Bentworth
| Bentworth | |
|---|---|
 St Mary's Church, Bentworth | |
| Population | 550 (2010) |
| OS grid reference | SU664401 |
| Civil parish |
|
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Alton |
| Postcode district | GU34 |
| Dialling code | 01420 |
| Police | Hampshire and Isle of Wight |
| Fire | Hampshire and Isle of Wight |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| UK Parliament | |
Bentworth is a village and Civil Parish (Bentworth CP) in the East Hampshire district of the County of Hampshire, England, United Kingdom. It is about 44 miles (71 km) west south west of the centre of London, and is 7 miles (11 km) south of the M3 Motorway that runs between London and Southampton.
Bentworth village and parish is between the towns of Basingstoke and Alton, about 8 miles (13 km) miles south of Basingstoke and 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Alton, 1km west of the A339 road that runs between these two towns.
Parish. The parish covers an area of 3,763 acres (15.23 km2), and includes about 280 acres (1.1 km2) of woodland.[1] The Bentworth Parish Council meets regularly and has its own web site[19]. There is also another web site for Bentworth with photos and reports on village events. [20]
Church. In the centre of the village is St Marys Church (Denomination: Church of England). The church nave was probably built in the late 1100s, replacing a Saxon church on the site, see later for more detail.[2] There is a monthly Parish Magazine, "The Villager" that includes church and other news from Bentworth, Lasham, Medstead and Shalden, and copies are available on the web.[21]
School. St Mary's Bentworth primary school [22] is immediately west of the church together with a school hall and playing field that are also used for events such as the annual summer village fete. The school hall is used for other village activities such as the Bentworth Garden Club, performances by the Bentworth Mummers (the local amateur theatrical group)[23], other meetings, and as the local polling station in elections. The school is popular and pupils come not only from Bentworth but also from the surrounding villages.
Public Houses. Near the centre of the village are two public houses: the Star [24] which is opposite the village green, and the Sun Inn[25].[3] about 500m to the east on the road towards Alton and Thedden. Just outside the parish boundary beyond Ashley Farm is another public house, The Yew Tree. [26]
Village Pond. Down the road to Medstead near Hall Place (the pre-1832 Bentworth Manor or Hall) is the village duckpond and the cottages opposite have a date of 1733.
Cricket Club. Further down the road to Medstead is The village cricket pitch, about 1km south west of the Church. Bentworth Cricket Club [27] plays in the local league.
Rail Links. The nearest railway station is 3.6 miles (5.8 km) east of the village, at Alton. The nearest shops are at Medstead, 3km to the South, and in the town of Alton to the east. Between 1901 and 1932 the Bentworth and Lasham railway station was available to passenger traffic on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway.[4] More detail is in the "History" section.
Elevation. The village is on high ground between Alton and Basingstoke. The elevation of the ground at Bentworth Church is 175m (574ft) and the highest point in the parish is 2.5 km to the south at Wivelrod, at 217m (712ft) one of the highest points in Hampshire.
History. The history of the village can be traced to Saxon times, and Roman remains have been found in the area. After the Norman conquest in 1066, the manor of Bentworth was not named in the Domesday Survey of 1086 but was part of the Odiham Hundred.[5] More detail is in the "History" section.
Bentworth today. The village of Bentworth has grown in recent years with several new houses being built as well as the post-World War II development in Glebe Fields. Large houses such as the post-1832 Bentworth Hall, Burkham House, Gaston Grange and Thedden Grange are marked on the Ordnance Survey (OS) map of the area [6] and are separately owned, the 500 acre estate of Bentworth Manor having been split up as a result of various sales in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
Parish area
The Civil Parish of Bentworth (Bentworth CP), starting to the north and working clockwise, extends from north of Burkham House, then runs south east along the A339, turns south to Thedden Grange and the hamlet of Wivelrod, then west to north of Medstead and north again to Ashley Farm and back to the Burkham area.
These boundaries were not always so[28]. For instance in the mid 1880s, the parish included Bradley, Moundsmere, Medstead and Lower Wield and the area was over 4,800 acres (19 km2). At one time, the owner of Burkham also owned land to the west at Bradley and Moundsmere.
At one time, the area of the ancient (Saxon) hamlet of Wivelrod extended towards what is now the modern village of Beech and the present day Alton Abbey[29] which is near the top of the hill between Beech and Medstead, south of Wivelrod.
