New Alresford

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National Gazetteer (1868) - New Alresford

"NEW ALRESFORD, (commonly called ALSFORD), a parish and market town in the Alton division of the county of Hants, 7 miles to the N.E. of Winchester railway station, and 57 miles from London by road, or 75 miles by the South Western railway. It is a neat and well-built union and market town, situated near the head of the river Itchen. Its name imports that there was a ford, overshadowed by alder trees, on the spot; but, by a mistake, the river here is often called the Alre. Cenwalch, King of Wessex, after his baptism, gave the manor to the Bishop of Winchester. The market, which in the early part of the 13th century had been discontinued, was restored about the year 1220, by Godfrey de Lucy, Bishop of Winchester.

The town was incorporated at an early period. It returned one member to parliament in the twenty-third and thirty-fifth years of the reign of Edward I., which privilege has long since been lost. The town has suffered on several occasions from fire. In 1690 and 1710 it was nearly destroyed, and it was subject to a like calamity in 1736. The church of St. John the Baptist is a neat building, and has a low embattled tower, with a peal of eight bells. The living was formerly a chapelry of Old Alresford, but now is a rectory* in the diocese of Winchester, value £240, in the patronage of the bishop, who is also lord of the manor. The Independents have a chapel here. There is a grammar school, founded and endowed in 1698 by H. Perrin, Esq., for 19 boys, sons of tradesmen in the town and in the villages of Old Alresford, Sutton, and Tichbourne, which, besides a house for the master, has fifty-two acres of land, yielding at present an income of £149 per annum.

Petty sessions are held fortnightly by the county magistrates for the Winchester division. At Michaelmas, a court leet is held by the Bishop of Winchester. Alresford used to be within the jurisdiction of the Cheyney Court, at Winchester. There is a national school and a savings-bank in the town. The former remarkable prosperity of this place is said to have been owing to the fact of the river Itchen having been made navigable up to the town, for which purpose in the rein of King John an embankment was constructed by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy; and the small lake, now called Alresford Pond, which covers an area of about 40 acres, was formed, but the navigation does not extend now beyond Winchester. The bishop and his successors received, as compensation for his great work, the royalty of the river from the pond to the sea.

The market, which is chiefly for corn, is held on Thursday; where sheep are also sold in the three months before Christmas. Fairs are held on the last Thursday in July, the first Thursday in September, the first Thursday after October the 16th, and the last Thursday in November, for the sale of cattle. There are several mansions in the neighbourhood: Tichbourne House, the seat of the Tichbourne family, and the Grange, the seat of Lord Ashburton. The latter is built in imitation of the Parthenon at Athens.