Mention Alresford and what do you think of? Oh yes, that nice market town a few miles north-east of Petersfield with the steam railway. Or perhaps, if you are a bird watcher, the Pond, which holds large numbers of wildfowl, especially in winter, and sometimes, in autumn, attracts a migrating osprey. Or the lovely wide Broad Street with cars parked everywhere along both sides, or the surviving small shops which retain much of the town’s olde-worlde character. Or watercress.

Yes, watercress, now designated as the ultimate superfood, rich in vitamins and minerals, a cure for almost everything. It has been grown around Alresford for nearly two hundred years, thriving in the fast-flowing, chalk-rich streams. Production intensified with the coming of the railway in 1865, giving easy communication with the London markets, and continues today, though it is now in the hands of the Watercress Alliance - Geest, Vitacress and the Watercress Company, who, between them farm more than 100 acres in Hampshire and Dorset. Sunday 13 May sees the annual Watercress Festival in the town.

The original Alresford was a mile to the north, now known as Old Alresford. The present town came into being in the 13th century, when King John granted Godfrey de Lucy, the Bishop of Winchester, a market, an annual fair and various mills, thus establishing a new town. It has been suggested that the pond was created at this time to provide a head of water to turn the River Itchen into a navigable canal. More likely it was just a huge fishpond for the Bishop’s Palace at Bishops Sutton.

During the 14th century Alresford was one of the ten biggest wool markets in the country, not perhaps the equal of the great wool towns of the Cotswolds and East Anglia, but the town became a prosperous trade centre for wool and leather. Despite the setbacks of the Black Death and the Plague, prosperity continued, until rudely interrupted by a series of disastrous fires in the 17th and 18th centuries. One of these was said to have been caused by Royalist troops retreating from the nearby Battle of Cheriton.

So the town had to be rebuilt, several times, in fact. But the original T-shaped street plan was always adhered to, and the elegant Georgian buildings survive to this day, much admired by lovers of urban landscapes. Perhaps the best way to see Alresford is to follow the Millennium Trail. Setting out from the station, where the Watercress Line celebrates its 30th birthday this year, it passes through the churchyard and into Broad Street, the heart of the town, where the mediaeval market hall once stood. Down to the Lake and the Town Mill, the Trail turns left towards the river and the famous Fulling Mill. Now a beautiful private house, here raw cloth was hammered into usable material, and what is now a quiet idyll must have once thundered with industrial hammer-blows. A few more yards along the river bank and another left turn takes us back into the town at the bottom of West Street.

One final question. The town is Alresford, but the river, is it the Alre or the Arle?

Tom Muckley

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post

tommuckley.co.uk