By 1952, the Bentworth parish area was reduced by nearly 1000 acres (405 ha) because Beech, Bradley and Medstead, became independent parishes and Lower Wield was merged into the parish of Wield. Also, the Bentworth postal address came under the GU34 code for Alton.
In 1991, the Bentworth parish gained a further 95 acres (38 ha) when the Home Farm area of Burkham was transferred from the parish of Bradley.
St Mary's Church
The church of St Mary[7] is at the centre of the village immediately east of the school. It is on the about 150m north east of the Star Inn and the small roundabout on the main road through the village between the A339 and Medstead.
It is probably on the site of a Saxon church made of wood that was replaced by a stone building after the Norman Conquest. The present church has a chancel (the space around the altar for the clergy and choir) that is 27 feet (8.2 m) by 17 feet 4 inches (5.28 m), with a north vestry 48 feet 7 inches (14.81 m) by 17 feet (5.2 m). The nave roof and chancel arch probably dates from the late 1100s and the chancel itself was built in about 1260 together with the lower part of the tower.[8] However, in 1608 the church suffered a "fire happening by lightening from heaven"[2] and some of the earlier structure was damaged.
The present church has flint walls with stone dressings and stepped buttresses, a plinth, and corbelled tracer lights in the nave. The west tower was rebuilt in 1891 and has diagonal buttresses with an elaborate arrangement of steps (some with gabled ornamentation), and at the top is a timber turret, surmounted by a broach spire.[9]
In Elizabethan/Stuart times, the poet and writer George Wither (1588-1667) was born in Bentworth and baptised in this church.[10]
In Victorian times, George Cecil Ives lived at the post-1832 Bentworth Hall with his mother Emma Gordon-Ives. George Ives knew Oscar Wilde and wrote and lectured on subjects such as prison reform and homosexuality and died in 1950. A memorial to the Ives family is in the churchyard close to the school and the stone slab for George Ives reads "George Cecil Ives MA, Author, 1867-1950, Late of Bentworth Hall". The stone slab for his mother reads "The Honourable Emma, wife of J.R. Ives, Daughter of Viscount Maynard Lord Lieutenant of Essex, died March 14th 1896 aged 84".
Parish area - Hamlets and large Houses
Within the Bentworth parish there are several hamlets; the largest being Burkham to the north of Bentworth Village. Other hamlets include Wivelrod to the southeast, Holt End to the south on the road to Medstead, Thedden to the east and Ashley to the west. Large houses in the Bentworth area include Bentworth Hall (the 1832 building east of the Medstead road), Burkham House, Thedden Grange, and Gaston Grange west of the Medstead road.
Ashley
Ashley[30] is a small hamlet and farm at the western corner of the Civil Parish of Bentworth (Bentworth CP) towards the village of Lower Wield.
Before border changes in 1994, Ashley was in the Civil Parish of Wield, part of the Winchester City Council area.[11] [12] In is now in the area of the East Hampshire District Council (EHDC).
Burkham
Burkham[31] is a hamlet on the north side of the parish of Bentworth about 3km NNW of Bentworth church. It was first mentioned as part of the Manor of Bentworth in documents of the Archbishop of Rouen c. 1115, in which it is described as a 'berewite' (an outlying estate) of Bentworth Manor. [13]
Other spellings include Brocham (14th century); Barkham (16th century); Berkham and Burcum (18th century).
In returns dated 1316, John Daleron held 'Brocham'. In 1590 Robert Hunt acquired the manor of Bentworth from Henry Lord Windsor, and this included the Burkham area. Later, Robert Magewick purchased Burkham for £160.[14] and George Magewick (1647-1736) was described as the owner of Burkham Farm in 1684.
At the north end of the hamlet is the Georgian building of Burkham House [32]. This was first recorded in a document dated 1784 in which there was a reference to a "Manor or Mansion House of Burkham", owned by Thomas Coulthard (1756-1811). Burkham House was acquired in 1882 by Arthur Frederick Jeffreys, later Member of Parliament for Basingstoke. Ownership was retained by the Jefferys family until 1965 when the estate was put up for sale.
The Home Farm area consists of 339 acres (137 ha) of farmland, copse and uncultivated land. Part of this area between Burkham and Bentworth was bought by the Woodland Trust and opened to the public in 1991.[15] The Trust planted new trees between Wigdell Copse and Nancole Copse, and the area is well used by walkers and those exercising dogs.
