Old Times at Otterbourne. Yonge Charlotte Mary

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 Jar 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.

      Stoneham 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, and 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.