Village History
·
Early History
The village is recorded in Domesday Book
and the name has been recorded in various forms including Cheldreton,
Cheldrington and Choldrington. The estate of Cholderton manor was held in 1086 by
William of Eu. Other estates in Cholderton originated in small estates held in
1066 by Alwin, Ulvric, Sewi and Ulward and in 1086 Ernulf of Hesdin owned all
of them. Some of the estates owned by Ernulf and his successors apparently
merged to form Lower Farm. Eventually in 1893 it was sold to Henry Stephens and
incorporated into the Cholderton Estate.
Other esates held by Ernulf of Hesdin were
possibly the origin of the Cholderton House estate. The land was held by
Mottisfont Abbey at the time of the Dissolution.
In 1086 the four estates at Cholderton had
land for 5.5 plough teams and there wre 36 square furlongs of pasture, but
neither meadow nor woodland.
Cholderton's assessment for taxation in
1332-4 showed it as relatively prosperous and in 1377 there were 46 poll tax
payers. Tax assessments of the 16th and earlier 17th centuries indicate
moderate prosperity.
The early village may originally have
focused on the church and earthworks in the field to the north of the church
have the appearance of house platforms of a medieval village.
·
Cholderton
Church
The Saxon Church |
The saxon Church |
Old and New Churches |
St Nicholas lane 1897 |
St Nicholas lane 1997 |
St Nicholas church 1998 |
It cost over £6000
out of which Mozeley had to find over £5000 himself through he and his wife
writing articles and publishing books. No financial support at all was
forthcoming from the local community.
The struggle to
finance and complete the church caused Mozeley to resign, to be replaced in
1847 by Revd James Frazer, who later became Bishop of Manchester. Mozeley
continued to pay for the completion of the church up to its consecration. It
took another ten years for Frazer to contribute and install the stained glass
windows some of which commemorate members of his family.
The old church, built in the 12th century measured 40 feet 2 inches.
|
The exterior of St
Nicholas strongly reflects the architectural style of a college chapel in
that it is tall, unaisled and without a break to mark any internal divisions.
On entering the impression is reinforced by the stone screen separating the
building into chapel and ante-chapel at the level of the first bay. Sited alongside
the previous 12th Century church the new building is twice as long and twice
as high and was built to fit a medieval hammerbeam roof which Mozeley had
acquired from Suffolk. The roof was originally from an Augustinian monastery
used later by a Guild of Cloth Workers who carved their Sign of Shears on
some of the roof braces. |
The floor tiles
specially made by Minton were considered so exceptional that the entire design
was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The tile with the royal coat of arms
in the ante-chapel is as used in the House of Lords in London.
The pew ends, all
different, represent the Fruits of the Earth and were carved by craftsmen from
Suffolk. A special L shaped front pew on the left was designed to enable Mr
Paxton of Cholderton House to sit with his back to the wall as he was averse to
having people sitting immediately behind him.
The organ was given
in 1905 by Mr and Mrs Stephens of the Cholderton Estate together with the then
Rector, Revd Brisco Owen.
The font is of Caen
stone with an oak cover. The Norman font from the old church is on the left
hand side as you enter the ante-chapel.
The
stone screen forming the vestibule at the west end is adorned on both sides
with the armorial bearings and initials of those associated with the building
of the new church.
·
Later History
Cholderton House was built in 1690 of flint
with red brick dressings as a two storeyed house with attics. Various additions
and alterations were made during the 19th and 20th centuries.
St Nicholas Lane 1897 AD
·
Cholderton Estate
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The Cholderton Estate was assembled in
the late 19th century by Henry Charles Stephens as a series of acquisitions designed
to create a holding big enough to become a model of Victorian progressive
farming. Over a period beginning in 1889 a number of smaller estates and
farms were purchased. At its largest, the Estate covered more
than 5,000 acres (2,000ha), and Henry Charles Stephens set about making it as
efficient as possible. Meticulous documentation of every acre was a key part
of this process, and the majority of these documents survive in the Wiltshire
Record Office at Trowbridge. These reveal that a rotation system was a
critical ingredient in the striving for high productivity. Stephens was a
chemist, and he applied the same careful, scientific approach to farming as
he did to his other interests. It is from this period that the ‘look’ of
the present-day Estate largely derives. Stephens laid out woodlands of
various types, including a small arboretum, and he either refurbished or had
built nearly all of the buildings on the Estate. A good deal of this
Victorian landscape character survives, and it is one of the reasons why the
Estate was designated a Countryside Heritage Site by Hampshire County Council
in 1985, and listed on the Hampshire Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Photographs of these buildings and groups
of buildings when new show them to be handsome, robust and an integral part
of the landscape. Cholderton Lodge and Home Farm are both Grade II listed
buildings, together with several others. |
·
The Village School
In the Parish Notes published by the rector
Edwin Barrow in 1889, records for 1851:
"Opening of new School. Number of children entered, 16. Salaray of
Mistress, £26, to rise to £30 per annum."
The land for the school was donated by
Frances Elizabeth Dowager Countess Nelson. The materials of the old church were
used to build the school. The total cost of building and furnishing the school
was £680 7s. 10d. Numbers rose to 35 in 1853 including children from other
parishes and in 1858 two teachers taught 40 children. Attendance at the school
between 1871 and 1888 ranged between 23 and 34 each year.
The school was enlarged in the earlier 20th
century. Average attendance was 53 in 1906-7, 34 in 1932, 46 in 1938 and only
18 when the school closed in 1978.
Earlier schools are also
recorded. A school for poor children was held in the earlier 18th century by
the curate and provision was made in the will of Anthony Cracherode for a
teacher and books for 12 poor children. His school existed from 1753 and in
1818 a poorly qualified woman taught 6-8 children at it. Another school had c.
15 pupils in 1808 and is presumably the school with 16 pupils in 1818. In 1833
the charity school had had 28 pupils and was the only one in the parish.