Owslebury 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 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 ...

, in the south of England approximately southeast of Winchester. It lies within the administrative district of the

City of Winchester The City of Winchester () is a local government district in Hampshire, England, with a city status. The district covers the ancient settlement of the city of Winchester itself, but also covers a large area of central Hampshire including ...

Geography

The village lies at the top of a hill, on the Roman road from Winchester to the south coast near

Portchester Portchester is a locality and suburb northwest of Portsmouth, England. It is part of the borough of Fareham in Hampshire. Once a small village, Portchester is now a busy part of the expanding conurbation between Portsmouth and Southampton on ...

. Marwell Zoological Park is towards the south of the parish. Owslebury lies on the Pilgrims' Trail from Winchester to Mont Saint-Michel and 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 ...

from

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...

Shoreham-by-Sea Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in West Sussex, England. The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to its west by the Adur Valley and to its south by the River Adur and Shoreham Beach on th ...

. The village is relatively geographically concentrated along the road that runs through the village. It has a public house and cricket ground that has probably been in use for 150 year

an infrequent bus service, a local school, church (St Andrew's Church) and village hall. There were formerly several small shops in the village.

Marwell Wildlife

Marwell Wildlife (formerly Marwell Zoological Park) is within the boundaries of the parish.

Swing Riots

On 23 November 1830 a riot occurred in Owslebury. This was part of the wave of discontent among agricultural workers which had spread across southern England and expressed itself as the Swing Riots. A large mob formed and moved from farm to farm demanding money and threatening to destroy agricultural machinery. At Rosehill they assaulted Lord Northesk's steward, Moses Stanbrook, wrecked a

winnowing machine Winnowing is a process by which chaff is separated from grain. It can also be used to remove pests from stored grain. Winnowing usually follows threshing in grain preparation. In its simplest form, it involves throwing the mixture into t ...

, and extorted £5. John Boyes, a local farmer, accompanied the mob demanding that farmers and landlords sign an undertaking which read "We, the undersigned, are willing to give 2s. per day to our married labourers, and 9s. per week to single men, in consideration of having our rent and tithes abated in proportion". At Marwell Hall the lady of the house, Mrs. Alice Long, gave the mob £5 and signed John's document. Eventually the mob retreated to Owslebury Down. Nine people had signed John Boyes' document. The rioters were tried in Winchester at the end of the year and several were executed. There was a good deal of sympathy for John Boyes and he was twice acquitted before eventually being found guilty and sentenced to be

transported ''Transported'' is an Australian convict melodrama film directed by W. J. Lincoln. It is considered a lost film. Plot In England, Jessie Grey is about to marry Leonard Lincoln but the evil Harold Hawk tries to force her to marry him and she w ...

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sep ...

for seven years. The trials were reported in ''The Times'' in December 1830 and January 1831. John Boyes did not complete his sentence. In 1835 the Home Secretary,

Lord Melbourne William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, (15 March 177924 November 1848), in some sources called Henry William Lamb, was a British Whig politician who served as Home Secretary (1830–1834) and Prime Minister (1834 and 1835–1841). His first pre ...

, pardoned him and he returned home to his wife, Faith, and their children, in June of that year to continue farming in Owslebury. He died in Hensting in 1856. A folk song called "The Owslebury Lads", collected in the early 20th century, recalls these events. It can be heard sung by Steve Jordan on the CD "Folk Songs of Hampshire". It was collected at Winchester in 1906 by George B. Gardiner.

Archaeology

Several archaeological projects have been undertaken in the neighbourhood, including major excavations in the late 1960s and early 1970s of an important Iron Age and Rural settlement and cemetery.

Geology

Owslebury lies on the

Upper Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', th ...

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 ...

near the northern edge 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 north of the parish is on the Seaford Chalk Formation. The village itself and Cockscomb Hill to the north-west are on high ground capped by the younger Newhaven Chalk Formation, deeply dissected by a

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 ...

running SW towards Hensting and Fishers Pond at

Colden Common Colden Common is a civil parish in the Winchester District of Hampshire, England, approximately 5 miles south of the city of Winchester, covering an area of with a resident population of approximately 4,000 people. It includes the village of Cold ...

. Marwell in the south of the parish lies on the Palaeocene 'Reading Beds' (

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 ...

).British Geological Survey (1987), ''Southampton. England and Wales Sheet 315. Solid and Drift Geology'', 1:50,000 Series geological map, Keyworth, Nottingham: British Geological Survey,

References

External links

Owslebury Parish Council website - Owslebury
{{authority control Villages in Hampshire