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Name: Old Times at Otterbourne
Author: Yonge Charlotte Mary

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Old Times at Otterbourne

Not many of us remember Otterbourne before the Railroad, the Church, or the Penny Post. It may be pleasant to some of us to try to catch a few recollections before all those who can tell us anything about those times are quite gone.

To begin with the first that is known about it, or rather that is guessed. A part of a Roman road has been traced in Otterbourne Park, and near it was found a piece of a quern, one of the old stones of a hand mill, such as was used in ancient times for grinding corn; so that the place must have been inhabited at least seventeen hundred years ago. In the last century a medallion bearing the head of a Roman Emperor was found here, sixteen feet beneath the surface. It seems to be one of the medallions that were placed below the Eagle on the Roman Standards, and it is still in the possession of the family of Fitt, of Westley.

After the Roman and British times were over, this part of the country belonged to Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons, of which Winchester was the capital. Lying so near the chief town, which was the Bishop’s throne, this place was likely soon to be made into a parish, when Archbishop Theodore divided England in dioceses and parishes, just twelve hundred years ago, for he died 690. The name no doubt means the village of the Otters, and even now these creatures are sometimes seen in the Itchen, so that no doubt there were once many more of them. The shapes and sizes of most of our parishes were fixed by those of the estates of the Lords who first built the Church for themselves and their households, with the churls and serfs on their manor. The first Lord of Otterbourne must have had a very long narrow property, to judge by the form of the parish, which is at least three miles long, and nowhere a mile in breadth. Most likely he wanted to secure as much of the river and meadow land as he could, with some high open heathy ground on the hill as common land where the cattle could graze, and some wood to supply timber and fuel. Probably all the slopes of the hills on each side of the valley of the Otter were covered with wood. The top of the gravelly hill to the southward was all heather and furze, as indeed it is still, and this reached all the way to Southampton and the Forest. The whole district was called Itene or Itchen, like the river. The name meant in the old English language, the Giant’s Forest and the Giant’s Wood.

The hill to the north was, as it still remains, chalk down. The village lay near the river and the stream that runs into it, upon the bed of clay between the chalk and the gravel. Most likely the Moathouse was then in existence, though a very different building from what it is at present, and its moat very deep and full of water, serving as a real defence. There is nothing left but broad hedge rows of the woods to the north-east, but one of these is called Dane Lane, and is said to be the road by which the Danes made their way to Winchester, being then a woodland path. It is said that whenever the yellow cow wheat grows freely the land has never been cultivated.

There was a hamlet at Boyatt, for both it and Otterbourne are mentioned in Domesday Book. This is the great census that William the Conqueror caused to be taken 1083 of all his kingdom. From it we learn that Otterbourne had a Church which belonged to Roger de Montgomery, a great Norman baron, whose father had been a friend of William I.

Well for the parish that it lay at a distance from the Giant’s Wood, where the King turned out all the inhabitants for the sake of his “high deer,” making it the New Forest. He and his sons could ride through down and heath all the way to their hunting. We all know how William Rufus was brought back from his last hunt, lying dead in the charcoal burner Purkis’s cart, in which he was carried to his grave in Winchester Cathedral. Part of the road between Hursley and Otterbourne, near Silkstede, is called King’s Lane, because it is said to have been the way by which this strange hearse travelled.

Silkstede is a farm now—it was most likely a grange, or outlying house belonging to some monastery—and there is a remnant of the gardens and some fine trees, and a hollow called China Dell, where snowdrops and double daffodils grow. But this is in Hursley parish, as is also Merdon Castle.

The green mounds and deep trenches, and the fragments of ruinous wall, have a story reaching far back into the ages.

