Upper Clatford

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Upper Clatford
Hampshire

Upper Clatford
Location
Grid reference: SU353439
Location: 51°11’31"N, 1°29’38"W
Data
Population: 1,652  (2011)
Post town: Andover
Postcode: SP11
Local Government
Council: Test Valley
Parliamentary
constituency:
North West Hampshire

Upper Clatford is a village in Hampshire, sitting is in the valley of the River Anton, three and a half miles upstream of the point where it joins the River Test at the south.

Clatford is an Old English term meaning 'burdock ford'. The village historically contained four manors: Norman Court, Sackville Court, Clatford Manor and Clatford Mills.

Church

The parish church is All Saints. It was first built probably during the reign of Henry I (1100-1135): it was rebuilt in the sixteenth century and transformed into an 'auditory church' in the seventeenth.

The Church sits between two arms of the Pillhill Brook; the village war memorial is within its grounds.

History

Clatford is a mile south of Andover town centre, the most direct route the old railway line which is now a public footpath. Along this path is evidence of the old railway line although little is seen of the earlier canal that preceded the railway.[1]

The canal and later railway were important to the local economy, in particular for the transport of raw materials from Southampton via Andover to Upper Clatford for Taskers of Andover, whose premises were in nearby Anna Valley. Pig Iron was shipped from Southampton via the canal to Taskers Wharf, originally where the footpath now leaves Upper Clatford for Andover.

The road south out of the village leads to the twin village of Goodworth Clatford (formerly Lower Clatford).

Stephen Hopkins, a passenger on the Mayflower and one of the signatories of the Mayflower Compact, was born and baptized at Clatford.[2] Some years before his sailing on the Mayflower he was on the Sea Venture, bound for Jamestown, Virginia, when it ran aground during a storm in Bermuda in 1609. In Bermuda he led an unsuccessful mutiny, was sentenced to death but managed to obtain a pardon. Thereafter he partook in the construction of two boats from remnants of the Sea Venture and sailed to Jamestown where he spent several years before returning to England, at some time between 1614 and 1616. In 1620 he joined the Mayflower on its voyage to the new world, together with his two children, Constance and Giles. His knowledge of the ways of the indigenous population and wilderness survival (acquired in Jamestown) proved very useful to the Plymouth Colony. Hopkins died in Plymouth Colony in 1644.

The local pub is The Crook and Shears

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Upper Clatford)

References

  1. "Andover's lost canal". http://www.andover.towncentral.co.uk/Andover/canal.asp. 
  2. Robert Charles Anderson, New England Historical Genealogical Society (NEHGS) Pilgrim Family Sketch Stephen Hopkins Template:Webarchive