Hursley is a village and
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 authorit ...
in Hampshire, England with a population of around 900 in 2011. It is located roughly midway between
Romsey and
Winchester on the
A3090. Besides the village the parish includes the hamlets of Standon and Pitt and the outlying settlement at Farley Chamberlayne.
History
12th to 17th century
The earliest references to Hursley date from the late 12th century;
Bishop of Winchester Henry de Blois
Henry of Blois ( c. 1096 8 August 1171), often known as Henry of Winchester, was Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey from 1126, and Bishop of Winchester from 1129 to his death. He was a younger son of Stephen Henry, Count of Blois by Adela of Normandy, ...
built a manor house called
Merdon Castle, within the parish, in 1138. In the 14th century the
hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...
of Buddlesgate expanded to include Hursley parish and surrounding dependencies. Hursley continued in the ownership of the Bishop of Winchester until 1552 when it was surrendered to king
Edward VI
Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first E ...
.
The buildings had become ruinous by the 16th century, when Edward Vl granted the manor and park at Hursley to Sir
Philip Hoby
Sir Philip Hoby (also Hobby or Hobbye) PC (1505 – 31 May 1558) was a 16th-century English Ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire and Flanders.
Early life
He was born probably at Leominster, England, the son of William Hoby of Leominster by hi ...
. Some remains, notably of a gatehouse, still stand, much overgrown, and are listed as a
building at risk.
During the reign of
Queen Mary the manor was briefly restored to the church but given back to the Hoby family by
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is ...
.
The Hoby family sold the manor and castle to Thomas Clerke in 1600. The lodge and park at Hursley were leased separately at this time, but the two estates were brought together again in 1630 and sold in 1639 to
Richard Major,
High Sheriff of Hampshire
This is a list of High Sheriffs of Hampshire. This title was often given as High Sheriff of the County of Southampton until 1959.
List of High Sheriffs
*1070–1096: Hugh de Port "Domesday Book Online"
*1105: Henry de Port (son of Hugh)
*1129: W ...
for 1639–40.
The Cromwells – 1643 to 1718
The estate passed into the Cromwell family in 1643 when
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...
's son
Richard
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stro ...
married
Dorothy Major, daughter of the owner,
Richard Major.
Richard Cromwell
Richard Cromwell (4 October 162612 July 1712) was an English statesman who was the second and last Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and son of the first Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.
On his father's deat ...
lived with his wife in Hursley from 1649 until 1658 when he was proclaimed
Lord Protector following the death of his father. This made Hursley briefly the country seat of the ruler of England. It was not to last however as Richard's grip on power was weak, he was forced from office within months and by 1660 concerns for his safety forced Richard Cromwell to flee the country with Dorothy. They travelled first to France and then to other parts of Europe where Richard lived under an assumed name. Richard's son Oliver Cromwell II (??-1705) took over the Hursley estate, and the tenants claimed their ancient rights and customs (including pasturage and felling trees) in a lengthy legal battle.
Richard returned to Hursley after Oliver died in 1705 and lived on as
lord of the manor
Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...
until he died in 1712 whereupon he was buried in the chancel of All Saints' Church, Hursley. Richard's daughters sold Hursley estate to
Sir William Heathcote in 1718 for £35,100.
The Heathcotes – 1718 to 1888
![Daniel Gardner Sir William](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Daniel_Gardner_Sir_William.jpg)
Heathcote, a
baronet
A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14t ...
, was a successful merchant who moved to Hursley to take up the role of a country gentleman. Between the years of 1721 and 1724 he built a red brick
Queen Anne style mansion (now known as
Hursley House
Hursley House is an 18th-century Queen Anne style mansion in Hursley, near Winchester in the English county of Hampshire. The building is Grade II* listed.
History
The Hursley estate was bought by William Heathcote, MP from the daughters of ...
) on the site of the original hunting lodge.
William died in 1751 and the estate passed to his son,
Sir Thomas Heathcote. About this time Hursley's original medieval parish church was rebuilt in a Georgian style. Sir Thomas was married twice and had eight children.
When he died he was succeeded by the second Sir William. William's son, also called Sir Thomas Heathcote, was a patron of the arts and modernised Hursley House, but was blamed by later Heathcotes for property blunders that eventually cost the family the estate.
William Heathcote, nephew to Thomas, became the fifth baronet in 1825. He extended Hursley House and also created Home Farm on the site of the old
Merdon Castle. William was married twice, first to Caroline who bore him three sons and a daughter but died in 1835, and second to Selina in 1841 by whom he had another eight children.
In 1888 Selina Heathcote sold the estate after her husband's death for £150,000 to Joseph William Baxendale, of the
Pickfords
Pickfords is a moving company based in the United Kingdom, part of Pickfords Move Management Ltd.
The business is believed to have been founded in the 17th century, making it one of the UK's oldest functioning companies, although the similar ...
family. He in turn sold it in 1902 to
George Cooper, whose wife Mary was a wealthy American railways heiress. She carried out extensive development and redecoration work in 1902 to create the house that can be seen today. Sir George was created a baronet in 1905 and on his death in 1940 the house was requisitioned by the Ministry of Aircraft Production.
Hursley House is now occupied by
IBM as part of IBM Hursley Laboratories. It is a Grade Two*
Listed Building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
Cranbury Park
Cranbury Park is a stately home and country estate situated in the parish of Hursley, Winchester, England. It was formerly the home to Sir Isaac Newton and later to the Chamberlayne family, whose descendants now own and occupy the house and su ...
, a Grade One
Listed Building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
in the parish of Hursley, now the home of the Chamberlayne-Macdonald family, was, in his later years, the one-time home of
Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the g ...
.