There is little doubt, from their outline, that once there was an entrenched camp of the Romans on this ground, but nothing is known thereof. Merantune, as our Saxon ancestors called it, first is heard of when in 755 Cynewolf, King of Wessex, was murdered there by his kinsman Cyneheard, who was in his turn killed by the Thanes of the victim. With this savage story it first appears, but no more is known of its fate except that it became the property of the Bishops of Winchester, some say by the grant of Cynegyls, the first Christian King of Wessex, others by a later gift. It was then a manor, to which Hurstleigh, the woodland, was only an appendage; and the curious old manorial rights and customs plainly go back to these ancient præ-Norman times. To go through all the thirty customs would be impossible, but it is worth noting that the tenure of the lands descended by right to the youngest son in a family instead of the eldest. Such “cradle fiefs” exist in other parts of England, and in Switzerland, on the principle that the elder ones go out into the world while their father is vigorous, but the youngest is the stay of his old age. The rents were at first paid in kind or in labour, with a heriot, namely, the most valuable animal in stock on a death, but these became latterly commuted for quit rent and fines. The trees were carefully guarded. Only one good timber tree on each holding in the life-time of a tenant might be cut by the Lord of the Manor, and the tenants themselves might only cut old rotten trees! But this is as much as you will wish to hear of these old customs, which prove that the Norman feudal system was kept out of this Episcopal manor. It was not even mentioned in Domesday Book, near as it was to Winchester. There it lay, peacefully on its island of chalk down, shut in by the well-preserved trees, till Stephen’s brother, Bishop Henry de Blois, of Winchester, bethought him of turning the old Roman Camp into a fortified castle. The three Norman kings had wisely hindered the building of castles, but these sprung up like mushrooms under the feeble rule of Stephen.

The tenants must have toiled hard, judging by the massiveness of the small remnant, all built of the only material at hand, chalk to make mortar, in which flints are imbedded.

This fragment still standing used to be considered as part of the keep, but of late years better knowledge of the architecture of castles has led to the belief that it was part of the northern gateway tower. I borrow the description of the building from one written immediately after the comments of a gentleman who had studied the subject.

Henry de Blois, King Stephen’s brother, Bishop of Winchester, probably wished for a stronghold near at hand, during his brother’s wars with the Empress Maud. He would have begun by having the nearly circular embankment thrown up with a parapet along the top, and in the ditch thus formed a stockade of sharp pointed stakes. Within the court, the well, 300 feet deep, was dug, and round it would have been the buildings needed by the Bishop, his household and guards, much crowded together. The entrance would have been a drawbridge, across the great ditch, which on this side was not less than 60 feet wide and perhaps 25 deep, and through a great gateway between two high square towers which must have stood where now there is a slope leading down from the inner court, into the southern one. This slope is probably formed by the ruins of the gateway and tower being pitched into the ditch.

The Castle was then very small, and did not command the country except towards the south. The next work therefore would be to throw out an embankment to the south, with a ditch outside. The great gap whence Hursley House is seen, did not then exist, but there was an unbroken semicircle of rampart and ditch, which would protect a large number of men. In case of an enemy forcing this place, the defenders could retreat into the Castle by the drawbridge.

The entrance was on the eastern side, and in order to protect this and the back (or northern side) of the Castle, an embankment was thrown up outside the first moat, and with an outer moat of its own. Then, as, in case of this being carried by the enemy the defenders would be cut off from the main southern gateway, a square tower was built on this outer embankment exactly opposite to the ruin which yet remains, and only divided from it by the great ditch. On either side of the tower, cutting the embankment across therefore at right angles, was a little ditch spanned by a drawbridge, which, if the defenders found it necessary to retire to the tower, could at any time be raised. The foundations of the tower and the position of the ditch can still be distinctly traced.

Supposing farther that it became impossible to hold the tower, the besieged could retreat into the main body of the Castle by another drawbridge across the great ditch. This would lead them through the arch which can still be seen in the ruin, though it is partially blocked up. The room on the east side of this passage was probably a guard room.

These are all the remains. The embankments to the south and west command a great extent of country, and on the north and northwest, we trace the precautions by the great depth of the ditch, and steepness of the earthworks, though now overgrown with trees. All this must have been done between the years 1138 and 1154, and great part of the defences were thrown down in the lifetime of the founder. Merdon was not destined to shine in sieges, in spite of its strength. Henry II came in, and forbad the multiplication of castles and Merdon seems to have been dismantled as quickly as it had been built.

