Heavy industry on the River Meon: Iron by Carolyn Hughes

We are accustomed to thinking of the Meon Valley as a peaceful, very rural place, where cows graze in the meadows, sheep crop the short turf on the hills, and grain and rape and watercress are harvested from the fields and paddies that border the river.

I have said before that, from early times, there were many mills along the banks of the meandering Meon. They were mostly used for grinding grain for flour but also for a number of manufacturing processes, including iron working, cloth processing, paper making and tanning – quite heavy industries. 

Today I’m going to look at iron working, and next time I will consider brick making. Both industries were centred around the lower reaches of the Meon, at Titchfield and a little further upstream at Funtley, and both have been very important to the economy of the area and the country.

Greenwood’s map from 1826 showing the Titchfield Hundred.
The white arrows and circles show, from the south, “Brick Kilns” next to the River Meon,
and to the east, the “Fareham Kilns”; “Iron Mill”; “Funtley Mill”.

Iron making

Iron smelting had been going on in the Meon Valley since Roman times. Evidence of a Roman “bloomery”, a type of furnace, was found during excavations for one of the Forest of Bere’s car parks in Soberton Heath. This method was used from the Iron Age to mediaeval times, and used charcoal and iron ore. The charcoal would have been made from local timber, in this case trees from the Bere Forest, and the iron ore would presumably have come from the Wealden sandstones, found to the east in Sussex and Kent. Once extracted from the ground, the ore was “roasted” before being smelted with the charcoal in the bloomery furnace, which initially was just a hole in the ground, but later was built above ground out of clay, or stone with a clay lining. The bellows used to increase the heat inside the furnace were operated by hand or foot. The result of the smelting was a spongy mass of iron and slag, which needed to be heated again and hammered, as many times as necessary, to remove the slag and produce iron suitable for making plough-shares, cart fittings, weapons and so on.

A "bloomery" furnace

Later on, iron smelting became increasingly located where water power could be exploited to speed the process.

From the 15^th century, “finery” forges used pig iron to produce bar iron. Charcoal was again used to burn the carbon off the pig iron, and the resulting “bloom” was beaten with a hammer to remove the impurities and then draw the iron out into a bar for working.

A finery forge

A slitting mill, invented in the 16^th century, was basically a watermill for slitting bars of iron into rods. It consisted of two pairs of rollers turned by water wheels. 

A slitting mill

The first blast furnace in Britain was recorded in 1496, and they spread across the country during the 1550s. The blast furnaces made pig iron from iron ore, and the basic principle was similar to that of the bloomery, using charcoal, but the smelting temperature was higher. Water was used to drive the bellows to create the draught. Later, in 1709, Abraham Darby used coal/coke as a fuel at his Coalbrookdale (the Midlands) furnaces and, within 100 years, the use of coke was almost universal in iron working.

So what do we know about the Funtley iron mill?

As I have mentioned in a previous post (History Girls, August 2017), until the seventeenth century, the Meon was navigable as far as Titchfield, which at that time was a significant port. Eventually, silting restricted the passage of ships and the busy life of Titchfield as a port began its decline in 1611, when the 3rd Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, took the decision to block off the estuary of the River Meon from the sea. He built a canal adjacent to the river, one of the very first canals to be built in England, and a sea lock was built across the estuary. However, several years before he blocked off the estuary, the Earl had established an iron mill a little upstream at Funtley, powered by the River Meon, which might suggest that he expected (or hoped) his actions over the port to support, even boost, Titchfield’s prosperity (though in many ways it did decline). Over time, the Funtley iron mill produced a huge quantity of iron.

The iron mill seems to have been built on a virgin site by the Earl in 1603-5. As already suggested, its establishment seemed to be part of the Earl’s attempt to restore Titchfield’s economic health but also his own fortunes after his release from the Tower of London. Wriothesley had been deeply involved in the Earl of Essex’s 1601 rebellion against Elizabeth I. He was sentenced to death, but it was commuted to life imprisonment through the intervention of Sir Robert Cecil, Elizabeth’s Secretary of State. However, on the accession of James I in 1603, Wriothesley was released and resumed his place at court. And he built his iron mill.

A tin mill was apparently also established in the vicinity in 1623, producing utensils for London and perhaps also Portsmouth, although the origin of the tin itself is not clear but was probably Cornwall. However, in the ensuing decades, the iron mill produced an annual total of c.200 tonnes of iron, so clearly the Earl’s strategy worked, and industry in Titchfield did not slump entirely following the closing of the port. The productivity of the mills was already great enough before 1611 to have seriously depleted the local region’s wood resources, used to make charcoal to fuel the furnaces. 

