St Margaret's Priory

The first thing that can be said about St Margaret's Priory is that it was never a priory. The name was adopted in the 20th century as a fashionable name for an old building.

Parts of the building date from the late 16th century or early 17th century and the dominant feature of the building, the brick tower, dates from this period. The residential part was substantially enlarged in the late 18th century.

The question as to why it was built is a challenging one. Some have suggested that it was built as a lookout tower to spot game in the park, although the practicalities of communicating that information to the hunters is difficult to imagine unless they had developed some kind of semaphore system. More  plausible is the theory that it was built at the time of the Spanish Armada invasion as a lookout point. Certainly there is an unimpeded view for miles.

Once built it may have occurred to the third earl that it could be developed as a residence, possibly for one of his officials, or, as has been suggested, a dower house. It was certainly used for the latter purpose during the period that the Delmé family owned the estate.

From the 1620s onwards the house was occupied by a farmer and it was known as St Margaret's Farm. A document dated 1641 describes it as "a capital messuage (house and associated buildings) and farm called St. Margaret's, wit a parcel of land enclosed from the great waste of Titchfield (Titchfield Common) and two closes (enclosed fields) called Low Lamber and the Outash."

It was occupied by tenant farmers until the Delmé family appropriated the building for their own use, and considerably enlarging it in the process.

It was purchased in 1919 by Herbert Hughes-Stanton, who, being of a romantic disposition, added many "Tudor" features to the building. Hughes-Stanton was a respected artists and Royal Academician and one of his sons, Blair Hughes-Stanton, became even better known as an artist.

In recent times the building has been subdivided into three separate properties.

Titchfield Hundred

The manor and the hundred and the shire were Saxon administrative inventions and were adopted without change by the Normans. The French name of Manor was substituted as was County, but the Hundred  kept its Saxon name.

Broadly speaking the manor was a definable area of land between 1,000 and 3,000 acres which would support a lord and his attendant families. These manors were assessed for taxation purpose in a measure known as a hide - about 120 acres. Each manor had its own court to deal with its own local disputes but where problems overlapped the territory of another manor the Saxons devised the Hundred Court. Manors were grouped together as Hundreds, that is a territory more-or-less equivalent to 100 hides, and these hundred usually took their name from the central meeting place. Titchfield was one such Hundred.

The history of the Hundred of Titchfield is not straightforward. Although, as we can see from the map, the hundred covered a territory, it represented a jurisdiction and from time to time powerful lords and the abbot of Tichfield withdrew from the hundred, such that by the time of Edward I the hundred consisted only of Wickham, Segensworth, Stubbington and Rowner.

At Domesday the hundred was, as represented on the map above, and included Titchfield, Faccombe, Meon, Bromwich, Bentley, Crofton, Funtley, Wickham, Segenworth, Hook, Stubbington, and Rowner. It  was assessed at 46 hides, a low value, which can be explained by the fact that the king, who held Titchfield directly excused himself tax and the very large and prosperous, and indeed populous, manor was only assessed at 2 hides - a tax which does not appear to have been collected anyway.

The Hundred itself was farmed out, that is the rights to the court were granted to  someone willing to pay for the privilege. It yielded 58s. 4d. in 1266 and 30s in the time of Richard II. These were the figures paid to the Treasury, so one assumes that the amount collected from taxpayers was in excess of those figures. This relatively low amount illustrates how the Titchfield Hundred had become fragmented and that the ability to make money from administering justice here was limited.

After the middle ages the Hundred continued to serve their function for the administration of justice and collection of taxes, but their importance declined from the 17th century as newer institutions emerged. In the 19th century the development of Poor Law Unions, sanitary districts and highways districts made them redundant. 19th century government acts which created County Councils and Urban and Rural Districts made them completely obsolete. Curiously the Hundred was never formally abolished by Parliament, so in a notional sense they still exist.

Today their only us is in one of those peculiarly British legal loopholes to allow MPs to give up their seats in Parliament without an election. MPs cannot resign their seats; only an election can unseat them. However, if they hold a royal office they cannot be a member of Parliament. So by applying for  the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds (in this case an unpaid royal perquisite) they are automatically barred from holding a parliamentary seat. Once those formalities are done with the MP resigns from the Chiltern Hundreds. The last person to be Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds was Sadiq Khan, now Mayor of London.

I have no idea who last held the rights to the Titchfield Hundred, nor whether that is discoverable. It's an intriguing question.

in 1788, these areas made up the Titchfield Hundred.