Holt End and New Copse
Holt End[33] is an area of Bentworth to the south towards Medstead. The word Holt means a small grove of trees, copse, or wood, and Holt End means the end of a wood. Further down the road to Medstead is "New Copse" (named after the wood between here and Medstead). Here, a road called Jennie Green Lane branches off the main Bentworth-Medstead road and runs east towards the east end of Medstead and Beech. Opposite Jennie Green Lane (which has a tarmac surface and has houses) is a genuine "green lane" (not tarmac) that goes towards Lower Wield.
Thedden
Thedden [16] is part of the parish of Bentworth between the villages of Bentworth and Beech. [17] Thedden Grange is about 2.5km ESE of Bentworth church and is a country house that in the past was part of the Bentworth Manor estate. The grounds of Thedden Grange have featured in a number of television series.[18] During World War II Thedden Grange was a prisoner of war camp.[19]
Wivelrod
Wivelrod is a hamlet in the south-east corner of the parish of Bentworth.[20] It is mentioned in documents dating 1259 and there are tumuli and burial mounds around Wivelrod Hill, near the present-day Alton Abbey.[21] In the 18th century Wivelrod was part of the Bentworth Hall estate and a part was sold in 1832 when the estate was bought by Roger Staples Horman Fisher .[22] A spot height of 217m (712ft)[23] between Wivelrod and Medstead is one of the highest points in Hampshire and is at the top of Beech hill just west of Alton Abbey on the road to Medstead.
Houses of Bentworth
The Manor of Bentworth Hall was bought in 1832 by Mr Horman Fisher for £6,000 and included Bentworth Hall (or Manor House) itself, this building being abut 300m southwest of the church and now called Hall Place.[34] The original mediaeval hall-house on this site was built by John of 'Bynteworth', probably of wood. The existing stone-built Hall Place was started about 1280. Further details are in the "History" section together with a drawing from the 19th century.
The Present Bentworth Hall is about 1 km to the south and was built by Mr Horman Fisher starting in 1832. More details and a drawing of this building dated 1848 are in the "History" section.
Mulberry House[35] is a late Georgian building (about 1810) which was the former Rectory and is next to the churchyard on the south side. The present Rectory is a more modern house on the other side of the main road through the village, opposite Mulberry House.
Ivalls Cottage[36] is opposite the post box near the village green and next to Tinker's lane. It is 16th century (Elizabethan) cottage with late 18th century and early 19th century additions. It has brick and flint walls, with a roof of thatch and tile.
Ivalls Farm House[37] is on the south side of the road to Medstead near the Star Inn. It is a timber framed and cruck-built (A-frame) building, previously a farmhouse, originally built in Tudor times (16th century).
Holt Cottage. Holt Cottage is a small thatched cottage on the road to Medstead and was built in 1503. In southern England there are many thatched cottages but not many as early as this, before the reign of the Tudor Henry VIII (the one with the six wives). Amongst other reasons, until modern thatch was fire-proofed, many thatched cottages were either lost to fire or the roof material changed from thatch to slate or tile.
Gaston Grange[38] is west of the Bentworth-Medstead road towards Upper Wield, south of Gaston Wood. This area was part of the Bentworth Hall estate and is now privately owned. In the late 19th century, Emma Gordon-Ives owned Bentworth Hall and in 1890 her son Colonel Gordon Maynard Gordon-Ives built Gaston Grange 1500m to the E of Bentworth Hall. In 1914, his son Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Gordon lived in Gaston Grange. He served in the First World War and was also a politician dealing with Northern Ireland matters, dying in July 1923 [24]. After his death, in July 1924 the Bentworth Hall Estate was offered for sale by Messrs John D Wood & Co, 6 Mount St., W1. and at this time consisted of 479 acres.
History
Village name
The village name has been spelt in different ways including: Bentewurda or Bintewurda (as it was known about 1100) and Bynteworth (about 1400).[25] The original meaning of the name Bent-worth may have been a place of cultivated land, or a way through land such as woodland.[26]
Prehistoric and Roman times
Prehistoric remains found in the parish of Bentworth include a Stone Age implement found in 1942 in a field near Childer Hill east of the village centre on the way to Thedden. [27] The implement is now in Newbury Museum.
