Place:Newtown near Newbury, Hampshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Newtown near Newbury is a village and civil parish in the county of Hampshire, located just south of Newbury in Berkshire.

Governance

The village of Newtown is part of the civil parish of Newtown, and, since 1974, is part of the Burghclere, Highclere and St. Mary Bourne ward of Basingstoke and Deane borough council. The borough council is a non-metropolitan district of Hampshire County Council.

Prior to 1974 Newtown was a separate civil parish in the rural districts of Kingslere (1894-1932) and Kingsclere and Whitchurch (1932-1974).

History

Between 1200 and 1255 the Bishops of Winchester created six new towns; Newtown, Overton and New Alresford in Hampshire, Newtown on the Isle of Wight, and Hindon and Downton, Wiltshire in Wiltshire. The medieval borough of Newtown was formed from part of the parish of Burghclere, and flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries. The adjacent Sandleford Priory in Sandleford, over the border on the other side of the River Enborne (Alder stream) in Berkshire, had been founded on an earlier establishment between 1193 and 1202. Newtown as a result it was sometimes known as Novus Burgus de Clere, or Nova villa de Sandelford. In 1218, the grant of a market and a fair at Newtown was made to the Bishop of Winchester (at the time Peter des Roches) and in the bishop's account roll of 1218-19 fifty-two burgesses are listed. The burgesses occupied sixty-seven plots of land in the new borough. The Prior of Sandleford bought three plots. Also in 1218-19, a chapel was built for the local people of the new borough, and was originally known as the Chapel of Sandleford.

In 1224-25, a ditch was dug around the town at the bishop's expense and, in 1225-26, the bishop's own house was built in the borough. By the 16th century, the town had begun to decay, although the reason for its decline is not known, and, in 1674, only sixty-four houses remained, probably scattered throughout the parish. No traces of the medieval borough can be seen above ground today.

Butchers, bakers, ironmongers and shoemakers were listed in the old borough records, but more recently the parish has been famed locally for making wooden rakes.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Newtown, Hampshire. Includes "Mrs Elizabeth Montagu's 1743 description of Newtown"

Research Tips

• Victoria County History of Hampshire, volume 4, chapter on Newtown.
• 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