High above the roaring traffic on the road to Portsmouth stands the familiar sight of Chalton Windmill. There has been a mill here since 1289, and it is clearly shown on Speed’s map of 1611. The present tower brick mill was built about two hundred years ago, and after years of decay has been restored and turned into a private residence. Follow the lane for half a mile to the east, past the restored iron age farm and Roman villa, and you come to another famous landmark – the Red Lion at Chalton, said to be the oldest inn in Hampshire. Standing opposite the 13th century church of St. Michael, it is a two storey timber-framed building probably dating from the 15th century, the recessed centre part of the upper storey typical of such houses found throughout the Weald. It may well have been used as a hostel for dignitaries attending the church and the adjacent manor.

But the village goes back further still. Thirty years ago, a team of archaeologists from Southampton University, led by Barry Cunliffe, excavated an Anglo-Saxon hill-top village behind the church on Church Down, unearthing traces of sixty timber structures of the sixth century. Gradually, however, the village moved down the hill to its present site round the church.

The manor of Chalton occupied a large area from Blendworth to Clanfield, and belonged to Earl Godwin, passing to his son Harold in 1053. It was seized by William the Conqueror, and given to William Fitz-Osbern, Earl of Hereford and Lord of the Isle of Wight. By the time of the Domesday Survey it was in the hands of the Earl of Shrewsbury, one of whose successors forfeited it to King Henry I. It remained in noble hands for six hundred years until the time of Cromwell. In 1780 it was bought by Jervoise Clarke-Jervoise, who soon afterwards bought the manor of Idsworth, and became the first Lord of the Manor to live in the parish.

Idsworth, with its tiny chapel a familiar sight from the London-Portsmouth train, is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, and was probably included in the manor of Chalton. It was separated from Chalton when the third Earl’s lands were forfeited to the crown, and given to the Earl of Leicester. Like Chalton, the manor remained in the gift of the King throughout the middle ages, until it, too, was bought by Clarke-Jervoise in 1789.

The old house was demolished in 1840 to make way for the railway and a substantial new house built in 1852, which remained home to five generations of the family (and up to eleven servants!) for 120 years. Jervoise’s son, Sir Samuel, became Rector of Chalton and Idsworth in 1798, and his son, another Jervoise, was Member of Parliament for South Hampshire between 1857 and 1868. The diaries of his wife, the Lady Georgiana, give us an insight into the life of the aristocracy in the 19th century: hunting, shooting and entertaining, whilst spending much of the summer season at their magnificent London house in Bryanston Square and paying frequent visits to the opera at Covent Garden.

The last member of the family, Major Arthur Clarke-Jervoise, died in 1977, and Idsworth Park was sold the following year. It has been split into private apartments, managed by a Residents Association. Along with the demise of the family came the closure of the two village schools, which had opened in the 1850s, Chalton with fifty-three pupils and Idsworth with eighty-three.

St. Hubert’s Chapel is well known for its mediaeval wall paintings. Above a vivid picture of Salome dancing before Herod, is a mysterious hunting scene, perhaps reflecting the fact that in late Saxon times, Earl Godwin used to hunt nearby. A huntsman winds his horn, encouraging lively dogs to jump at a mysterious half-human creature emerging from the woods, which appears to be receiving a blessing from another figure. It is brilliantly executed and well preserved, but no two experts seem to agree as to its interpretation.

The current theory is that it represents the absolution of a hermit who once seduced and murdered a king’s daughter. As a penance he undertook to walk on all fours until he was forgiven. Chalton and Idsworth are special, secret places, witness to a thousand years of recorded history, and, despite a new wall-painting above the chancel arch at St. Hubert’s, the closure of the schools and the sale of the big house, hardly touched by the 20th century. And yet they are within earshot of today’s traffic and a mere stone’s throw from the urban sprawl that is Portsmouth.

Tom Muckley, June 2004

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post

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