Place:Hordle, Hampshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Hordle is a village and civil parish in the New Forest District of Hampshire. It is situated between the Solent coast and the New Forest, and is bordered by the towns of Lymington and New Milton. Like many New Forest parishes Hordle has no village centre.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Hordle from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"HORDLE, or HORDWELL, a village, a tything, and a parish, in Lymington [registration] district, Hants. The village stands on an eminence, near the coast, 4 miles S W of Lymington town and [railway] station; had salt works at Domesday; and commands a fine view of the Needles and the Isle of Wight. The tything includes the village; and its real property is £983. The parish includes also the hamlets of Arnwood, Downton, and Tiptoe, and the fortress of Hurst Castle. Acres: 4,385; of which 505 are water. Post town: Lymington. Real property: £3,219. Population: 921. Houses: 197. The property is much subdivided. Hordle House, Arnwood, and Downton are chief residences. The coast is suffering abrasion by the sea; and a line of cliffs on it is rich in fossils, and possesses much interest for geologists. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Winchester. Value: £90. Patron: Queen's College, Oxford. The old church stood near the village, and has been taken down; but the churchyard remains. The new church stands in a more central situation, was built in 1831, and has a tower. There are a Baptist chapel and a national school."

The civil parish as described above was abolished in 1932 and the area divided between the parishes of Lymington and and the newly-created Sway in the northwest.

In the 1974 nationwide reorganization of local administrations the parish of Hordle was revived with a much reduced area. It still includes the hamlets of Tiptoe and Everton. Originally the parish included both Hurst Spit (and Hurst Castle) as well as Sway tower. During the 19th century, Hurst Spit and adjacent areas were transferred to Milford whilst the hamlet of Everton was included in Hordle.

History

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Hordle.

Research Tips

• Victoria County History of Hampshire, volume 5, chapter on Hordle.
• GENUKI has a list of archive holders in Hampshire including the Hampshire Record Office, various museums in Portsmouth and Southhampton, the Isle of Wight Record Office and Archives.
• The Hampshire Online Parish Clerk project has a large collection of transcriptions from Parish Registers across Hampshire.
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 together with tables listing the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered, along with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The three-storey City Museum in Winchester covers the Iron Age and Roman periods, the Middle Ages, and the Victorian period.
• Volumes in The Victoria County History Series are available for Hampshire through British History Online. There are three volumes and the county is covered by parishes within the old divisions of "hundreds".

A collection of maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrating the English county of Hampshire over the period 1832-1932 (the last two are expandible):

• The Hundreds of Hampshire, a map from HMSO Boundary Commissioners, dated 1832
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts as of 1900, a map from the Ordnance Survey
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts after the alterations of 1932, a map from the Ordnance Survey

• A group of maps of the post-1974 municipal districts or boroughs of Hampshire on Wikipedia Commons