The Bishops of Winchester however still seem to have resided there from time to time, though it gradually fell into decay, and was ruinous by the end of the Plantagenet period.

After the younger Oliver’s death, his sisters endeavoured to obtain the Hursley property to which their father had succeeded as his son’s heir. He was past eighty and the judge allowed him to wear his hat at the trial in court, an act of consideration commended by Queen Anne.

After his death, in 1708, the estate was sold to the Heathcote family. The old house, whose foundations can be traced on the lawn, and which was approached by the two avenues of walnut trees still standing, was then pulled down, and the present one erected.

Most likely the oldest thing in Otterbourne is the arch that forms the doorway of the Boys’ School, and which came from the door of the Old Church. By the carving on that arch, and the form of the little clustered columns that support it, we can tell that it must have been put up about the time of King Richard I or King John, somewhere about the year 1200. There was certainly a church before this date, but most likely this was the first time that much pains had been taken about its beauty, and carved stone had been brought from a distance. It was a good spot that was chosen, lying a little above the meadows, and not far from the moated Manor House. The east wall of the nave is still standing, but it now forms the west wall of the small remnant that is still covered in. It still has three arches in it, to lead to the old chancel, and above those arches there were some paintings. They came to light when the Old Church was pulled down. First, a great deal of plaster and whitewash came off. Then appeared part of the Commandments in Old English black letter, and below that, again, were some paintings, traced out in red upon the wall. They have been defaced so much that all that could be found out was that there was a quatrefoil shape within a square. The corners were filled up apparently with the emblems of the Four Cherubim, though only the Winged Ox showed plainly. There was a sitting figure in the centre, with the hand raised, and it was thought to be a very rude representation of our Blessed Lord in Judgment. In another compartment was an outline of a man, and another in a hairy garment, so that this last may have been intended for the Baptism of our Blessed Lord. Unfortunately, being on the outside wall, there was no means of protecting these curious paintings, and, sad to say, one evening, I myself saw a party of rough boys standing in a row throwing stones at them. There being a pathway through the churchyard, it was not possible to keep them out, and thus these curious remains have been destroyed.

We may think of the people who resorted to the little Old Church as wearing long gowns both men and women, on Sunday, spun, woven, and dyed blue at home, most likely with woad, a plant like mignonette which still grows in the lanes. The gentry were in gayer colours, but most likely none lived nearer than Winchester, and it was only when they plodded into market that the people would see the long-hanging sleeves, the pointed hoods, and the queer long-toed shoes of the young gentlemen, or the towers that the ladies put on their heads.

The name of Otterbourne does not come forward in history, but, as it lies so near Winchester, it must have had some share in what happened in the Cathedral city. The next thing we know about it is that Bishop Edyngton joined it to Hursley. William de Edyngton was Bishop of Winchester in the middle part of the reign of Edward III, from 1357 to 1366. Bishop de Pontissara founded a College at Winchester called St. Elizabeth’s, and to assist in providing for the expenses, he decreed that the greater tithes of Hursley, those of the corn fields, should be paid to the Dean and Chapter, and that the rest of the tithe should go to the Vicar. Then, lest the Vicar should be too poor, Otterbourne was to be joined with Hursley, and held by the same parish priest, and this arrangement lasted for five hundred years. It was made in times when there was little heed taken to the real good of country places. The arrangement was confirmed by his successor, Bishop Edyngton, who lies buried in the nave of Winchester Cathedral, not far from where lies the much greater man who succeeded him. William of Wykeham went on with the work Edyngton had begun, and built the pillars of the Cathedral nave as we now see them. He also founded the two Colleges of St. Mary, one at Winchester for 70 boys, one at Oxford to receive the scholars as they grew older, meaning that they should be trained up to become priests. It seems that the old name of the field where the college stands was Otterbourne meadow, and that it was bought of a Master Dummer. Bishop Wykeham’s College at Oxford is still called New College, though there are now many much newer. One small estate at Otterbourne was given by him to help to endow Winchester College, to which it still belongs.

