Chalk land manors, such as existed around Petersfield, could maintain flocks of around 2, sheep. During the Medieval period the Bishopric of Winchester was one of the wealthiest sees in Europe, grown rich on the back of sheep. The names of the streets in Petersfield belie its former trade. Sheep Street runs down into The Spain, where large houses sit around a small green. John Goodyer , C17th botanist, house is in the Spain. A change in the national economy of Britain came about at the end of the C18th and more downland was put to corn and sheep moved to the north of the country.
Originally published by Victoria County History, London, This free content was digitised by double rekeying. All rights reserved. The town of Petersfield is situated near the centre of the parish of Petersfield, in the midst of an extensive agricultural district, forming one of the most picturesque portions of Hampshire.
Some two and a half miles to the south-west is Butser Hill ft. To the east the ground is lower, the upper waters of the Rother running at no great distance, though the main stream is never actually within the parish boundaries.
Three of its tributaries flow through the parish: the Tilmore Brook, which rises just beyond its eastern boundary at Stroud Common, passing through the town north of the High Street; a second stream running just to the south, and crossed by the Portsmouth road at Fore Bridge, in the south-east corner of the town; while a third is in the south of the parish, rising in Buriton, and skirting the grounds of Nursted House.
The London and Portsmouth road passes through the east side of the town, and on the north side is the main road to Winchester, joined a little way west of the town by the road to Alresford. The importance of Petersfield as a market town is much increased by the existence of its railway station on the direct Portsmouth line of the London and South Western Railway, which is also the junction for a branch line from Midhurst and Rogate.
Before the coming of the railway the town was a great posting-centre, as may be judged from the number of inns mentioned in the rent-rolls of the eighteenth century.
On the south side of the square stands St. Peter's church, until lately separated from it by the town hall erected in , and adjoining buildings.
In they were pulled down by Mr. William Nicholson and Lord Hylton, and although the spot has lost something of its old-time quaintness, the church stands out as it never did before. On the east, at the corner of the High Street, is the Corn Exchange, a white brick building erected in At one time both the horse and the rider were gilded, and the Golden Horse Inn, on the east side of the square, owes its name to the fact.
At the south-west angle of the square is Castle House, architecturally the most interesting domestic building in the town. It dates from the early years of the seventeenth century, retaining the mediaeval arrangement of a central block representing the hall, with wings at right angles to it at each end, but for the rest the old disposition of rooms is abandoned. The entrance is in the middle of the central block, and on either side are projecting rooms filling the angles between it and the wings, and representing the bay window and entrance porch of the mediaeval hall.
Here the hall has become a mere central lobby, and the chief living-rooms are in the north wing, on the ground and first floors. Fortunately a great deal of the original panelling and several fine chimney-pieces are preserved, though under a coat of white paint. The house is of two stories with an attic, with a kitchen yard and offices on the north, and a long garden on the west.
The front of the house is much overgrown with ivy, and plastered, and the replacement of the mullioned windows by sashes detracts from the general effect; but the hipped roofs and recessed front, and the wrought-iron entrance gateway to the little forecourt, are enough to make it the chief architectural feature of the square.
On the jambs of the entrance doorway are the initials E M and W M, which are doubtless those of the first owner. The house was purchased about the middle of the seventeenth century by the Bilson family, and in a deed of is described as a capital messuage and dwelling-house in Petersfield, in the occupation of Sir John Biggs. Eleven years later Richard and John sold the messuage described as being in the tenure of Browne Langrish, doctor of physic, fn.
Carter, lord of the manor of Mapledurham. Eventually it became a boys' school, and was used for this purpose until about eight years ago. It next became the residence of the Right Rev. Arthur Temple Lyttelton, D. It is at the present time occupied by the Rev. Tomlinson, M. Sheep Street leads from the Square to the Spain, a tranquil old-fashioned thoroughfare said to be socalled from the Spanish merchants who resorted there for wool-dealing.
The last house in the town to the north of the road is the vicarage. From the north-west corner of the Spain a road leads to the Borough and Borough Hill, close to which runs the railway. There is no lack of good eighteenth-century brickwork in the town, especially on the north side of the market square; and on the south side of High Street is a timber front No.
This house has some good seventeenth-century panelling and a chimney-piece in the ground-floor room to the right of the entrance. In the east of the town are several picturesque groups of houses, along Dragon Street fn. The Heath, a large public recreation ground in the east of the town, was formed from wet swampy ground in , and comprises 35 acres in the parish of Sheet, 4 acres in the parish of Buriton, and 5 acres in the parish of Petersfield.
The formation of the large lake within it, which covers an area of 22 acres, and lies half in Petersfield manor and half in Mapledurham manor, was the result of certain drainage operations in The Heath House, the residence of Captain the Hon. William Sydney Hylton-Jolliffe, D.
Petersfield parish covers an area of 1, acres of land and 23 acres of water. Mary, the seat of Mr. George Lothian BonhamCarter, a mansion in the Elizabethan style, erected in and enlarged in —3, stands in well-wooded grounds to the north of the road from Godalming to Petersfield. The river Rother intersects Sheet, and on it are two mills called Sheetbridge Mill and Sheet Mill, the latter of which certainly represents one of the mills entered under 'Malpedresham' in Domesday Book.
Among place-names mentioned in the sixteenth century are Bullockes Leses, fn. In the reign of Henry II, William earl of Gloucester granted to the burgesses of Petersfield all the liberties and free customs enjoyed by the citizens of Winchester, and to have a merchant gild.
