Nether Wallop in Hampshire

The Paulets by ancestry and inheritance were already an ancient and wealthy family when in 1547 Sir William Paulet, later 1st Marquis of Winchester, whose seat was Basing, bought the Chief Manor of Nether Wallop. He was one of the most extraordinary men of his time, a recusant who had survived under five monarchs. Wise, diplomatic, a great loyalist, enormously wealthy, admired adviser of Queen Elizabeth I, twice married, he died at a ripe old age in 1571 leaving 103 descendants!

He wrote his golden rules thus:-

Late supping I forbear
Wine and women I forswear;
My neck and feet I keep from cold,
No marvel then, though I be old;
I am a willow, not an oak,
I chide, but never hurt with stroke.

The Marquisses of Winchester were created Dukes of Bolton in 1689 and kept their Hampshire Estates until the 6th Duke died without heir in 1794 and the dukedom expired. However, the 5th Duke had an illegitimate daughter, Jean Mary Powlett (Brown) married to a Thomas Orde. Nether Wallop descended to her, whereupon her husband assumed the name Powlett, becoming Thomas Orde-Powlett, with his Hampshire seat at Hackwood Park, Basingstoke. In 1797 he was created Baron Bolton of Bolton Castle, Yorkshire.

The Marquisate of Winchester devolved upon George Paulet, descendent of the 4th Marquis, whose descendant today, the 7th Marquis of Winchester is a Paulet; and the 7th Baron Bolton is an Orde-Powlett.

During the Civil War, it appears that village and even family allegiances were divided, and both Charles I and Cromwell knew Wallop. The Pyle Family was divided, one being a high ranking officer in Cromwell's army, another Pyle of Wallop was a Royalist agent. Nether Wallop's overlord was John Paulet, 5th Marquis, nicknamed 'the loyal Marquis', for his seat at Basing was the centre of Royalist resistance. After the sack of Basing in 1645, victorious Cromwell marched from there to Wallop with his Ironsides, where they stayed the night. A story is told of Sir Thomas Fairfax who halted at Andover with seven regiments to wait for his cavalry, and sentenced five men to death for desertion. Three were hanged outside Andover, the other two were hanged upon a tree at Wallop, one of them was a parson's son and a native of Wallop.

(See Andy Morrall's website about the Civil War in Kempsey, another small village)

An iron hammer, an anvil and cannon balls found on Danebury are relics of that time, for Danebury was probably a look-out post which 'was anciently and till since the memory of man a Warren and let to several tenants at rack-rents, and was entire to itself and had a lodge upon it, that Black, Kemp and Lywood formerly rented it of Sir Hampden Paulet'.

In this village of timber-framed thatched cottages, which even today is predominantly Tudor, fires have been common, and two disastrous fires occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is recorded that 'On Wednesday the eigth June 1672 the Great Fire happened in Nether Wallop. The loss sustained by the fire amounting to £ 800 and upwards'. A year later 'on October 5th 1673 there was collected at Wellow for the distress of Nether Wallop'.

During a severe winter which began on Christmas Day and lasted till the end of February 'On the '4th day of February 1739 a Second Fire happened at Wallop, which consumed eighteen dwelling houses besides barns, stables, and other outhouses, with large quantities of wheat, barley, etc. The Loss sworn to by sufferers amounted to £ 2922 12s. 4½d. of which they received from the Brief and other Contributions £ 1700 and upwards'.

These misfortunes added to one of the big problems of the time, the poor of the parish. The well-to-do paid 'Church, Poor, and Highways' as well as land tax but the poor had to rely for help on Charities and the Parish Relief Fund, distributed by the Overseer of the Poor. In 1559 Sir Richard Rede of Nether Wallop, and Master of Requests, charged his Manor of Tangley with £ 4 a year for ever for the poor of Over and Nether Wallop, and by the nineteenth century there were several Charities, distributed in various ways, such as 'to seven old persons 3s. each every lunar month'; 'usually at Christmas in coals'; 'every second year (the number of poor being large) in the purchase of blankets', and so on.

One of the largest gifts was made by Francis Douce, Doctor in Physick, in 1759, which charity continued into the twentieth century. He was a kinsman of the Paulets and I quote his will because it reflects the gentry's contemporary class-conscious attitude.

"I give to the Parish of Wallop (providing they do not suffer my pyramid to be injured) the interest of £ 1000 as they now stand which I shall dye possessed of in Southsea Annuities at the Southsea House for ever, to be made use off for the following purposes, viz :- To help support the men and women who are past their labours and do dwell in that Parish of Lower Wallop to be distributed by twelve of the heads of the Parish or as the majority of the Jury (meaning the twelve men) and if they do not do Justice I cannot help that ... I order that out of the said interest money that the boys and girls of the said parish are taught to read and write and cast an account a little way, especially those who cannot pay for schooling or learning, but they must not go too far least it makes them saucy and the girls all want to be chamber maids, and in a few years you will be in want of cooks. I give this Charity provisionally that my Pyramid shall be kept in good order and the iron rails painted every second year at the charge of the parish, and if the Parish boys do climb or injure it they shall not only be deprived of their learning but shall also be punished, and if the Parish do not keep the Pyramid in good repair this Charity shall cease and be void and subsist no longer".