From the 1770s until 1789, the Iron Mill at Funtley was owned by Henry Cort, the inventor of the rolling mill and the puddling furnace, important for the production of iron during the Napoleonic Wars.

As a young man, Cort was a supplier of naval provisions and by the 1770s he had built himself a small fortune. In 1768, he married Elizabeth Heysham, whose uncle William had inherited the family ironmongery business in Gosport, which supplied the navy with mooring chains, anchors and hundreds of different items of ironmongery. Henry took over the business and, after years of experimenting with improved methods for wrought-iron production, in 1775 he bought a forge and slitting mill at Funtley. He wanted continue his experiments, hoping to find an easier way to turn cast iron into wrought iron without the need for hammering.

In 1780, the Royal Navy hired him to re-roll the iron hoops for their barrels. Henry wanted to install new equipment at Funtley, and he turned to Adam Jellicoe, chief clerk in the navy’s pay office, to help finance the venture to the tune of nearly £30,000. (It was apparently normal for pay office clerks to use surplus funds temporarily for their own benefit, though this would later prove Henry’s undoing.) As part of the deal, Samuel, Jellicoe’s son, became a partner in the Funtley works. Jellicoe lived at Fontley House, situated close by the mill, a house that still survives.

In 1783 and 1784 Henry took out patents for new processes, which represented major technological advances in the production of wrought iron. First came the process called “rolling”. In this, the red hot iron was passed through grooved rollers (the design of which he patented) rather than using a hammer to draw the iron out into a bar. The bars of iron were reprocessed several times to produce wrought iron of the desired quality. Rolling replaced hammering for consolidating wrought iron and was 15 times faster.

A rolling mill

He also invented a new process for fining iron, removing the impurities to enable it to be forged. The earlier method of fining used a hearth fuelled with charcoal, but the wood needed for making charcoal had become too scarce to enable the iron industry to expand. Newer blast furnaces were using with coal/coke instead of charcoal. Henry devised a method of “puddling” iron in a coal-burning “reverbatory” furnace, in which the molten iron was stirred with a long rod before being consolidated, and then rolled into bars with the grooved rollers. The new method produced rolled iron of such quality that the navy soon insisted that all iron produced for their use had to meet the same standard.

Because the puddling method used coal/coke instead of expensive charcoal, and because the system could be mechanised, eventually iron production became much cheaper and faster. It also became essential once blast furnaces were used. Before Henry developed his processes, England imported large quantities of wrought iron from abroad, but within a decade of his patents, the country became a major iron exporter.

However, everything was about to go wrong for Henry Cort. For, in 1789, Adam Jellicoe died, and it was discovered that he had indeed used navy money – public funds – to finance Henry’s business, but he hadn’t paid it back and he died with large public debts. His liabilities passed to Henry, who also didn’t have the money to repay the debts. A court requisitioned the works at Funtley and another one at Gosport. Henry was financially ruined. His partnership with Samuel Jellicoe was dissolved, although Samuel was later able to clear the debt. The Crown later gave Samuel possession of the works at Funtley where he remained for the next thirty years.

As an acknowledgment of the value of the patents, the government did grant Henry a small pension in 1794. But despite his inventiveness and the contribution he had made to British industry, Henry Cort died a poor man in 1800.

There is very little left of the iron works at Funtley, apart from some sections of brickwork surrounding the millstream and a plaque.

However, in modern day Fareham, Henry Cort’s work is celebrated in the Henry Cort Millennium Project, a permanent exhibition of the work of twelve blacksmith artists from throughout Europe.

Were there once ships on the River Meon?

Titchfield, in Hampshire, was once one of the most significant towns on the River Meon, enjoying considerable prosperity and status during the mediaeval period, at least partly because of its port. But, over time, as with many places whose fortunes rose and fell, Titchfield declined in importance, largely for social and economic reasons, but also partly perhaps because of its geography.

Titchfield lies at the seaward end of the River Meon, and up until the mid-17th century, the town supported a small port. The woollen industry was important in the area around Titchfield, and mills along the river banks powered the production of iron, tanned goods, salt and cloth. The port enabled the goods produced to be distributed to larger centres such as Southampton, and also allowed the local gentry to move around by boat instead of travelling by road.

Titchfield, South Street, looking towards the square. Public domain

But, in 1611, the life of Titchfield as a port began its decline when the estate owner, the 3rd Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, blocked off the estuary of the River Meon and built a canal directly from the sea to the town. These actions were intended, presumably, to maintain the port, in the face of the silting up of the river mouth, but it is generally considered that, in practice, what he did rather hastened the decline of the town’s prosperity.