A Bronze Age cremation urn was found in 1955 just north of Nancole Copse about 4km north of Bentworth Church. [28] The urn is now in the Curtis Museum in Alton, together with a bronze roman coin of Valentinian I that was found in a garden about 1km south of Bentworth Church near Tinker's Lane. [29]
Belgic pottery and animal bones were found in 1954 at Holt End between Bentworth and Medstead [30]
Pottery, bone objects, spindle-whorls (stone discs with a hole in the middle used in spinning thread) and fragments of Roman roofing tiles were found at Wivelrod House between Bentworth and Beech village .[31]
The route between the Roman town of Silchester north of Basing, and the Roman settlement of Vindomis, just east of the modern town of Alton, passed through the Bentworth and Lasham area, the road today being the A339. [32][33]
Saxon and Norman times
King Egbert of Wessex (AD 770-839) had ownership of the manor of Bentworth and passed it to his son Ethelwulf of Wessex. Later the manor was owned by Æthelnoth (Ethelnoth), Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 1038 before the Norman conquest in 1066.
The Domesday Survey (1086)
Bentworth is not mentioned by name in the Domesday Survey that was ordered by the first Norman king William the Conqueror. However, the Domesday entry for Odiham mentions that it has a number of outlying parishes, and elsewhere Bentworth was recorded as an outlying parish of the Odiham Hundred. The system of Hundreds was a Saxon system of regional administrative areas and was continued by William the Conqueror.
Soon after Domesday, Bentworth became an independent manor in its own right. In about 1111 it was given by the youngest son of William the Conqueror King Henry I "Beauclerc", together with four other English manors, to the diocese of Rouen, and income from these manors may have contributed to the building of its cathedral.
Bentworth Manor and Hall
The building called Bentworth Hall or Bentworth Manor House between Saxon and Victorian times is on the E side of the main road to Medstead, about 300m SW of Bentworth Church. Today this building is called Hall Place, a new Bentworth Hall having been built in 1832 further to the south (see the drawings of these two buildings in the section headed "Bentworth Hall Estate").
After the Normans - the Middle Ages
After the Normans were succeeded by the Plantagenet kings, in the mid-1100s, the ownership of the manor of Bentworth passed to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. When King John "Lackland" was losing his possessions in Normandy he took back the ownership of many manors, including Bentworth.
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King John then gave the manor of Bentworth in 1207–8 to the Bishop of Winchester, Peter des Roches who held it until his death in 1238.[34] It was King John who signed Magna Carta in 1215 at Runnymede, staying at Odiham castle 10km NNE of Bentworth the night before.
In 1220 A Bentworth resident was called John de Aula. De Aula means "of the hall" in Latin, suggesting that John lived at the hall-house in Bentworth, presumably as a tenant.
About 1280 a new stone hall-house was built, the previous building probably being a wooden structure. It may have been built by the constable of Farnham castle, William de Aula. It is a typical mediaeval Hall-house and has been variously called Bentworth Hall (until 1832), Bentworth Manor House, and today is called Hall Place. A drawing of this house in about 1890 is in the section headed "Bentworth Hall Estate".
In 1330 a Matilda de Aula was given permission to have a private chapel at Bentworth Hall.
In 1336, ownership of the manor of Bentworth passed to William Melton, Archbishop of York, his son John de Melton inheriting the manor in 1399 and being recorded as owner of Bentworth in 1431.[14] He died in 1455, and was succeeded by his son (d.1474), then his grandson John Melton.[35]
About 1350, ownership of the manor of Bentworth passed by marriage to the Windsor family, who had been constables of Windsor Castle.
In 1354 Miles Windsor was born at Bentworth Hall. He is recorded in 1382 as serving with John of Gaunt in Spain and was knighted (Froissart's Chronicles).
Elizabethan and Stuart times
In 1590 Henry Windsor (1562-1605), the 5th Lord Windsor, sold the "sub-manor of Bentworth" to the Hunt family who had been tenants since the beginning of that century. Ownership passed in 1610 to Sir James Woolveridge of Odiham and in 1651 to Thomas Turgis, a wealthy London merchant. His son, also Thomas, was described as one of the wealthiest commoners in England and in 1704 left the manor of Bentworth to his relative William Urry, of Sheat Manor, Isle of Wight. The Urry family were staunch Catholics.
Georgian Period
In 1777 the Urry descendants were daughters Mary and Elizabeth who married two Catholic brothers, Basil and William Fitzherbert of Swynnerton Hall, Staffordshire. Their sister-in-law was Maria Fitzherbert, the catholic (secret) wife of the Prince Regent, later King George IV.
