Exbury is a village in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

, England. It is in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Exbury and Lepe Exbury and Lepe is a civil parish in the New Forest in Hampshire, England. It is bounded to the west by the Beaulieu River, to the south by the shore of the Solent and to the east by the Dark Water. To the north it extends to the New Forest heath ...

. It lies just in the

New Forest The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, featu ...

, near the

Beaulieu River The Beaulieu River ( ), formerly known as the River Exe, is a small river draining much of the central New Forest in Hampshire, southern England. The river has many small upper branches and its farthest source is from its -long tidal estuary. ...

and about a mile from the

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay to ...

coast. It is best known as the location of

Exbury House Exbury House is an English country house in Exbury and Lepe, Hampshire, situated on the edge of the New Forest. It is a Grade II* listed building with associated Grade II* listed parkland and gardens. The house consists of an 18th-century co ...

, built by the

Rothschild family The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of F ...

, and the famous

Exbury Gardens Exbury Gardens is a informal woodland garden in Hampshire, England with large collections of rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias, and is often considered the finest garden of its type in the United Kingdom. Exbury holds the national collectio ...

. The Rothschild family still have significant land ownings in the area.

Overview

The village was originally in the southwest corner of the parish, but moved inland in the early 19th century. The present village was built to provide homes for workers on the Exbury Estate and still does provide homes for a few workers but is now mainly private housing. A prominent feature of the village is a water tower which provided the water to the gardens that was used to water the plants. The parish church was built in 1827, replacing an earlier chapel near Lower Exbury Farm. Until 1863 Exbury was a

chapelry A chapelry was a subdivision of an ecclesiastical parish in England and parts of Lowland Scotland up to the mid 19th century. Status It had a similar status to a township but was so named as it had a chapel of ease (chapel) which was the communi ...

in the parish of Fawley. The village forms part of the civil parish of

, which in turn is part of the

New Forest district New Forest is a local government district in Hampshire, England. Its council is based in Lyndhurst. The district covers most of the New Forest National Park, from which it takes its name. The district was created on 1 April 1974, under the Loca ...

of the

county of Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire is ...

. The parish, district and county councils are responsible for different aspects of local administration.

History

People have lived near Exbury since prehistoric times. An

Iron-Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly a ...

promontory fort is visible on the east bank of the

, where it is defended on the east side by a bank and outer ditch. In the 13th century the Foliot family were holders of the Exbury in chief of the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

.Victoria County History of Hampshire: Exbury
/ref> At the end of the century the estate was divided into two, but by the end of the 14th century both parts were in the hands of John de Bettesthorne. On the death of John de Bettesthorne in 1399, his inheritance passed to his daughter Elizabeth and her husband Sir John de Berkeley. It remained in the hands of the Berkeley family for most of the 15th century. At the end of that century the manor had passed to Katherine Berkeley, who had married John Brewerton, and it then descended to the Comptons of

Compton Wynyates Compton Wynyates is a Tudor country house in Warwickshire, England, a Grade I listed building. The Tudor period house is constructed of red brick and built around a central courtyard. It is castellated and turreted in parts. Following action ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

, who held it for the next two hundred years. In 1718 Exbury passed to William Mitford, and by the early 1800s it had descended to his grandson

William Mitford William Mitford (10 February 1744 – 10 February 1827) was an English Member of Parliament and historian, best known for his ''The History of Greece'' (1784–1810). Youth William Mitford was born in Exbury, Hampshire, on 10 February 1744, in ...

the historian of

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. William decided to build a new village at Upper Exbury.The Parish Church of St. Katherine Exbury
/ref> The original village and its chapel at Lower Exbury to the south-west were removed,
and a site was designated for a new church, which was built in 1827. William Mitford died in 1827, and his grandson Henry Reveley Mitford succeeded to the estate. He sold it, in the 1880s, to Major John Forster. His son Henry William Forster inherited Exbury, living in

Lepe Lepe is a Spanish town in the province of Huelva, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. It is near the Portugal, Portuguese border. According to the 2009 census, the city has a population of 25,886 inhabitants ...

House.

Exbury House

In 1919 the eminent banker

Lionel Nathan de Rothschild Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, OBE (25 January 1882 – 28 January 1942), also Major Lionel de Rothschild, was a British banker and Conservative politician best remembered as the creator of Exbury Gardens by the New Forest in Hampshire. He was ...

bought Exbury House, the house being nearly derelict at that time.Family Links The Rothschild Family
/ref> The house was remodelled in 1927, and Lionel created a new garden, collecting plants from all over the world. When he died in 1942, the house was requisitioned by the Royal Navy and used it for the planning and operation of the Dieppe raids and D-Day landings. Exbury estate was used for experimental firing, and barracks housing up to 300 men were constructed within the grounds. Lionel's son

Edmund Leopold de Rothschild Major Edmund Leopold de Rothschild (2 January 1916 – 17 January 2009) was an English financier, a member of the prominent Rothschild banking family of England, and a recipient of the Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH), given by the Royal Hortic ...

took on the responsibility for the estate after the war, restoring the house and gardens. Exbury Gardens opened to the public in 1955. When Edmund died in 2009, his brother

Leopold David de Rothschild Leopold David de Rothschild, CBE, FRCM (12 May 1927 – 19 April 2012) was a British financier, musician, and a member of the Rothschild banking family of England. Leopold David was the fourth and youngest child and second son of Lionel ...

took over, creating a Charitable Trust to secure the financial future of the gardens and railway which opened in 2001.

Church

The earliest mention of a chapel at Exbury is in 1291, when "Master Nicholas de Audeby" held the church of Fawley with the chapel of Exbury. The chapel of St. Katherine was at Lower Exbury. This chapel was served by the

Cistercians The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

from

Beaulieu Abbey Beaulieu Abbey, , was a Cistercian abbey in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1203–1204 by King John and (uniquely in Britain) populated by 30 monks sent from the abbey of Cîteaux in France, the mother house of the Cistercian order. Th ...

, the tradition being that the monks used to cross the river from Saint Leonard's on stepping-stones. The chapel was pulled down in 1827, when the present church at Exbury was built. Exbury church is a stone structure with a northwest tower.Hampshire Treasures Volume 5 (New Forest) Page 118
It was consecrated in 1827. It contains a 13th-century

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

Purbeck stone Purbeck stone refers to building stone taken from a series of limestone beds found in the Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous Purbeck Group, found on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset in southern England. The best known variety of this stone is Purbeck M ...

from the old church. To the east of the church is the family vault of the Mitfords.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Hampshire New Forest