Speed’s 1611 map (http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/hantsmap/hantsmap

accessed 07/08/2017). The River Meon estuary is still shown open,

despite it being the year that the river was blocked off and the canal built.

The River Meon had been important for millennia to the groups of people who lived in its vicinity, as a source of water, undoubtedly, and food, perhaps, and also as a route through the woodland of Neolithic Britain (c.4000-2000BCE), and a means of transporting goods upriver from the sea. In due course, the river’s tidal estuary also made it suitable for water-powered industries to grow up along its banks.

In the 10th century, Titchfield was referred to in documents and maps as Ticcefelda, in the 11th century, Ticefelle, in the 13th and 14th centuries, Tichefelde, and by the 16th century, the town was documented as Tytchfelde.

The Domesday book entry for Titchfield states:

The King holds TICEFELLE. It is a berewick, and belongs to MENESTOCHES. King Edward held it. There are 2 hides; but they have not paid geld. (There) is land for 15 ploughs. In (the) demesne (there are) but 2 oxen (animalia), and (there are) 16 villeins and 13 borders with 9 ploughs. There are 4 serfs, and a mill worth 20 shillings. The market and toll (are worth) 40 shillings.[http://www.titchfieldhistory.org]

“Menestoches”, by the way, is Meonstoke, 12 miles or so further up the Meon valley (and more or less where my fictional “Meonbridge” lies).

A port of some kind seems to have existed at Titchfield, with the River Meon possibly serving as an industrial and commercial waterway, since the turn of the first millennium CE, when the river was still easily accessible from the sea. Such a port may not have been all that sophisticated. It is likely that large ships would have just anchored up outside the mouth of the river to unload their goods into little boats, which would then have ferried them to the bank and, perhaps, a little further upriver.

It is thought that, prior to the 10th century, the River Meon was negotiable by small boats along most of its length, making it a viable alternative to road travel through the area. But the late 10th/early 11th century was the start of the construction of many water mills all along the river, mills that were used mainly for grinding corn but also in other industries, such as wool and cloth, iron, tanning, and salt. The mill at Titchfield, mentioned in the Domesday Book, was worth 20 shillings, but there were as many as thirty mills along the river’s length, and they underpinned the area’s economy for the next thousand years. However, it seems that, over time, the very development of the mills, and the associated bridges, weirs and other engineering works, especially those further towards its source, meant that river travel beyond Titchfield became difficult and eventually impossible.

Sometime also in the 10th/11th centuries, Jean de Gisor, a rich Norman merchant, and a vassal of the kings of England, first Henry II and then Richard I, seems to have established a base at his property in Titchfield, in order to facilitate his cross-channel trade, implying the existence of a port that de Gisor hoped to exploit. Titchfield’s location would also have provided a good stopping off point for officials travelling between England and France, and a family like the de Gisors would certainly have attracted a wide array of important visitors, wishing to make use of cross-channel travel facilities. However, by 1180, the de Gisors had already moved on, to found the city of Portsmouth, and, presumably, develop its much bigger and more viable port. One can only speculate, but perhaps de Gisor found that the silty mouth of the River Meon was not as suitable as it might be for the establishment of a really successful port.

However, a century and half later, in 1232, the Bishop of Winchester, Peter des Roches, established a Premonstratensian abbey at Titchfield, which, perhaps because of its high social and political standing, in itself resulted in significant economic development both in the town and the surrounding rural landscape.

Titchfield Market Hall, built by the 3rd Earl of Southampton in the 1620s, dismantled and
re-erected in 1970 at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, West Sussex.
MilborneOne [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Titchfield already had a valuable market in 1086, as shown in the Domesday Book. When a town was granted a market or fair, it was a signifier of its importance. In fact Titchfield’s markets was one of the first in Hampshire and, by the 12th century, it was the only place in the Meon valley to have one. In the late 13th century, presumably after the establishment of such an important abbey, which was almost certainly visited often by officials and even royalty, King Edward I granted the town permission to hold an annual five day fair, which was of enormous economic significance.

By the 1330’s, Titchfield was one of Hampshire’s richest towns, despite still being relatively small and, in 1333, it was also one of Hampshire’s most heavily taxed towns, implying that it was both thriving and important. 

