Newtown, Hampshire

Newtown
Hampshire
Newtown Church
Location
Grid reference:	SU477639
Location:	51°22’19"N, 1°18’58"W
Data
Population:	382  (2011)
Post town:	Newbury
Postcode:	RG20
Dialling code:	01635
Local Government
Council:	Basingstoke and Deane
Parliamentary constituency:	North West Hampshire

Newtown is a village in Hampshire, at the border with Berkshire, marked here by the River Enborne. A bridge crosses the river here, carrying the road to Newbury: Newbury is about a mile and a half to the north.

History

In the early 13th century, the Bishops of Winchester created six new towns: Newtown, Overton and New Alresford in Hampshire; Hindon and Downton in Wiltshire; and Newtown on the Isle of Wight in Hampshire.

Newtown in Hampshire was founded in 1218 by Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester. The mediæval borough was formed from part of the parish of Burghclere, and flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries. Adjacent Sandleford Priory, Sandleford, over the border on the other side of the River Enborne in Berkshire, had been founded on an earlier establishment between 1193 and 1202. Newtown as a result was sometimes known as Novus Burgus de Clere, or Nova villa de Sandelford.

In 1218, the grant of a market and a fair at Newtown was made to the Bishop of Winchester and in the bishop's account roll of 1218–19, fifty-two burgesses are listed. The burgesses occupied sixty-seven plots of land in the new borough. The Prior of Sandleford bought three plots. Also in 1218–19, a chapel was built for the local people of the new borough, and was originally known as the Chapel of Sandleford.

In 1224–25 a ditch was dug around the town at the bishop's expense and, in 1225–26, the bishop's own house was built in the borough. Dated the feast of St. Katherine, 9 Edward III, [25 November, c. 1336], a grant was made by Hugh atte Thome and Maud his wife to Sir Nicholas atte Thorne their son, chaplain, of a burgage in Newtown (Nova Villa juxta Sandelford) between the brook called 'Aleburne' on the west and the highway to Winchester on the east;

By the 16th century, the town had begun to decay, although the reason for its decline is not known, and, in 1674, only sixty-four houses remained, probably scattered throughout the parish. No traces of the mediæval borough can be seen above ground today.

Church

The Church of England parish church of St Mary and St John the Baptist was built in 1865 on the site of the original mediæval chapel. The building was financed entirely by Edmund (1793–1873) and Elizabeth Arbuthnot (died 1866). Eliza Arbuthnot's brother William Pollet Brown Chatteris (1810–1889), JP, DL, had taken on the lease of neighbouring Sandleford in 1831 and then bought it outright in 1875. The church is filled with stained glass windows in their collective memory. Edmund Arbuthnot had bought Newtown House in 1824.

In literature

A view south from Newtown by George Arnald (1763–1841)

Newtown churchyard and Newtown Common both feature in the novel, Watership Down by Richard Adams'

Mrs Elizabeth Montagu's 1743 description of Newtown

In 1743 Mrs Montagu wrote from Sandleford to her old friend the Duchess of Portland and described her new retreat:

'...I had a very pleasant journey to this place [Sandleford], where I am delighted to find everything that is capable of making retreat agreeable; the garden commands a fine prospect, the most cheerful I ever saw, and not of shirt distance which is only to gratify the pride of seeing, but such as falls within the humble reach of my eyes. We have a pretty village [Newtown] on a rising ground just before us.'

Where the cottage chimney smokes,

Fast between two oaks.

'Poverty here is clad in its decent garb of low simplicity, but her tattered robes of misery do not here show want and wretchedness; you would rather imagine pomp was neglected than sufficiency wanted.'

'A silver stream [the Alder stream, alias River Enborne] washes the foot of the village [Newtown]; health, pleasure, and refreshment are the ingredients that qualify this spring; no debauch, or intoxication, arises from its source.'

'Nature has been very indulgent to this country, and has given it enough of wood and water; the first we have here in good plenty, and a power of having more of the latter, as improvements are undertaken.'

'Here are temptations to riding and walking. I go out every evening to take a view of the country; the villages are the neatest I ever saw; every cottage is tight; has a little garden, and is sheltered by fine trees...'

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Newtown, Hampshire)