In about 1800 Mary Fitzherbert (who had 11 children) became owner of "Bentworth Manor and Manor Farm" (now Hall Place).
The 19th Century
Bentworth Hall Estate
In 1832, the Bentworth Hall Estate was sold at auction at Garraway’s Coffee House, 3 Change Alley, Cornhill, London by the Fitzherberts to Roger Staples Horman Fisher for about £6000. Almost immediately he started building the present Bentworth Hall.[2] The post-1832 Bentworth Hall is some 500m E of the Bentworth-Medstead road at the end of a 800m private drive and is now split into several private dwellings. The building known previously as Bentworth Hall or Bentworth Manor House is on the E side of the main road through the village, 500m SW of Bentworth Church. This building is now known as Hall Place, at which evidence from wood analysis of beams dates to 1248 and a chapel to the S of the main building may be older. In 1996, mediaeval wall paintings were discovered there.
In 1848 the Bentworth Hall estate was sold to Jeremiah Robert Ives and the drawing of Bentworth Hall on the right is from the sale documents which also included land of nearly 500 acres. This included the "Old Manor House" which was the building previously known as Bentworth Hall and in recent times known as Hall Farm and Hall Place. The Ives family later included George Cecil Ives who lived for a time at Bentworth Hall with his widowed mother Emma, and was a poet, writer, penal reformer and early gay rights campaigner.
The Victorian Village
In Victorian times, the local Public Houses were licensed. The Star was built by Giles Willis in 1841 and is just south of the church close to the road to Medstead. The Sun is on the east side of the village on the road to Alton and Thedden ("Sun Hill"), and was first licensed in 1838, the building previously being part of the Bentworth Manor estate. There was also a third pub called the Moon or Half Moon Inn [2] just north of the church on Drury Lane, first licensed in 1841, the gross value being listed as £19. [36]
In 1852 The London and South Western Railway (LSWR) opened a railway station in Alton, connecting to London via Farnham and Woking. In 1901 the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway opened with Bentworth and Lasham station to the north of Bentworth Village. Between 1852 and 1901 there was a need for transportation from Bentworth to Alton station, and there is a photograph taken about 1880 of a Mr Hooker, of Hooker's Place, Bentworth (which still exists today), who was the village carrier, amongst other things taking people to and from Alton Station.
In 1870-72, the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales by John Marius Wilson described Bentworth as follows: "Bentworth is a village and parish in Alton district, Hants. The village stands 3½ miles WNW of Alton r. station, and has a post office under Alton. The parish comprises 3,688 acres. Real property, £4,091. Pop., 647. Houses, 123. George Withers, the poet; sold property in Bentworth at the outbreak of the civil war (1642), to raise a troop of horse. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Winchester. Value, £760, Patron, the Rev. Mr. Mathews. There is a dissenting Chapel."
Early 20th Century
In 1897, Mrs Emma Ives died and ownership of the Bentworth Hall estate passed to her son Colonel Gordon Maynard Gordon-Ives who had in 1890 built and lived in Gaston Grange. After his mother died he continued to live there, leasing Bentworth Hall to W G Nicholson MP JP, as shown in a caption to a 1905 photo of Bentworth Hall that appeared in a country magazine.
In 1905 a telegraph office was operated by W Payne in what was then called Telegraph Lane, now Burkham Lane. This is close to the present A339 east of Burkham village. The A339 is on the track of the old railway and the telegraph office may have been close to the railway along which there may have been telephone wires.
Colonel Gordon Maynard Gordon-Ives died 8 September 1907 and the estate passed to his son Cecil Maynard Gordon-Ives who also lived in Gaston Grange and was "a Captain in the Scots Guards in the Great War", dying 23 July 1923[37].
After his death, on 19 July 1924 The Bentworth Hall Estate of 479 acres was offered for sale by Messrs John D Wood & Co, 6 Mount St., W1. A further sale on 26 June 1930, again by John D Wood & Co, was " by direction of A d’A Willis, Esq" and after this Major John Arthur Pryor lived at Bentworth Hall until the estate was taken over by the military during World War II.
Bentworth and Lasham railway station
A railway station (part of the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway) was between Bentworth and Lasham villages, just north of the present A339 Alton-Basingstoke road.[4] It was designed by John Wallis Titt.[38] and was the first village stop going north from Alton.[39]
The level crossing on Lasham Hill north of the station appeared in the 1928 film The Wrecker[40] and the line was also used in the 1937 film Oh, Mr Porter!.[41] The small station waiting room was demolished in 2003.