However, the town suffered excessively in the Black Death of 1349‐50. The population was substantially reduced, perhaps by as much as 80%, and during the plague’s recurrences in subsequent decades, the tenant population of Titchfield was depleted still further. This dramatic demographic shift must have had a significant economic impact on the town. Before the Black Death, prices were high and labour abundant, and landowners grew rich. But the huge loss of life severely affected the production of key exports such as wool, and the reduction in labour, demands for higher wages and the excess untenanted land unbalanced the economy, at least for a while, with estate owners finding their incomes falling and trade presumably not so buoyant. The Hundred Years War (1337-1453) presumably also had an adverse impact, with the inevitable restriction of trade between England and Europe, and the burden of taxation imposed by the government to fund the king’s armies.

So were economic difficulties caused by the plague and the war the start of Titchfield’s gradual decline in significance? Possibly they played a part, but not quite yet…

The abbey was abandoned by the Premonstratensian order following Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in 1537, but the estate and the monastic buildings were quickly taken over by Thomas Wriothesley, who was granted the abbey and estate for his services to the Crown during the dissolution. Thomas was a member of the royal secretariat, and helped secure the king’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon. He was knighted in 1540, and became 1st Baron Wriothesley in 1544, when he also become Lord Chancellor. He was created 1st Earl of Southampton in 1547.

In 1542, Thomas had the abbey buildings converted into a home, known as Place House, some parts of which can still be seen (managed by English Heritage, http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/titchfield-abbey/).

Although this site is widely known as Titchfield Abbey, the remains are largely of the
old gate house from Place House, which was owned by the Wriothesley family.
Photo © Rosalind Hughes

Titchfield continued to be prosperous for some further decades but, as already mentioned, the mouth of the River Meon had always been “silty” and, in 1611, the situation became so bad that the 3rd Earl, Henry Wriothesley, Thomas’s grandson, took action.

As a momentary diversion, Henry was an intriguing character, if only because of his connection with William Shakespeare, who, in 1593, dedicated his narrative poem Venus and Adonis to him. The following year, he did the same with The Rape of Lucrece, and the words of the latter dedication were really rather over the top:

"The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end ... What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours"

The dedication page in The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare,
 to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton and Baron of Titchfield. 
Image in the Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, in the Tower of London
 in 1603, attributed to John de Critz.
Image in the Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Henry was Shakespeare’s patron and it seems that Henry may indeed have been the “Fair Youth” of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, though he is not the only candidate! However, he appears also to have been a rather disreputable fellow, despite his high status, getting into scrapes of various sorts, one of which so upset Queen Elizabeth that she refused to receive him at court for a while, though his banishment did not last, so perhaps he was silver-tongued as well as handsome?

Anyway, in 1611, Henry took the decision to block off the estuary of the River Meon from the sea, and build a canal adjacent to the river, one of the very first canals to be built in England. A sea lock was built across the estuary, thus removing the port. The sealock would control the passage of ships to and from Titchfield, but would also control the freshwater levels in the area, for a further objective of the scheme was apparently to reclaim the large stretch of sea-marsh lying between the town and the blocked-off estuary (now, the haven) for, one supposes, arable farming and sheep rearing to supply the woollen industry, which was perhaps seen as of greater value to the local economy than the river itself.

The canal was built, presumably, as an alternative to the river, providing a direct link from the town to the sea, and to replace the functions that the River Meon had supported. It was evidently, however, not very successful in the long term and a hundred years later it was no longer in use.

Interestingly, before he blocked off the estuary, the Earl established an iron mill, powered by the River Meon, which surely suggests that he expected his actions over the port to support, and even boost, Titchfield’s prosperity? And, over time, that mill did produce a huge quantity of iron. Wool, cloth, salt, and leather also still kept the town a viable trading community, but perhaps, ultimately, Titchfield could not keep up with the productivity and connections of the larger urban centres to the east and west – Southampton, Fareham and Portsmouth. So, although industry in Titchfield didn’t just fall away immediately following the closure of the river port, at length the importance it had once held did decline.

Taylor’s 1759 map showing the river Meon estuary blocked off from the sea
and the adjacent canal running up to Titchfield Abbey/"Place House".
A road runs along the sea wall and over the sea lock bridge,
suggesting that the canal no longer flows into the sea.
(http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/hantsmap/hantsmap accessed 07/08/2017)

It is probably unjust to lay responsibility for the downfall of Titchfield’s economic health at the door of the 3rd Earl – though some do – when it seems that he hoped his engineering works would be the town’s salvation. But perhaps factors simply conspired, over time, to bring about the decline in the town’s importance. The silty nature of the lower River Meon, the industrial development along its banks, and then the Earl’s attempts to overcome its natural limitations, together with the lingering social, political and economic effects of plague and war, eventually reduce the town’s ability to sustain a port and, finally, its trading prosperity. 

