Nursling

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Nursling
Hampshire
Junction of Mill Lane and Station Road, Nursling - geograph.org.uk - 344419.jpg
Junction of Mill Lane and Station Road, Nursling
Location
Grid reference: SU371163
Location: 50°56’42"N, 1°28’22"W
Data
Population: 5,137  (2011)
Post town: Southampton
Postcode: S016
Dialling code: 023 80
Local Government
Council: Test Valley
Parliamentary
constituency:
Romsey and Southampton North

Nursling is a village in Hampshire, three and a half miles north-west of the city of Southampton.

The name of the village appears as Nhutscelle in an 8th-century life of St Boniface), then in mediaeval documents as Nutsall,[1] Nutshalling or Nutshullyng[2]

The village has now been effectively absorbed into the suburbs of Southampton.

History

Church of St Boniface, Nursling, Hampshire

At Onna (Nursling), Romans erected a bridge (probably a wooden one as no trace of stone abutments remains) across the River Test, below which the river widens into its estuary. There are traces of the Roman road from Nursling to Stoney Cross.

At Nhutscelle a Benedictine monastery was established in 686: the earliest Benedictine establishment in Wessex according to Bede. It became a major seat of learning, and at the end of the 7th century, Winfrith (known in Europe as St Boniface) studied here under the abbot Winberht, producing the first Latin grammar to be written in England. He left in 710 for Canterbury, returning briefly around 716 before going to Germany as a missionary. The Danes destroyed the monastery in 878 and it was never rebuilt; its exact site has not been identified, though the parish church is dedicated to St Boniface.

Thirty households lived in Hnutscilling, according to the Domesday Survey, belonging to the Bishop of Winchester.

O. G. S. Crawford, the archaeologist, lived in Nursling during Second World War, and kept much rare material from the Ordnance Survey office in Southampton in his garage. This foresight saved much important historical material from destruction when the offices were burnt out in air raid.

Present day

Nursling Industrial Estate, adjacent to the M271, houses several major businesses, such as Tesco, Norbert Dentressangle and Meachers, and is ably served by transport links, the motorway giving easy access to the Southampton container terminal, as well as the motorway links to London and the Midlands.

Grove Place is a Grade I listed building in Nursling.[3] Now converted into retirement apartments, the building was originally a country house and was converted into a lunatic asylum, Later it became a private school, the Northcliffe School for boys, then, later, the Atherley School, a girls' school, before being developed for its present purpose.

Outside links

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("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Nursling)

References

  1. Dickinson, William Leeson (1865) (in en). The Lives of the Saints; Or, Notes Ecclesiological and Historical on the Holy Days of the English Church. Church Printing Company. pp. 64. https://books.google.com/books?id=Ia0CJL4lFJcC&dq=boniface+isle+of+wight+named&pg=PA64. 
  2. Plea Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas; National Archives; CP 40/629; in 1418; http://aalt.law.uh.edu/H5/CP40no629/aCP40no629fronts/IMG_0522.htm; second entry, where the plaintiff, Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester is in a plea of debt against various inhabitants of Nutshullyng
  3. National Heritage List 1339157: Grove Place House Northcliffe school (Grade I listing)