Good men had come to think that founding colleges was the very best thing they could do for the benefit of the Church, and William of Waynflete, who was made Bishop of Winchester in 1447, founded another college at Oxford in honour of St. Mary Magdalen. To this College he gave large estates for its maintenance, and in especial a very large portion of our long, narrow parish of Otterbourne. Ever since his time, two of the Fellows of Magdalen, if not the President himself, have come with the Steward, on a progress through the estates every year to hold their Court and give audit to all who hold lands of them Till quite recently the Court was always held at the Manor House, the old Moat House, which must once have been the principal house in the parish, though now it is so much gone to decay. Old Dr. Plank, the President of Magdalen, used to come thither in Farmer Colson’s time. What used to be the principal room has a short staircase leading to it, and in the wainscot over the fire-place is a curious old picture, painted, I fancy, between 1600 and 1700, showing a fight between turbaned men and European soldiers, most likely Turks and Austrians. It is a pity that it cannot tell its history. The moat goes all round the house, garden, and farmyard, and no doubt used to have a drawbridge. Forty or fifty years ago, it was clear and had fish in it, but the bridge fell in and choked the stream, and since that it has become full of reeds and a mere swamp. It must have been a really useful protection in the evil times of the Wars of the Roses.

Most likely the Commandments were painted over the old fresco on the east wall of the nave of the old Church either in the time of Edward VI, or Elizabeth, for if they had been later, the letters would not have been Old English. The foreigners who meddled so much with our Church in the latter years of Edward VI obtained that the Holy Communion should not be celebrated in the chancels, but that the Holy Table should be spread in the body of the Church, and many Chancels were thus disused and became ruinous, as ours most certainly did at some time or other. St. Elizabeth’s College was broken up and the place where it stood given to the college of St. Mary. It is still called Elizabeth Meadow. The presentation to the Cure of our two parishes went with the estate of Hursley.

There was a very odd scene somewhere between Winchester and Southampton in the year 1554. Queen Mary Tudor was waiting at Winchester for her bridegroom, Philip of Spain. He landed at Southampton on the morning of the 20th of July, and set out in a black velvet dress, red cloak, and black velvet hat, with a splendid train of gentlemen to ride to Winchester. It was a very wet day, and the Queen sent a gentleman with a ring from her, to beg him to come no farther in the rain. But the gentleman knew no Spanish, and the King no English. So Philip thought some warning of treachery was meant, and halted in great doubt and difficulty till the messenger recollected his French, and said in that tongue, that the Queen was only afraid of his Grace’s getting wet. So on went Philip, and the High Sheriff of Hampshire rode before him with a long white wand in his hand, and his hat off, the rain running in streams off his bare head. They went so slowly as not to reach Winchester till six or seven o’clock in the evening, so that the people of Otterbourne, Compton, and Twyford must have had a good view of the Spanish Prince who was so unwelcome to them all.

Thomas Sternhold, who together with Hopkins put the Psalms into metre for singing, lived in the outskirts of Hursley.

When the plunder of the Monasteries was exhausted, the Tudor Sovereigns, or perhaps their favourites, took themselves to exacting gifts and grants from the Bishops, and thus Poynet who was intended in the stead of Gardiner gave Merdon to Edward VI, who presented it to Sir Philip Hobby. It was recovered by Bishop Gardiner, but granted back again by Queen Elizabeth. Sir Philip is believed to have first built a mansion at Hursley, and his nephew sold the place to Sir Thomas Clarke, who was apparently a hard lord of the manor. His tenants still had to labour at his crops instead of paying rent, but provisions had to be found them. About the year 1600, on the arrival of a hogshead of porridge, unsavoury and full of worms, the reapers struck, and their part was taken by Mr. Robert Coram, who then owned Cranbury, so hotly that he and Mr. Pye, Sir Thomas Clarke’s steward, rode at one another through the wheat with drawn daggers. Lady Clarke yielded, and cooked two or three bacon-hogs for the reapers.