  Titchfield Park (Fareham parish; SU5307)
  Abshot = Abshot (Fareham parish; SU5105)
  Alverstoke = Alverstoke (Gosport parish; SZ6099)
  Brunidge = Brownwich (Fareham parish; SU5103?)
  Chilling = Chilling (Fareham parish; SU5004)
  Crofton = Crofton (Fareham parish; SU5504)
  Fareham = Fareham (Fareham parish; SU575061)
  Gosport = Gosport (Gosport parish; SZ616998)
  Gr. Funtley = Funtley (Fareham parish; SU5608)
  Hellhead = Hill Head (Fareham parish; SU5402)
  Hook = Hook (Fareham parish; SU5005)
  L. Funtley = Funtley (Fareham parish; SU5608)
  Leigh = Lee-on-the-Solent (Gosport parish; SU5600)
  Leigh Marks = Lee Marks? (Gosport parish; SU50?)
  Rowner = Rowner (Gosport parish; SU5801)
  Stubington = Stubbington (Fareham parish; SU5503)
  Titchfield = Titchfield (Fareham parish; SU541058)
  Warsash = Warsash (Fareham parish; SU4906)
  Wickham = Wickham (Wickham parish; SU575114)

Titchfield in 1066

900 years ago this year, England's political structure changed. The new king very quickly replaced all the minor Saxon lords known as thanes and replaced them with more powerful barons and bishops. These men were granted great tracts of land, often scattered across the country, which they could hold from the king as tenants-in-chief. In turn they distributed land to their followers. In many parts of the country the change was noticeable and significant.

Titchfield, however, was probably immune to this change. It was held directly by King Edward before 1066 and assumed by King William after the Conquest, and because it was held by the king, the Domesday Book of 1086 is less helpful than it is with other manors. Usually the entries express a value of the land as it was in 1066 and its present (i.e. 1086) value. Sometimes this went up and sometimes down and more often than not stayed the same. Titchfield was not given a value in either 1066 or 1086. Since it was not subject to any pillaging by the invading army in 1066, it is probable that the villagers placidly went about their work and the value of the land stayed constant.

The size of Titchfield is also difficult to estimate from the Domesday entry. It did become a very large parish, stretching to the Hamble river in the west, to Rowner in the south east and to Wickham in the north east. We cannot be absolutely sure that this was the extent of the parish in 1066, but by eliminating manors held by others we may arrive at some estimate. William's powerful baron, Hugh of Port, held Wickham, Segensworth, Hook and Stubbington. Count Alan held Crofton and Funtley. William Maudit held Rowner. So by eliminating these manors Titchfield in 1066 might not be too far from our present understanding of its domain. That is, it probably extended from Segensworth to the Solent on the west side of the river and included Titchfield Common, Whiteley, Sarisbury and Swanwick.

Another difficulty is being able to read the tax assessment. The Anglo-Saxon system used a unit called the hide. It is not a precise measure as its value would depend on the quality of the land, but scholars reckon that it was about 120 acres in most parts of England. A manor assessed at 10 hides would cover about 1200 acres. For comparison purposes here, Wickham was assessed at 12 hides and Crofton at 7.

Titchfield is only assessed at 2 hides, so by using the above calculation we would be looking at an acreage of about 250. This is clearly wrong because there are other indicators to show that it is quite prosperous. There is land in Titchfield for 15 ploughs, whereas Wickham has land only for 7 ploughs and Crofton 5. Something else is happening, and that is that the good villagers of Titchfield are not being assessed for tax. They are presumably paying their rental to the king but the king is content to waive any further taxes. So the inhabitants of Titchfield were in a favourable position.

There appear to be other indications that this competitive advantage is working for them. There are two mills in Titchfield, each valued at 20s. Wickham has only one mill of the same value and Crofton's mill is valued at 12s 6d. Titchfield also has a market with the toll rights amounting to 40s. (Let me also add that while these amounts appear trivial today, they were huge in 1086.)

16 villagers, 13 smallholders and 4 slaves are recorded at Titcfield in 1086. The villagers probably worked 30 acres each and the smallholders half of this or less. The slaves of course had no rights and possibly worked the king's land. If we assume that each of these individuals counted here represents a family of, say, 4, then including two millers, we might have found a population of 140-150 in Titchfield in those days, and, small as this appears to us today, they formed a larger community than any of the surrounding manors.

A Royal Wedding at Titchfield

Medieval monasteries were amongst the most impressive buildings of their times. They were spacious, sumptuously built and maintained and were certainly fitting places for the accommodation of the well-to-do. The abbey at Titchfield, although by no means the largest or richest, was nevertheless well appointed and an appropriate place for a royal wedding.