The station opened on 1 June 1901 and closed during World War I on 1 January 1917 because it was a minor line and difficult to keep running at the peak of the war. It was reopened on 18 August 1924, until 1932 when the station was closed to passengers, being used for goods until its final closure in June 1936.[42] The problem was that it was a small rail link between Alton and Basingstoke, both having better rail connections. Meanwhile, Alton was on the line from London Waterloo to Winchester and Basingstoke was on the fast line from Waterloo to Salisbury and Exeter. In the 1960s, the connection between Alton and Winchester was broken because of railway closures and the construction of the M3 motorway E of Winchester. Today, the rail line continues west of Alton to Alresford as the "Watercress Line" or Mid Hants Railway[39], running historic steam engines.
The remains of the Bentworth and Lasham railway station can still be seen, just north of the A339 Alton-Basingstoke road. The row of houses there are called Station Cottages and were built to house railway workers with a detached house for the Station Master to the north. The station platform was between the cottages and the A339 with a short siding between the platform and Lasham village. The remains of the platform can still be seen today.[43] [44]
World War II - 1939–1945
The villages of Bentworth and Lasham both had roles in World War II.
In late 1940, a children's home was built in Drury Lane for those who had been evacuated from London during the London Blitz. [45]
In the Bentworth parish, the large houses of Bentworth Hall, Gaston Grange and Thedden Grange were taken over (requisitioned) for use by the military.
As the war progressed there was a need for more airfields in the South of England, and Lasham Airfield was built in 1942 between Lasham Village and a historic avenue of trees ("The Avenue") planted in about 1810 by the Jervoise family (who own the Herriard Estate today). Until 1942 the Basingstoke-Alton road passed through Lasham village but its route north of Lasham was needed for the airfield and the road was diverted to the West towards Bentworth, today being the A339.
In June 1942, a bomb fell close to St Mary'S Church, Bentworth, landing about 23 metres (75 ft) north of the church.[46]
Later in 1942, Thedden Grange was used as a prisoner of war camp until 1944, and was known as 'Fisher's Camp'.[19]
Bentworth Hall was used by a number of organisations. At one time it was an outpost of the Royal Navy's Haslar Hospital in Portsmouth, the bedrooms being used as wards. For a time it was occupied by officers from the airfield at Lasham, one commander keeping a biplane aircraft in a field towards Medstead and using it as transport to the airfield. Before the invasion of Normandy (D-Day), Nissen Huts were built in the woods to the south west of Bentworth Hall and troops were accommodated there before being taken south to embark for the invasion.
After WW II
After the war, there was a need for more houses and the council estates of Glebe Fields and Glebe Close were built in early 1946. The name "Glebe" is because the land was originally owned by the church. [47]
In 1947 the Bentworth Hall estate was bought by Major Herbert Cecil Benyon Berens MC,[48] who after the war was a Director of Hambros bank in London.
In 1950 Major Berens built two new lodge houses at the junction of the drive to Bentworth Hall with the main road through the village towards Medstead. Like Bentworth Hall itself, the walls have flint insets. On the front of each house is an oval carving with the date, 1950, and the initials of Major Berens (north lodge) and his wife (south lodge).
In 1951, the Moon Inn on Drury Lane was destroyed by a fire along with the children's home built to hold evacuated children from London in the Second World War.[49]
Later, parts of the Bentworth Hall estate were sold to local farms, and some clearing of trees and hedges produced larger fields that were easier to crop.
Major Berens died at Bentworth Hall on 27 October 1981 and after this the remaining estate was put up for sale. It was first offered as a single property and then as several, Bentworth Hall and its outbuildings being divided into a number of separate dwelling units, which is the position today.