Newspapers, if folded so as to show the red Government stamp, went for a penny, but nothing might be put into them, and not a word beyond the address written on them. The reason of all this was that the cost of carriage was then so great that it could only be made to answer by those high rates, and by preventing everything but real letters and newspapers from being thus taken. As Government then, as now, was at the expense of postage, its own correspondence went free, and therefore all Members of Parliament had the privilege of sending letters freely. They were allowed to post eleven a day, which might contain as much as would weigh an ounce, without charge, if they wrote the date at the top and their name in the right hand corner. This was called franking, and plenty of letters by no means on public business travelled in that way.

There was no post office in Otterbourne till between 1836 and 1840; for, of course there were few letters written or received, and thus it did not seem to many persons worth while for village children to learn to write. If they did go into service at a distance from home, their letters would cost more than their friends could afford to pay. This was a sad thing, and broke up and cut up families very much more than any distance does now. It really is easier to keep up intercourse with a person in America or even New Zealand now, than it was then with one in Scotland, Northumberland, or Cornwall; for travelling was so expensive that visits could seldom be made, and servants could not go to their homes unless they were within such a short distance as to be able to travel by coach or by carrier’s cart, or even walking all the way, getting a cast now and then by a cart.

People who did not travel by coaches, or who went where there was no coach, hired post-chaises, close carriages something like flies. Most inns, where the coaches kept their horses, possessed a post-chaise, and were licensed to let out post horses for hire. Most of the gentlefolks’ families kept a close carriage called a chariot, and, if they did not keep horses of their own, took a pair of post-horses, one of which was ridden by a man, who, whatever might be his age, was always called a post-boy. Some inns dressed their post-boys in light blue jackets, some in yellow ones, according to their politics, but the shape was always the same; corduroy tights, top boots, and generally white (or rather drab-coloured) hats. It used to be an amusement to watch whether the post-boy would be a blue or a yellow one at each fresh stage. Hardly any one knows what a post-boy was like now, far less an old-fashioned travelling carriage or chariot and its boxes.

The travelling carriage was generally yellow. It had two good seats inside, and a double one had a second seat, where two persons sat backwards. The cushion behind lifted up and disclosed a long narrow recess called the swordcase, because, when there were highwaymen on the roads, people kept their weapons there. There were sometimes two, sometimes one seat outside, called the box and the dickey—much the pleasantest places, for it was very easy to feel sick and giddy inside. A curved splashboard went up from the bottom of the chariot to a level with the window, and within it fitted what was called the cap box, with a curved bottom, so that when in a house it had to be set down in a frame to hold it upright. A big flat box, called the imperial, in which ladies put their dresses, was on the top of the carriage, two more long, narrow ones, generally used for shoes and linen, fitted under the seat, and another square one was hung below the dickey at the back, and called the drop box. Such a mischance has been known as, on an arrival, a servant coming in with the remains of this black box between his arms, saying—“Sir, should not this box have a bottom to it?” The chariot thus carried plenty of goods, and was a sort of family home on a journey. To go to Plymouth, which now can be done in six or seven hours, then occupied two long days, halting for the night to sleep at an inn.

The Old Church

Some of us can still remember the old Church and the old Sunday habits prevailing before 1830. The Churchyard was large and very pretty, though ill kept, surrounded with a very open railing, and with the banks sloping towards the water meadows clothed with fine elm trees—one with a large and curious excrescence on the bark. There was a deep porch on the south side of the Church, with seats on each side. Then, on red tiles, one entered between two blocks of pews of old brown unpainted oak (their doors are panels to the roof of the boys’ school). In the space between them were two or three low benches for the children. There were three arches leading to the chancel, but that on the south side was closed by the pulpit and reading desk, and that on the north by a square pew belonging to Cranbury. Within the chancel on the north side was a large pew lined with red, belonging to Cranbury, and on the south, first the clerk’s desk, then a narrow seat of the clergyman’s, and then a large square pew. Boys in the morning and men in the afternoon used to sit on the benches placed outside these, and beyond was the rail shutting in the Altar, which was covered with red cloth, and stood below a large window, on each side of which were the Commandments in yellow letters on a blue ground, and on the wall were painted the two texts, “The Cup of Blessing, is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ?” and “The Bread which we break, is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ?” The vestry was built out to the north, and was entered from the sanctuary.