These privileges were confirmed by the charter of his widow Hawise. The charter of the earl is lost, but that of the countess is still preserved. Illingworth, deputykeeper of the records in the Tower, made a careful search in the various depositories of public records in the early part of the eighteenth century, but failed to find any royal charter of incorporation, although the draft of a charter from James I incorporating the inhabitants was for many years in the possession of the Gibbon family, and is possibly still extant.
It is probable that Thomas Hanbury, lord of the borough at that date, to whose advantage it was that the burgesses should receive no charter of incorporation, exerted his influence as an auditor of the Exchequer to prevent the completion of the grant.
From the Petersfield court rolls of the latter part of the sixteenth century it appears that the various officers of the borough were elected in the court leet of the manor, and at that time included a mayor, a constable, a bailiff, two aldermen or tithing men, ale-tasters, and sometimes two leather sealers. A significant entry occurs in the account of the reeve of Petersfield for to the effect that he had received nothing from the miller of 'Wadeleshall,' near Petersfield, for licence to carry corn from the borough to his mill, because the mill had recently been turned into a fullingmill.
Most of the court rolls give evidence of the industries of the burgesses, particularly with regard to the trade of tanning, fn. They also sometimes seized felons' goods to their own use.
In short, they seem to have acted very much as they pleased while Sir Henry Weston and Sir Richard Weston, who were members of a Surrey family, and never seem to have lived near Petersfield, were lords of the borough. However, everything was changed when Thomas Hanbury, who lived in the neighbouring parish of Buriton, purchased the borough in He determined to maintain his rights, fn. They, however, expressed themselves willing to pay him the fee-farm rents with the arrears, 'if he would accept thereof.
The exception was William Yalden, who said that twenty-five years ago he had seen an ancient charter or parchment in the custody of the mayor and burgesses, wherein 'one Earle Marrett fn. It was ordered that he and his heirs should from henceforth peaceably and quietly have, hold, and enjoy the waste grounds of the borough whereon no houses were built, as also the rents of assize, the burgage-rents, duties, services, and customs, and all profits and perquisites of the courts of the borough, and the profits of the fairs and markets, and toll, picage, and stallage, without interruption or disturbance.
The court, however, forbore to make any decree touching the houses built upon the waste ground of the borough, although it was of opinion that they belonged to Hanbury, but advised him to take his course for the recovery of them at the common law.
In cloth was still manufactured in Petersfield, for in that year the clothworkers and the other inhabitants of the town presented a petition to the lord of the manor of East Meon, complaining that two fullingmills in the parish of Steep being copyholds of the manor had been suffered to fall into decay for want of repairs 'and tended to their great charge and hindrance,' fn. The leather industry also probably declined at the same time, and no manufactures are carried on in Petersfield at the present day.
The constitution of the borough for centuries underwent but little change. In the Herald's Visitation of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in , there is the following account of Petersfield, no doubt furnished by Thomas Hanbury the lord of the borough: 'The burrough of Petersfield is an ancient burrough, the lord whereof is Thomas Hanbury, esq. Hillary, at which leet the jury elect a mayor and a bailiff to attend him, both out of the freeholders of the said borough, and two other officers called Aldermanni sive "testatores panis et cervisiae ," which execute the office of tithing-men within the said borrough, and are also chosen ratione tenurae out of the freeholders of the said borrough.
At the same court is chosen a constable out of the most substantiall inhabitants, which constable is for that year one of the constables for the Hundred of Finchdean. This burrough hath no charter'.
The mayor and the other officers continued to be elected at the court-leet of the manor held on the first Monday in Epiphany fn. Sadly notable buildings including the 19th century town hall and Castle House, once one of The Square's most prominent properties, are long gone.
On The Square's east side however, remnants of the former Corn Exchange built in , are still in evidence. Trading took place within its then open hall once a fortnight. When not resounding to the cries of buyers and sellers, there were concerts, plays and even circuses, to entertain the crowds. The equestrian statue in the centre of The Square was originally erected in the courtyard of the now demolished Petersfield House, which was formerly the country seat of local MP Sir William Jolliffe.
Although referred to in earlier times as Ship Street, Petersfield's medieval prominence as a wool town is reflected in what's now known as Sheep Street. Running from the west side of The Square, today it still boasts many of those buildings built between the 16th and 18th centuries. Names such as Carding House confirm the processing the fleeces underwent, before being woven into Hampshire Kersey, a hardwearing cloth used for jackets and outer garments.
By the s, Petersfield's prosperity relied on the associated leather and tanning industries, resulting in several glove shops opening in the High Street, one of the town's new commercial hotspots. Physic Garden in Petersfield - Credit: Archant. A blue plaque, erected outside numbers 22 to 24 Sheep Street, is a reminder that buildings on this side of the road along with 33 other properties around Petersfield, were bought by the Joliffe family in to gain parliamentary votes.
Before long The Case of the Borough of Petersfield became the talk of the land and signalled a turning point in British democracy. At the far end of Sheep Street, The Spain - still notable today for its large, elegant houses sitting around a small green - reputedly got its name from the Spanish merchants who once came to Petersfield to trade.
Although, an alternative theory is that it's a corruption of the word 'spayne' meaning 'tile' which, almost certainly, would have been used to roof the houses - as opposed to the more lowly thatch - belonging to high-standing former occupants. With esteemed 17th century botanist, and former local resident, John Goodyer the inspiration behind its creation, Petersfield Physic Garden is an oasis of tranquillity.
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