People living or staying in Bentworth
King Egbert of Wessex (769-839) owned the manor of Bentworth and is recorded as occasionally staying there.[50]
Egbert's son, Ethelwulf (839–856) is recorded as using Bentworth as a retreat from other activities. [51]
The younger son of William the Conqueror, King Henry I (1068–1135) owned the manor of Bentworth and is recorded as occasionally staying there.[52]
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the poet and satirist George Wither (1588–1667) was born in Bentworth. He was baptised in the church of St Mary and later, supporting Oliver Cromwell's cause during the English Civil War, sold land in the parish to raise a troop of horses for the Roundhead (anti-Royalist) cause.[53][54] The Wither family lived in Bentworth until the 17th century.[55]
In Victorian times, George Cecil Ives lived at the post-1832 Bentworth Hall (see above under Bentworth Manor estate) with his mother Emma Gordon-Ives. George Ives knew the author and playwright Oscar Wilde, and wrote and lectured on subjects such as prison reform and homosexuality, and died in 1950.
The Hundred of Odiham
The Odiham Hundred (a geographical and administrative sub-division of the area of a County) is highlighted in white on the map from about 1850 shown on the right.
Bentworth was the largest parish within the Hundred, after Odiham itself.
The older Hundred of Odiham contained the modern parishes of; Bentworth, Dogmersfield, Elvetham, Greywell, Hartley Wintney, Lasham, Liss, Odiham, Rotherwick, Shalden, Sherfield-on-Loddon, Weston Patrick, and Winchfield.
At the time of the Domesday Survey the area of the later Hundred of Odiham were included in two separate hundreds, Odiham and Hefedele (also known as Edefele and Efedele). The former comprised Lasham and Shalden and half a hide which had been taken from the nearby village Preston Candover,[56] and the latter included Odiham, Winchfield, Elvetham, Dogmersfield, and a 'past' parish named Berchelei.[57][58] For the manors of Bentworth, Greywell, Hartley Wintney, Liss, Sherfield-upon-Loddon, and Weston Patrick, there are no entries in the Survey, but they were all probably included in the large manor of Odiham.[59]
Demographics
Below are tables showing the population of the Bentworth Civil Parish (Bentworth CP) including the number of inhabitants of the hamlets in the parish as well as Bentworth village itself.
In 1789 the population was 425.[60]
By 1861 the population had grown to 470.[61]
In 2001 the Civil Parish had 550 inhabitants with 220 households.[62]
Distribution of residences
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Estimated population by ages
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Geography
Bentworth village and parish is on high downland 5km WSW of Alton, West of the A339 Alton-Basingstoke road.
The elevation of the ground at Bentworth church is 175m (574ft) and the highest point in the parish is 2.5 km to the South at Wivelrod, at 217m (712ft) one of the highest points in Hampshire.
The lower ground to the South and East of the Bentworth and to the south of the nearby villages of Lasham and Shalden drains towards the River Wey which rises to the surface on the West side of Alton.[63][64]
Climate
Bentworth is about 40km north of Portsmouth on the south coast of England, on high ground between Alton and Basingstoke (for exact elevations, see above under "Geography"). The temperatures are therefore lower than in the valleys and on the coast. Due to to the proximity to the sea, in winds with a southerly component, humidity is higher and cloud bases are lower than further inland. In summer when cumulus (convection) cloud is present, in the late afternoon the sea breeze [40] occasionally reaches the area with a consequent change of wind to south and an increase in humidity.
The annual average (mean) temperature is approximately 19 °C (66.2 °F) and shows the usual seasonal and diurnal variation. January is the coldest month with mean minimum temperatures between 0.5 °C (32.9 °F) and 2 °C (35.6 °F). June and July are the warmest months with average daily maxima around 25.5 °C (77.9 °F).[65]
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References
- ^ Statistics from Bd. of Agric. (1905)
- ^ a b c d [Bentworth, the making of a Hampshire Village, by Georgia Smith. P6] Cite error: The named reference "smith" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Wendy Miller Hampshire Pub Guide: The Sun Inn, Bentworth Telegraph 20 October 2007
- ^ a b The Basingstoke & Alton Light Railway
- ^ [1] The Hundred of Odiham Domesday Survey
- ^ [2] Map of Bentworth Hall
- ^ [3]
- ^ St Mary's Church Detailed Record
- ^ [4]
- ^ [5] George Wither baptised
- ^ [6] Ashley Farm parish. Bentworth or Wield?
- ^ [7] Ashley Farm postcode
- ^ [8] Map of Burkham
- ^ a b Feud. Aids, ii,. 1856. p. 314.
- ^ Home Farm, Bentworth
- ^ [9] Map of Thedden Grange
- ^ [10] Thedden Grange Address
- ^ "Press Release March 2004". Surrey Border Film & Video Makers. 2004. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
- ^ a b List of POW camps in Britain
- ^ [City/Town/Village]&searchp=ids.srf&mapp=map.srf Map of Wivelrod
- ^ Tumuli Burial mounds in Wivelrod – Medstead Timeline
- ^ Book of reference to the plan of the parish of ... Ordnance Survey. 1879. p. 26.
