Volume 21
South East Wiltshire
The fountain monument was erected at The Green in Alderbury in appreciation of the sixth Earl of Radnor's generous provision of the first piped water through the parish. It was unveiled in August 1903, and also marked the coronation of Edward VIII. Stone capitols and pillars from the ruins of the 12th century Ivychurch Priory are a special feature. Close by is the 15th century Green Dragon pub. Charles Dickens once stayed there and it is depicted as the Blue Dragon in his novel Martin Chuzzlewit. Photo Adrian Wroth
In 2018, with substantial progress already made on volumes 19 and 20, we decided it was time to start fund raising for a further area of the county. By early 2020 we had received some very generous donations and were in a position to award a contract for the start of work on the new area, comprising the ancient hundreds of Alderbury and Frustfield in the south east corner of the county.
The area, shown as 21 on the map contains 11 ancient parishes occupying an irregular area some 14 miles north to south and seven miles east to west, lying between Salisbury and the county boundary with Hampshire.
Frustfield hundred comprised only two parishes, Whiteparish and Landford, although Whiteparish is large with a number of distinct settlements. Alderbury hundred extended up the Bourne valley north east of Salisbury as far as Idmiston (with Porton and Gomeldon), and therefore included also the three Winterbournes (Gunner, Dauntsey and Earls). It also included Laverstock (with Ford), now largely a Salisbury suburb, Alderbury itself (a large parish including Whaddon, Pitton and Farley), Winterslow (another large parish and including much recent suburban housing), and two smaller parishes, West Grimstead and West Dean (with East Grimstead).
Several of these parishes surround Clarendon, an important medieval royal hunting park, which lay outside the parochial system but which will be included in the volume. The present pattern of civil parishes is slightly different. The two Grimsteads and three Winterbournes are combined as civil parishes, Clarendon Park is also a civil parish, and so is Pitton and Farley.
The area has no urban centre within its bounds, but has always looked to Salisbury (and to a lesser extent Romsey and Southampton in Hampshire) to provide its services. The solid geology across much of the area is chalk, and the Bourne valley parishes – Idmiston with its constituents and the Winterbournes – display the typical south Wiltshire strip parish arrangement, straddling the river and meadows of their valley and extending across arable fields up on to rough downland.
Within Idmiston parish, Porton Down is particularly significant for its military and scientific importance. Chalk outcrops across a swathe of country from Winterslow through Clarendon to Laverstock, are overlain around West Dean, the Grimsteads and Alderbury by the clays and silts of the Hampshire basin, the youngest rocks of Wiltshire, giving a broken, well-wooded landscape. As a result of an east–west anticline (the folding of rock strata into an arch-like shape) the chalk recurs further south and has formed a steep-sided ridge, Dean Hill, surmounted by the Pepperbox, which rises above 150m (about 490 feet) and forms a natural barrier between Alderbury and Frustfield hundreds. Across Frustfield to the south, the parishes of Whiteparish and Landford, the clays and silts overlie the chalk again, and the landscape begins to take the form of New Forest woodland and heathland.
The combined population of the two hundreds was 4,800 at the beginning of the 19th century, rising to nearly 7,000 by mid-century and then falling back slightly. Most settlements remained small through the 19th century, and only the populations of the large Whiteparish and Alderbury parishes, containing several villages, exceeded 1,000.
By 1951 the combined population had risen to nearly 9,400, and almost doubled up to 2011, when it was 17,685. Alderbury, Landford and Winterslow more than doubled during this period, to 2,223, 1,271 and 2,064 respectively, and Laverstock (with Ford) more than trebled, to 5,472, so that it constitutes almost a third of the total for the area. Most other parishes also increased significantly, notably Idmiston and Whiteparish.
The border between Hampshire and Wiltshire was significantly altered in 1894, including the removal from the latter to the former of the parish of Plaitford and the liberty (an area in which rights reserved to the monarch had been devolved into private hands) of Melchet Park, which until then had fallen within Alderbury hundred. Their histories are covered in VCH Hampshire, volume 4. Earldoms, like Clarendon, was an extra-parochial place, and was located within Frustfield hundred; it was created a civil parish in 1858, and in 1896 was incorporated into Landford.
Laverstock was said to include part of Milford in the 19th century, most of which lay in Salisbury; its status and history are discussed in VCH Wiltshire, volume 6. Pitton and Farley were geographically detached chapelries (areas served by an Anglican chapel) within the ancient parish of Alderbury; East Grimstead was a chapelry of West Dean. The county boundary bisects the village of West Dean, affecting some of its buildings (including the pub, which straddles it). Such curiosities are not unusual in settlement history, and smaller changes and anomalies will doubtless be recorded as research progresses.
South east Wiltshire research
In early 2020 a contract was awarded to Dr Rosalind Johnson to research and write up the Frustfield hundred, comprising the parishes of Whiteparish and Landford. The work is expected to take two years but Rosalind has already made substantial progress despite the restrictions imposed by the lockdown in place in the first half of 2020.
Landford first draft available for review.
South east Wiltshire research