Further space was provided by two galleries, one on the north side, supported on iron poles, and entered from the outside by a step ladder studded with large square-headed nails to prevent it from being slippery. The other went across the west end, and was entered by a dark staircase leading up behind the pews, which further led to the little square weather-boarded tower containing two beautifully toned bells. These were rung from the outer gallery where the men sat. There was a part boarded off for the singers. The Font was nearly under the gallery. It was of white marble, and still lines our present Font. Tradition says it was given by a former clerk, perhaps Mr. Fidler, but there is no record of it. An older and much ruder Font was hidden away under the gallery stairs close to an old chest, where women sometimes found a seat, against the west wall.

In those days, now more than half a century ago, when Archdeacon Heathcote was Vicar, he or his Curate used to ride over from Hursley on Sunday for the service at Otterbourne. There was only one service, alternately in the morning and afternoon, at half-past ten or at three, or in the winter at half-past two. The time was not much fixed, for on a new comer asking when the service would take place, the answer was “at half-past two, sir, or at three, or else no time at all,” by which was meant no exact hour or half-hour. This uncertainty led to the bells never being rung till the minister was seen turning the corner of Kiln-lane, just where the large boulder stone used to be. The congregation was, however, collecting, almost all the men in white smocks with beautifully worked breasts and backs, the more well-to-do in velveteen; the women in huge bonnets. The elder ones wore black silk or satin bonnets, with high crowns and big fronts, the younger ones, straw with ribbon crossed over, always with a bonnet cap under. A red cloak was the regular old women’s dress, or a black or blue one, and sometimes a square shawl, folded so as to make a triangle, over a gown of stuff in winter, print in summer. A blue printed cotton with white or yellow sprays was the regular week day dress, and the poorest wore it on Sundays. The little girls in the aisle had the like big coarse straw bonnets, with a strip of glazed calico hemmed and crossed over for strings, round tippets, and straight print frocks down to their feet. The boys were in small smocks, of either white or green canvas, with fustian or corduroy jackets or trowsers below, never cloth. Gloves and pocket handkerchiefs were hardly known among the children, hardly an umbrella, far less parasols or muffs. Ladies had pelisses for out-of-door wear, fitting close like ulsters, but made of dark green or purple silk or merino, and white worked dresses under them in summer.

Well, the congregation got into Church—three families by the step ladder to one gallery, and the men into another, where the front row squeezed their knees through the rails and leant on the top bar, the rest of the world in the pews, and the children on benches. The clerk was in his desk behind the reading desk—good George Oxford, with his calm, good, gentle face, and tall figure, sadly lame from rheumatism caught when working in the brick kilns. His voice was always heard above the others in the responses, but our congregation never had dropped the habit of responding, and, though there was no chanting, the Amens and some of the Versicles used to have a grand full musical sound peculiar to that Church. People also all turned to the east for the Creed, few knelt, but some of the elder men stood during the prayers, and, though there was far too much sitting down during the singing, every body got up and stood, if “Hallelujah” occurred, as it often did in anthems.

There were eight or ten singers, and they had a bassoon, a flute, and a clarionet. They used to sing before the Communion Service in the morning, after the Second Lesson in the afternoon, and before each Sermon. Master Oxford had a good voice, and was wanted in the choir, so as soon as the General Thanksgiving began, he started off from his seat, and might be heard going the length of the nave, climbing the stairs, and crossing the outer gallery. Sometimes he took his long stick with him, and gave a good stripe across the straw bonnet of any particularly naughty child. In the gallery he proclaimed—“Let us sing to the praise and glory of God in the Psalm,” then giving the first line.