- ^ [11]
- ^ Papers by command, Volume 83. House of Commons. 1947. p. 24.
- ^ Older Bentworth names
- ^ [12] Bentworth Name Origin
- ^ 680 399|SU 680 399 Mesolithic Thames found in Bentworth
- ^ 663 421|SU 663 421 Bronze Age cremation found by the A339, Bentworth
- ^ 664 399|SU 664 399 a Roman coin found in a garden in Bentworth
- ^ 658 391|SU 658 391 Belgic pottery and animal bones found in a rubbish pit in Bentworth
- ^ 675 383|SU 675 383 Roman pottery found in Wivelrod House
- ^ Vindomis – a lost Roman town
- ^ Vindomis location at Neatham
- ^ Peter des Roches ownership of Bentworth Hall
- ^ The Archbishops of York, the Yorkshire journal Volume 9. Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Association. p. 420.
- ^ Proceedings , Volume 4. Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society. 1905. p. 163.
- ^ Inscription on the Gordon-Ives grave in Bentworth Churchyard
- ^ Griffith, Edward (1982). The Basingstoke & Alton Light Railway 1901–1936. Newbury: Kingfisher Railway Publications. pp. p16.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help) - ^ [13] Old Hampshire Gazetteer – Basingstoke Light Railway
- ^ [[The Wrecker (1928 film)|]]The Wrecker appearance in Bentworth and Lasham
- ^ Oh, Mr Porter!#ProductionOh, Mr Porter! appearance in Bentworth and Lasham
- ^ Basingstoke's Railway History Bentworth Goods Traffic
- ^ Railway Cottages
- ^ Bentworth an Lasham railway shelter
- ^ List of houses and former attractions in Bentworth
- ^ [SU 66553 40358 OS Grid reference]
- ^ Crockford's clerical directory. Church of England, Central Board of Finance, Church Commissioners. 1826. p. 426.
- ^ [14]
- ^ "The Villager parish magazine of Bentworth, Lasham, Medstead and Shalden". The Villager: 8, 9. April 2011.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ David Charles Douglas (1940). William the Conqueror: the Norman impact upon England. p. 2.
- ^ Weir, Alison (1999), Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy, London, U.K.: =The Bodley Head, p. 6
{{citation}}: Unknown parameter|unused_data=ignored (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - ^ name=A history of Hampshire by Herbert Arthur Doubleday
- ^ [15] George Wither in Bentworth
- ^ A History Of The Wither Family. Reginald Fitz Hugh Bigg-Wither. 1907. p. 154.
- ^ George Wither#Early life George Wither early life
- ^ De Banco R. Thomas Frederick Kirby. 1823. p. 148.
- ^ 'Berchelei' has not been identified, but it is suggested that it may have been at Bartley Heath in Odiham.
- ^ V.C.H. Hants. Eila M. J. Campbell. pp. 291, 450, 472, 502, 504.
- ^ Cal. Close. Edward Kennard Rand. pp. 353–354.
- ^ A topographical dictionary of the united kingdom. Benjamin Pitts Capper. 1789. p. 42.
- ^ A new and comprehensive gazetteer of England and Wales, illustr. by a series ... Unknown. 1861. p. 188.
- ^ [16] Office of National Statistics Census 2001
- ^ [17] River Wey Source
- ^ [18] Source of the River Wey
- ^ "About south-east England". Met Office. Retrieved 22 March 2010.
External links
- Local and national government
- Bentworth Parish Council
- Hampshire County Council Bentworth pages
- Bentworth Conservation Area (East Hampshire District Council leaflet)
- Bentworth CP (Parish) (Office for National Statistics)
- History
- Hampshire Treasures Volume 6 (East Hampshire) Pages 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42
- British History Online – Bentworth
- Church and village community
- Astoft: St Marys Bentworth
- Stained Glass Windows at St Mary, Bentworth, Hampshire
- Village of Bentworth Website
- Miscellaneous
- Southern Life – Bentworth
- Village hall's 24,000 percent rent rise stirs revolt: A modern approach to finance threatens a small rural community
- Bentworth: Pictures of our delightful village and the rural environment we live in..