The occasion was the marriage of Henry VI, to Margaret of Anjou, and the day was 22 April 1445. Margaret was 15 years old and Henry eight years her senior and this day was the culmination of a good deal of diplomatic effort over a protracted period. It was a highly political marriage with a great deal at stake, for the English at any rate, and it turned into a major political miscalculation by the English.

Activity around the idea of a marriage went back to the beginning of 1444 when the English were trying to construct a truce. French resurgence since the time of Joan of Arc made the English hold on Normandy increasingly tenuous and expensive and some breathing room was required. A marriage for Henry, now in his early 20s seems to be a way of securing this. Charles VII of France was amenable to the idea, but he would not propose his own daughters and attention then fell upon Margaret of Anjou. Her father, Rene, duke of Anjou was a cousin to the Valois king but other than that had little to offer. He had wasted a good part of his life pursuing his phantom title to the kingdom of Naples and bankrupted himself in the process. Therefore Margaret came only with a name and a dowry.

Queen Margaret

However, the English government was interested. The arrangement promised a two year truce with the prospect of negotiating something of longer duration, and in a spirit of optimism Margaret was married at the church of St Martin at Tours on 24 May 1444 to Henry VI. Standing in as proxy for the king was William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. Once the diplomatic business of the marriage and the truce was effected, the earl returned to England.

Six months elapsed and Suffolk, newly promoted to marquess, returned to France to escort Margaret to England. He was accompanied by Sir Richard Woodville and his wife Jacquetta. They were to spend some time in France. Margaret was unwell at this time and the winter weather that followed did not allow a crossing so it was not until April of the following year that they were able to cross the Channel.

The party landed at Porchester on 9 April but Margaret was again unwell. It seems to have been something more than sea-sickness as it was described as caused  'of the labour and indisposition of the sea by occasion of which the pocks broke out upon her.' Whatever the complaint, it kept her down for seven days.

The chroniclers are vague about what happened to her. Gregory say that she went to Hampton (Southampton) to rest in God's House, before returning to Titchfield. Gregory says that she went to Southwell (probably meaning Southwick) and Fabyan's Chronicle also records that they were married at Southwick. It may be hard to make sense of all this. Porchester had been converted to a royal palace by Richard II and was perfectly able to accommodate large retinues. It was a practical place to house Margaret's party. There was a connection with the Priory of Southwark since it was at one time within the walls of Porchester Castle until they decamped for their own place a few miles north in the middle of the 12th century and it is possible that Henry himself was staying there. It would make better sense for him to be lodging at Titchfield; otherwise why hold the ceremony there rather than Southwick? Margaret may have been taken to God's house at Southampton because there were men there who could minister to her sickness. She would have been taken by water (by far the fastest way to travel) and returned to Porchester ready to progress to Titchfield.

Initially the marriage was considered a success by the English public since it promised years of peace in the future, but it quickly unravelled. In July a French embassy came to England to discuss a further truce and of course they wanted something in return. The County of Maine, at that time a buffer state between French Anjou and English Normandy, was desired by the French. Both Henry and Margaret, already asserting herself, were party to the negotiations and Henry gave a private undertaking to cede Maine to France in return for a 20 year truce. Suffolk and a few others were involved but the treaty was a secret one and by 22 December Henry agreed in a letter to surrender Maine by 30 April 1446.

Had this resulted in the intended peace the trade may not have been such a bad one but the Maine garrison, who had not been consulted or informed, refused to surrender. Charles chose to consider this a breach of the treaty and marched into Maine in February 1448. Two weeks later it was his. The following year he marched into Normandy and within two months had taken Rouen. Everything was quickly lost and England's presence in France was now reduced to the Pale of Calais.

There is little trace of the abbey today. It was acquired by Sir Thomas Wriothesly, later Baron Titchfield and later still earl of Southampton in 1539 and he immediately set about converting the abbey into a splendid Tudor country house. Of that only the gatehouse and some walls survive.

There is a local legend that Margaret and her retinue crossed the River Meon at the bottom of Fishers Hill and indeed this bridge is often referred to as the"Anjou Bridge" today. This stone bridge dates from 1625 and doubtless there were earlier wooden bridges at this narrow crossing. There is no documentary evidence that I know of to establish this bridge as the crossing, one way or the other, but sometimes local legends are important.

The "Anjou Bridge" with Titchfield Abbey in the background.