The Psalms were always from the New or Old Versions. A slate with the number in chalk was also hung out—23 O.V., 112 N.V., as the case might be. About four verses of each were sung, the last lines over and over again, some very oddly divided. For instance—

“Shall fix the place where we must dwell,
The pride of Jacob, His delight,”

was sung thus:—

“The pride of Ja—the pride of Ja—the pride of Ja—” (at least three times before the line was ended).

But rough as these were, some of these Psalms were very dear to us all, specially the old twenty-third:—

“My Shepherd is the living Lord,
   Nothing, therefore, I need,
In pastures fair, by pleasant streams
   He setteth me to feed.

He shall convert and glad my soul,
   And bring my soul in frame
To walk in paths of holiness,
   For His most Holy Name.

I pass the gloomy vale of death,
   From fear and danger free;
For there His guiding rod and staff
   Defend and comfort me.”

Another much-loved one was the 121st:—

“To Zion’s hill I lift my eyes,
   From thence expecting aid,
From Zion’s hill and Zion’s God,
   Who heaven and earth hath made.

Sheltered beneath the Almighty’s wings,
   Thou shall securely rest,
Where neither sun nor moon shall thee
   By day nor night molest.

Then thou, my soul, in safety rest,
   Thy Guardian will not sleep,
His watchful care, that Israel guards,
   Shall Israel’s monarch keep.

At home, abroad, in peace or war,
   Thy God shall thee defend,
Conduct thee through life’s pilgrimage,
   Safe to thy journey’s end.”

Will the sight of these lines bring back to any one the old tune, the old sounds, the old sights of the whitewashed Church, and old John Green in the gallery, singing with his bass voice, with all his might, his eyebrows moving as he sung? And then the Commandments and Ante-Communion read not from the Altar, but the desk; the surplice taken off in the desk instead of the Vestry; Master Oxford’s announcements shouted out from his place, generally after the Second Lesson—“I hereby give notice that a Vestry Meeting will be held on Tuesday, at twelve o’clock, to make a new rate for the relief of the poo-oor.” “I hereby give notice that Evening Service will be at half-past two as long as the winter days are short.” Well, we should think these things odd now, and we have much to be thankful for in the changes; but there were holy and faithful ones then, and Master Oxford was one of them.

In the days here described, from 1820 to 1827, few small villages had anything but dame schools, and Otterbourne children, such as had any schooling at all, were sent to Mrs. Yates’s school on the hill, where she sat, the very picture of the old-fashioned mistress, in her black silk bonnet, with the children on benches before her, and her rod at hand.

Several families, however, did not send the children to school at all, and there were many who could not read, many more who could not write, and there was very little religious teaching, except that in the Sunday afternoons in Lent, the catechism was said in Church by the best instructed children, but without any explanation.

About the year 1819 Mrs. Bargus and her daughter came to live at Otterbourne, and in 1822 Miss Bargus married William Crawley Yonge, who had retired from the army, after serving in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. Both Mr. and Mrs. Yonge had clergymen for their fathers, and were used to think much of the welfare of their neighbours. It was not, however, till 1823 that Mrs. Yonge saw her way to beginning a little Sunday School for girls, teaching it all by herself, in a room by what is now Mr. J. Misselbrook’s house. While there was still only one Service on Sundays, she kept the school on the vacant half of the day, reading the Psalms and Lessons to the children, who were mostly biggish girls. This was when Archdeacon Heathcote was the Vicar of Hursley and Otterbourne, and the Rev. Robert Shuckburgh was his Curate. Archdeacon and Mrs. Heathcote, who were most kind and liberal, gave every help and assisted in setting up the Clothing Club.