Twelve 'Heads of the Parish' including the vicar, two church-wardens, impropriator and parish officials assembled regularly at the Vestry Meeting which replaced the earlier Manorial Courts, and was responsible for Local Government ecclesiastical and civil. They appointed the village constable, parish clerk, and Overseers of the Poor who dispensed the Charities and poor relief and nominated the charity scholars.

In 1788 'a Mr. Noyes was paid the sum of £ 16 in full for teaching the twenty charity children one year'. It was probably a humble cottage school held in the schoolmaster's house, or in the Baptist Meeting House in Bent Street, for the first endowed school was built in 1838 costing £ 56, enlarged in 1854 for £ 100.

There has never been a great house round which Nether Wallop revolved. The Dukes of Bolton were absentee landlords, their family seat at Hackwood Park, Basing. The larger houses in Wallop were leased by gentry who sub-let to tenant farmers, and since there was considerable mobility of population in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the gentry were absentees for much of the year, so changes of owner would mean little to the villagers. The Duke of Chandos leased Berry Court Farm from the Duke of Bolton, and John Kent farmed it. The Hon. Mr. Carteret, Postmaster General, bought the Parsonage, then sold it to Thomas Gatehouse in 1725. John Gore, Esq., one of several generations of Gores at Garlogs, rented the freehold from the Duke of Bolton and Stephen Maton farmed it. Paul Lywood rented Place Farm and Manor from Francis Douce, who leased it from the Duke. This social structure made for greater independence of the villagers, but absenteeism had its drawbacks. Comment in 1757 on Heathmanstreet Farm and Manor, leased by Edward Sheldon and farmed by W. Browning are: 'This estate has been in great repute for many years, but what with ill management of late for want of full stock, etc., is now great y impoverished'.

The hunting, shooting and fishing in the district were excellent for the country gentlemen. Sir Thomas Gatehouse quoted an old saying 'You are as sure of finding a hare in Knockwood as a woman of easy virtue in the parish surrounding it'. Today there are still hares in Knockwood. Bustards were hunted with dogs, one large flock hunted in the 1820s is remembered in 'Bustard's Corner'. And from 1753 there was horse racing at Stockbridge Race Course.

These gentry modernised, enlarged or rebuilt their houses which today are still pleasant and gracious homes. Their names live on in their memorials in the Church-Rede, Douce, Paulet, Powlett, Miller, Gatehouse, Lywood, Hattatt, Pyle, Blunt, Brewer, Pothecary, Lyne-Stivens, are a few, many related by marriage, for they all knew everyone 'who was worth knowing' for miles around.

The villagers too were much intermarried. Their names are in the Church registers, as Thomas Welloway, brewer, maltster and bricklayer; Thomas Chitty, mason; Gabriel Sanders, blacksmith; Robert Self, butcher; Reuben Futcher, shepherd; James Webb, miller; John Cable, drillman son of miller's man; David Hill, schoolmaster, as well as the farmers and labourers for whom they provided life's necessities.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the open field system of cultivation continued. Villagers had various and scattered strips of land in Nether Wallop's five great fields of Cossaton, Hollom, Oxenham, Benham, and Haydown. This meant working together at ploughing, sowing and harvesting, and pasturing the animal on the stubble after harvest. Large flocks of sheep grazed on the downs. Gradually fields within the open fields were fenced in and new fields enclosed from ancient pastures by private agreement.

We read of 'James Saunders who in 1708 at the time of laying out of the enclosures, in order to enlarge his own at Church Hill, exchanged acre for acre of his best land in the common fields with Wm. Gibbs, John Waldron and Thomas Scott - for theirs at home. After which exchange it could not be all taken into Inclosure, upon account of Cossaton Sheep Common, whereon this Living had no right of feed'. And of another enclosure 'the exchange makes it infinitely more convenient as well as commodious to both partys'.

Enclosure meant that individuals could develop new farms away from the village, such as Buckholt Warren in 1714, or Old Lodge out of the Wilderness of Fifehead in 1765. The main crops grown were wheat, barley, oats, sanfoin and rye grass, with large flocks of sheep. Berry Court farmed 954 acres in 1757, 70 of wheat, 22 of barley and oats, 50 sanfoin and rye, and kept 1000 sheep. At the end of the eighteenth century one third of the parish was still open fields, and land tax at 1s. 10d. in the pound was paid on 68 properties.

In 1796 a meeting of all landowners with the Lord of the Manor, Thomas Orde-Powlett and Jean Mary his wife, took place 'at the house of Betty Mason, widow, known by the name of The Five Bells', which was to alter the landscape and social structure of the parish.

An Act of Parliament had been passed 'for dividing, allotting, and enclosing the open and common fields, common downs, wastelands, and other commonable places in the Parish of Nether Wallop' because 'the small parcels of land intermixed with each other were incapable of any considerable improvement'. A survey and regulations for the position and width of roads, footpaths and bridlepaths necessary for the new order, and claims of all concerned were discussed with the Commissioners. The redistributed fields were to be fenced, hedged with quickset, or stake-hedged. In effect the mediaeval pattern of arable strips fringed by the green downlands was to be replaced by the landscape of hedgerows, enclosed fields and roads that we know today.

The following year those present met again at the Five Bells to report that the Act had been executed. The Enclosure Award written on 29 skins of parchment was signed, sealed, and put into the parish chest. The common fields of Nether Wallop were gone, and what remained of feudal life went with them.

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