there is no doubt that it really is an account of the Church Raiting, nor that the “rait” was “mead.” Walter Smythe, Esquire, of Brambridge, appears, also John Colson John Comley, and Charles Vine. Lincolns belonged to Mr. Kentish and Gun Plot to Thilman.

  The expenditure begins thus:—April 9, 1776, “Pd. Short for 6 dozen sparw heds,” and the sparw heds are repeated all down the page, varied with what would shock the H. H.—3d. for foxheads. Also “expenses ad visitation” 9s. 6d., and at the bottom of the page, the parish is thus mentioned as creditor “out of pockets, 5s. 1d.” In 1777 however, though the vestry paid “Didums 1 badger’s head, 1 polecat’s head; Hary Bell for 2 marten cats, and spares innumerable, and the clarck warges, Ј1. 5s., there was Ј1. 3s. in hand.” The polecats and marten cats were soon exterminated, but foxes, hedgehogs, and sparrows continue to appear, though in improved spelling, till April 24th, 1832, when this entry appears:—“At a meeting called to elect new Churchwardens, present the Rev. R. Shuckburgh, curate, and only one other person present, the meeting is adjourned. Mr. Shuckburgh protests most strongly against the disgraceful custom of appropriating money collected for Church rates towards destroying vermin on the farms.” And this put an end to the custom. However, there were more rightful expenses. Before Easter there is paid “for washan the surples” 4s. It would seem that the Holy Communion was celebrated four times a year, and that the Elements were paid for every time at 3s. 7d. In 1784, when there was a great improvement in spelling, there were some repairs done—“Paid for Communion cloth, 10 pence, and for washing and marking it, 6p.” In 1786 there was a new church bell, costing Ј5. 5s. 10d. Aaron Chalk, whom some of the elder inhabitants may remember, a very feeble old man walking with two sticks, was in that year one of the foremost traders in sparrow heads. It gives a curious sense of the lapse of time to think of those tottering limbs active in bird catching.

  May 2, in 1783, we find the entry “paid for the caraidge of the old p. 16bell and the new one downe from London, 11s. 10d. May 22—Paid William Branding bill for hanging the new bell, Ј1. 13s.” Altogether, at the end of the year, it is recorded “the book in debt” Ј1. 11s., but “the disburstments,” as they are spelt, righted themselves in 1784, when we find “paid for musick for the use of the Church, Ј1. 1s. To George Neal for whitewashing Church, Ј1. 1s., George Neale, two days’ work, 5s. 3d., for work in the gallery, 19s. 4d., bill for tiles, 3s. 4d.”

  The only connection Otterbourne has with any historical person is not a pleasant one. The family of Smythe, Roman Catholics, long held Brambridge, and they endowed a little Roman Catholic Chapel at Highbridge. At one time, a number of their tenants and servants were of the same communion, and there is a note in the parish register by the curate to say that there were several families at Allbrook and Highbridge whose children he had not christened, though he believed they had been baptized by the Roman Catholic priest. One of the daughters of the Smythe family was the beautiful Mrs. Fitz-Herbert, whom the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV, was well known to have privately married. He never openly avowed this, because by the law made in the time of William III, a marriage with a Roman Catholic disqualifies for the succession to the crown; besides which, under George III, members of the royal family had been prohibited from marrying without the King’s consent, and such marriages were declared null and void. The story is mentioned here because an idea has gone abroad that the wedding took place in the chapel at Highbridge, but this is quite untrue. The ceremony was performed at Brighton, and it is curious that the story of it having happened here only began to get afloat after the death of Mr. Newton, the last of the old servants who had known Mrs. Fitz-Herbert. Walter Smythe, her brother, was one of the dйtenus whom Napoleon I kept prisoners, though only English travellers, on the rupture of the Peace of Amiens. His brother, Charles, while taking care of the estate, had all the lime trees in the avenue pollarded, and sold the tops to make stocks for muskets.

  p. 17In those days there was only a foot bridge across the Itchen at Brambridge. Carts and carriages had to ford the river, not straight across, but making a slight curve downwards; this led to awkward accidents. There was a gentleman dining with Mr. Walter Smythe, who was pressed to sleep at Brambridge, but declined, saying that he liked to have all his little comforts about him. When daylight came, the poor man was found seated on the top of his chaise, the water flowing through the windows below; for the post boy had taken a wrong turn, and, being afraid to move, had been forced to remain in the river till the morning. A far worse disaster befel the Newton family on their way to a funeral. It is described by one of the bearers: “When the cart turned over, the corpse was on the foot bridge. It was a very wet day, and the wind was blowing furiously at the time. It had a great effect on the cart, as it was a narrow cart with a tilt on, and there was a long wood sill at the side of the river. That dropping of the sill caused the accident. I think there were five females in the cart and the driver. The water was as much as 4ft. deep and running very sharp, so myself and others went into the water to fetch them out, and when we got to the cart they were all on the top of the other, with their heads just out of the water. They could not go on to church with the corpse, and we had a very hard job to save the horse from being drowned, as his head was but just out of the water.”

  All through the time of the long war with France there was here, as well as everywhere else around the coast, fear of a landing of the French. The flat-bottomed boats to bring the French over were actually ready at Boulogne, and the troops mustered to come across in them. On our side, volunteers were in training in case of need, and preparations were made for sending off the women and children inland on the first news of the enemy landing. Not very many years ago there were still to be seen in a barn at Hursley the planks prepared to fit as seats into the waggons that were to carry them away. And a family living here are said to have kept everything packed up, even the fireirons, and to have stirred up the fire with a stick during a p. 18whole winter. However, by God’s blessing and our fleets and armies, the danger was kept from our doors.

  With the activity that followed upon the peace came a great deal of road-making. The present high road between Winchester and Southampton was then made, and the way cut through the hills—Otterbourne Hill and Compton Hill on either side. This led to the main part of the inhabitants settling in the village street, instead of round the old Church as before. Another great road was made at the same time—that which crosses Golden Common and leads ultimately to Portsmouth. It used to be called Cobbett’s Road, because William Cobbett, a clever, self-taught man, had much to do with laying it out. Cobbett had a good many theories which he tried to put into practice, some sensible, others mistaken. The principal traces we see of him now are in the trees that he planted, chiefly introduced from America. He thought the robinia, or false acacia, would
make good hedges, because of its long thorns and power of throwing up suckers, and many people planted them, but they proved too brittle to be of much use, though some are still growing. He was a friend of Mr. Harley, who then owned Otterbourne House, and planted many curious trees there, of which two long remained—a hickory nut and a large tree in the drive. There was also an oak with enormous leaves, but it was planted so near the house that it had to be moved, and died in consequence.

  These roads were for the coaches. Young folks, who never saw anything nearer approaching to a stage coach than the drags some gentlemen keep, can hardly fancy what these stage coaches were—tall vehicles, holding four inside passengers and at least twelve outside and quantities of luggage. They were drawn by four of the strongest and quickest horses that could be procured, and these were changed about every five or six miles, so as to keep up full speed. The coachman, generally a big, burly man, with a face reddened by exposure to the weather, and often by a glass of ale at every stage, sat on the box in a drab coat, with many capes one over the other. The seat next to him was the favourite one with the passengers, and gentlemen would sometimes p. 19bribe coachmen to let them drive; nay, some gentlemen actually took to the trade themselves. There was also a guard, who in mail coaches took care of the post bags, and dropped them at the places where they were intended for. In the days when highwaymen infested the roads the guard had carried pistols, and still the guard of the mail wore a red coat, and blew a horn on entering any place to warn the people to bring out their post bags and exchange them for others.