The MP
Paulet St John raised an obelisk monument at Farley Chamberlayne to honour a favourite horse.
Other notable residents
The
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
theologian and poet
John Keble
John Keble (25 April 1792 – 29 March 1866) was an English Anglican priest and poet who was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Keble College, Oxford, was named after him.
Early life
Keble was born on 25 April 1792 in Fairford, Glouce ...
was appointed
Vicar
A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...
of Hursley in 1835, rebuilt the church in 1848, and remained there until his death in 1866. Keble was
Professor of Poetry
The Professor of Poetry is an academic appointment at the University of Oxford. The chair was created in 1708 by an endowment from the estate of Henry Birkhead. The professorship carries an obligation to lecture, but is in effect a part-time po ...
at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
from 1831 to 1841, and was the originator and subsequently one of the leaders of the
Oxford Movement.
Keble College, Oxford was founded in his memory. Keble is buried at All Saints' Church, Hursley.
There is a memorial in the church to
Dennis George Wyldbore Hewitt VC (1897–1917), recipient of the
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...
in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
Present day
IBM has a site at Hursley, centred on
Hursley House
Hursley House is an 18th-century Queen Anne style mansion in Hursley, near Winchester in the English county of Hampshire. The building is Grade II* listed.
History
The Hursley estate was bought by William Heathcote, MP from the daughters of ...
, employing over 1500 people. It is nowadays primarily a
software development laboratory, specialising in transaction and message processing (
CICS
IBM CICS (Customer Information Control System) is a family of mixed-language application servers that provide online transaction management and connectivity for applications on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS and z/VSE.
CICS family products ...
,
MQ),
Information Management, and
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
. Storage adapters and storage virtualisation products (
SVC) are also developed on this site. It is also home to IBM's Blockchain programme. In the past it was the development laboratory for several IBM 360 models and the first digital colour display, the IBM 3279 terminal. Hursley is crossed by the
Monarch's Way
The Monarch's Way is a long-distance footpath in England that approximates the escape route taken by King Charles II in 1651 after being defeated in the Battle of Worcester. It runs from Worcester via Bristol and Yeovil to Shoreham, West Su ...
long distance footpath.
Hursley Park Cricket Club play at
The Quarters, with the ground hosting two
List A matches for the
Hampshire Cricket Board
The Hampshire Cricket Board (HCB) was formed in 1996 and is the governing body for all recreational cricket in the historic county of Hampshire. Following a restructuring in January 2010, the HCB now operates as a limited company.
History and r ...
in 2002.
Listed Buildings and Scheduled Ancient Monuments
Of the currently 128 entries for Hursley in the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, St John's Church, Farley Chamberlayne and
Cranbury Park
Cranbury Park is a stately home and country estate situated in the parish of Hursley, Winchester, England. It was formerly the home to Sir Isaac Newton and later to the Chamberlayne family, whose descendants now own and occupy the house and su ...
are Grade One, and All Saints' Church, Hursley, Hursley House (now usually known as Hursley Park) and Slackstead Manor are Grade Two*
Listed Buildings
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
, the remaining 123 entries being Grade Two. Additionally there are three Scheduled Ancient Monuments:
Merdon Castle, Camp west of
Farley Mount
Farley Mount is a hill and one of the highest points in Hampshire. It is located within Farley Mount Country Park, situated about four miles west of the historic city of Winchester, Hampshire. It is locally famous for being the subject of a fol ...
and Length of deer park boundary bank, Hursley Park.
Geology
Hursley village is situated on the
chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...
at the northern edge of the
Palaeogene
The Paleogene ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning o ...
deposits of the
Hampshire Basin
The Hampshire Basin is a geological basin of Palaeogene age in southern England, underlying parts of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Dorset, and Sussex. Like the London Basin to the northeast, it is filled with sands and clays of Paleocene and y ...
; the chalk is largely overlain by
head and 'clay with flints', insoluble material concentrated out of dissolved chalk. A number of
dry valley
A dry valley may develop on many kinds of permeable rock, such as limestone and chalk, or sandy terrains that do not regularly sustain surface water flow. Such valleys do not hold surface water because it sinks into the permeable bedrock.
There ...
s converge from the north. Immediately to the south of the village lies a belt of
Palaeocene sandy clays of the
Lambeth Group
The Lambeth Group is a stratigraphic group, a set of geological rock strata in the London and Hampshire Basins of southern England. It comprises a complex of vertically and laterally varying gravels, sands, silts and clays deposited between 56-55 ...
, sloping up to a ridge of
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', " ...
clays and sandstones of the
London Clay
The London Clay Formation is a marine geological formation of Ypresian (early Eocene Epoch, c. 56–49 million years ago) age which crops out in the southeast of England. The London Clay is well known for its fossil content. The fossils from t ...
, Nursling and Whitecliff sands at Ladwell.
[British Geological Survey (2002), ''Winchester. England and Wales Sheet 299. Solid and Drift Geology'', 1:50,000 Series geological map, Keyworth, Nottingham: British Geological Survey, ]
References
General
*
External links
Hursley Parish CouncilHampshire County CouncilHursley Poor Law Union and WorkhouseVillage websiteJohn Keble 's ParishesJohn Keble
John Keble (25 April 1792 – 29 March 1866) was an English Anglican priest and poet who was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Keble College, Oxford, was named after him.
Early life
Keble was born on 25 April 1792 in Fairford, Glouce ...
's Parishes – A History of Hursley and
Otterbourne. (1898) Edited by
Charlotte M. Yonge
Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823–1901) was an English novelist, who wrote in the service of the church. Her abundant books helped to spread the influence of the Oxford Movement and show her keen interest in matters of public health and sanitation.
...
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Villages in Hampshire