Farringdon, Hampshire
| Farringdon | |
| Hampshire | |
|---|---|
 All Saints Church | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU709350 |
| Location: | 51°6’38"N, -0°59’14"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 664 (2011) |
| Post town: | Alton |
| Postcode: | GU34 |
| Dialling code: | 01420 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | East Hampshire |
Farringdon is a village in Hampshire, three miles south of Alton, on the A32 road, close to a source of the River Wey in the east of the county.
The village has two parts, the larger being Upper Farringdon. Lower Farringdon is on the Alton to Gosport road, the A32. The 2001 census predicted a population for Farringdon Parish by 2006 of 495 increasing to 664 at the 2011 Census .
The northern of the River Wey's two sources rises in countryside close to Farringdon (SU707394).
History
Archaeological finds in the village include a Bronze Age beaker (found in September 1938) with a cruciform design on the base, of which only two examples are known; and a Roman coin, a Sestertius of Trajan (found in 1936). Both are now in Alton Museum. Farringdon was listed in the Domesday Book as Ferendone; the word means fern-covered hill.[1] The village has a Norman church and a number of pre-18th Century houses.
Lewis Cage, as lord of the manor, led the request for the enclosure of the commons and common fields in 1748. The evidence that survives is in two parts: the first found formal map of a local ridge enclosure, worn around the edges with damp marks, but listing all the recipients and placing their allotments; and five handwritten early agreement drafts with multiple gaps, insertions, crossings out, corrections and spelling inconsistences in proper nouns that have been badly treated with tears and staining.[2] There were five arbitrators appointed to ‘avoid difficulties and disputes' followed by familiar names from other local enclosures: William Knight and Thomas Eames, yeoman, both Chawton, 1740; and Richard Wake, senior and junior, and John and William Finden, all Soldridge, 1735.
The Farringdon enclosure is unusual: it is the only enclosure agreement along the Four Marks ridge not to have sought the approval of a private Act of Parliament, having been made by agreement; and it effected the division of the 427 acres within it between fifty-three entities, almost all individuals. Five families (Finden, Knight, Tribe, Wakes, and Cage). The remaining thirty-seven parties each received less than 2% of the land. The Farringdon agreement may have been relatively secure because no cottager, it seems, was thrown from their encroachment or rented plot.[3]
Parish church
All Saints has Norman and 12th/13th century origins and retains good stained-glass windows. The churchyard contains yew trees reputed to be of great antiquity; the hollow nature of the trees makes ring-counting dating impossible, but estimates have suggested that the trees may be as much as 2,000 years old.
About the village
Farringdon has close associations with two of Britain's most celebrated figures, the novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817) and the naturalist Gilbert White (1720-1793). Austen would come from her home in nearby Chawton, a little over a mile to the north, to visit friends and acquaintances in Farringdon. From 1761 to 1785 White was curate of Farringdon's village church of All Saints, and his pulpit still survives. Gilbert White's house, now a museum, is a little over three miles west of Farringdon.
A Farringdon landmark is Massey's Folly, an imposing but eccentric building with towers and battlements built by another curate of Farringdon, Rev. T.H. Massey. Its intended purpose during its construction was obscure, but since a few years after the Reverend's death in 1919 it has served as a school and village hall and featured in the 2006 BBC TV programme, Restoration Village. Massey's Folly is in the process of being sold for development as residential units. The Rev Massey also built a vicarage in the village (now a private house).[4]
The very first Cadbury Milk Tray advert was filmed in Lower Farringdon, by Woodside Road, along the old Meon Valley Railway.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Farringdon, Hampshire) |
Further reading
- Heal, Christopher: 'Ropley's Legacy, The ridge enclosures, 1709 to 1850: Chawton, Farringdon, Medstead, Newton Valence and Ropley and the birth of Four Marks' (Chattaway & Spottiswood, 2021)
- Montgomery, Roy: 'The village of Farringdon and parish of All Saints' (Hampshire Genealogical Society, No 15)
References
- ↑ Munby, Domesday
- ↑ Hampshire Record Office, 18M61/MP19. HRO, 39M89/E/B562.
- ↑ Heal, Ropley's Legacy
- ↑ http://www.farringdon.biz