Mrs. Yonge’s first list of Easter prizes contains twenty names of girls, and the years that have passed have left but few of them here. A large Bible bound in plain brown leather was the highest prize; Prayer Books, equally unornamented, New Testaments, and Psalters, being books containing only the Psalms and Matins and Evensong, were also given, and were then, perhaps, more highly valued than the dainty little coloured books every one now likes to have for Sunday. Then there were frocks, coarse straw bonnets, and sometimes pocket handkerchiefs, for these were not by any means such universal possessions as could be wished, and only came out on Sunday. As to gloves, silk handkerchiefs, parasols, muffs, or even umbrellas, the children thought them as much out of their reach as a set of pearls or diamonds, but what was worse, their outer clothing was very insufficent, seldom more than a thin cotton frock and tippet, and the grey duffle cloaks, which were thought a great possession, were both slight and scanty.

About 1826, Mrs. Yonge was looking at the bit of waste land that had once served as a roadway to the field at the back of Otterbourne House, when she said, “How I wish I had money enough to build a school here.” “Well,” said Mrs. Bargus, “You shall have what I can give.” The amount was small, but with it Mr. Yonge contrived to put up one room with two new small ones at the back, built of mud rough cast, and with a brick floor, except for the little bedroom being raised a step, and boarded.

The schoolroom was intended to hold all the children who did not go to Mrs. Yates, both boys and girls, and it was sufficient, for, in the first place, nobody from Fryern-hill came. Mrs. Green had a separate little school there. Then the age for going to school was supposed to be six. If anyone sent a child younger, the fee was threepence instead of a penny. The fee for learning writing and arithmetic was threepence, for there was a general opinion that they were of little real use, and that writing letters would waste time (as it sometimes certainly does). Besides this, the eldest daughter of a family was always minding the baby, and never went to school; and boys were put to do what their mothers called “keeping a few birds” when very small indeed, while other families were too rough to care about education so that the numbers were seldom over thirty.

There were no such people as trained mistresses then. The National Society had a school for masters, but they were expensive and could only be employed in large towns; so all that could be looked for was a kind, motherly, good person who could read and do needlework well. And the first mistress was Mrs. Creswick, a pleasant-looking person with a pale face and dark eyes, who had been a servant at Archdeacon Heathcote’s, and had since had great troubles. She did teach the Catechism, reading, and work when the children were tolerably good and obeyed her, but boys were a great deal too much for her, and she had frail health, and such a bad leg that she never could walk down the lane to the old Church. So, after Sunday School, the children used to straggle down to Church without anyone to look after them, and sit on the benches in the aisle and do pretty much what they pleased, except when admonished by Master Oxford’s stick.

Mr. Shuckburgh had by this time come to reside in the parish, in the house which is now the post-office, and there was at last a double Service on the Sunday.

The next thing was to consider what was to be done about the boys, who could not be made to mind Mrs. Creswick. A row of the biggest sat at the back of the school, with their heels to the wall, and by constant kicking had almost knocked a hole through the mud wall; so the Vicar, who was now the Archdeacon’s son, the Rev. Gilbert Wall Heathcote, gave permission for the putting up another mud and rough cast school house near the old Church, for the boys, in an empty part of the Churchyard to the north-east, where no one had ever been buried.

However, there Master Oxford was installed as schoolmaster, coming all the way down from his house on the hill (a pretty-timbered cottage, now pulled down). He and his boys had a long way to walk to their school, but he taught them all he knew and set them a good example. The boys were all supposed to go to him at six years old, and most were proud of the promotion. One little fellow was known to go to bed an hour or two earlier that he might be six years old the sooner! But some dreaded the good order enforced by the stick. There was one boy in particular, who had outgrown the girls’ school, and was very troublesome there. He would not go to the boys’, and his mother would not make him, saying she feared he would fall into the water. “Well,” said Mrs. Bargus, who was a most bright, kindly old lady of eighty, “I’ll make him go.” So she took a large piece of yellow glazed calico intended for furniture lining, walked up to school, and held it up to the little boy. She said she heard that he would only go to the girls’ school, and, since everybody went there in petticoats, she had brought some stuff to make him a petticoat too! The young man got up and walked straight off to the boys’ school.

Here are some verses, written by Mrs. Yonge in 1838, on one of the sights that met her eye in the old Churchyard:—