Note:

Some of the discussion as to the background to Titchfield’s decline I shared during the writing of a Masters dissertation, The Economic Significance of the old port at Titchfield Hampshire, by Rosalind Hughes, which was submitted for a Masters degree in Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton in 2011 (unpublished).

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The “industrious” Meon Valley

At this time of year, my daily walk takes in three of the “industrial” features of this lovely part of Hampshire, the Meon Valley: the River Meon itself, the long defunct Meon Valley Railway and the remnants of a royal hunting ground, the Forest of Bere.

The River Meon at St Clair’s, Soberton
Photo © Carolyn Hughes

The peace and beauty of the Meon’s landscape – with its gently flowing stream, the occasional heron or egret fishing for trout at the river’s edge; the lush water meadows, sometimes occupied by grazing cattle; the odd rushing weir; and the few surviving stone and brick arch bridges that span it at various points along its length – somewhat belie its powerful past. The railway once played its part in bearing passengers and goods from leafy Hampshire to noisy London (and had an important role in World War Two). And the forest – particularly lovely at this time of year, when the bright green foliage is just beginning to clothe the branches of the beech trees, yet is still sparse enough to allow the sun to light up the glades of bluebells – is but  a small part of a much greater forest that has a long and important history.

Map by William J Blaeu,
Amsterdam, 1645.

The River Meon is not a grand river, only twenty-one miles in length, and, for much of that length, a somewhat shallow chalk stream – in summer months, at any rate. The river rises in the South Downs, near the village of East Meon, and winds and meanders through the other villages of the Meon Valley, until it rushes, broader and deeper, out into the sea, the Solent, to the south of Titchfield.

The early form of the name, Mēon, is Celtic or pre-Celtic. The meaning and etymology seem unclear, but it may be associated with a word that means ‘damp’ or ‘to wash’.1 Yet that seems unromantically mundane, and I prefer to think of the lovely Meon simply as the river that meanders…

But despite the apparently gentle, meandering nature of the Meon, it nonetheless has power.

The River Meon in flood in the 1950s. 

Within the past few years, villages at either end of the Meon’s length – East Meon and Titchfield – have experienced severe flooding when the river burst its banks and overwhelmed their roads and houses. In 1953, the flooding in East Meon was the worst seen for forty years.

More helpfully, for centuries, the steep gradient of the terrain over which the upper reaches of the river flow has enabled the water to be exploited for a surprising variety of manufacturing processes – iron working, cloth processing, paper making, tanning, and flour milling.2

Until the 17th century, the Meon was navigable as far as Titchfield, which at that time was a significant port, and the area was heavily involved in the woollen industry and also produced iron, tanned goods and cloth. Eventually, silting restricted the passage of ships and, in 1611, to ensure that Titchfield could remain a port, the Earl of Southampton, Thomas Wriothesley, had a canal built directly from the sea to the town, and the Meon estuary was blocked off. Some say that, at one time, boats could come up the river as far as Soberton, where smuggled goods were unladen and hidden in the church vault, though one does wonder at the veracity of this romantic tale.3

Soberton Mill 
Photo © Carolyn Hughes

There were mills all along the River Meon, from one end to the other, including ones at Titchfield, Funtley, Wickham, Soberton, Droxford, Meonstoke, and East Meon. Many buildings survive, although they are not necessarily original. The mills were mainly used for grinding grain, although at Warnford was one of the very earliest paper mills in Hampshire, and at Funtley there was an iron mill in the 17th century. The water mill below Bere Farm in Soberton Heath – Soberton Mill – was probably, in the 16th century, a fulling mill, where cloth was scoured (cleaned and whitened) and milled (felted and then rinsed), before being stretched. Later, into the 20th century, Soberton was used as a flour mill. 

Chesapeake Mill, Wickham
Photo © Richard Thomas

Chesapeake Mill in Wickham replaced an earlier watermill on the site.4 The present mill was built in 1820 using timbers from HMS Chesapeake, the former United States Navy frigate USS Chesapeake, captured by the Royal Navy in 1812. The outside of the mill is of brick, but the beams, joists, and floors are built from the ship’s deck timbers, still, apparently, blood-stained from the ship’s fighting days. The mill, used for producing flour, remained in operation until 1976.

Both Chesapeake and Soberton mills sit not only on the river but also alongside the defunct Meon Valley railway line, now just a woodland track, on which you can walk (or trot or cycle) all the way from Wickham through Soberton to West Meon.

Bridge at Mislingford
Photo © Carolyn Hughes

The Meon Valley Railway opened in 1903 and ran for 22.5 miles (36.2 km) between Alton and Fareham, closely following the course of the River Meon. It was intended to be part of a through route from London to Portsmouth, but it never fulfilled its purpose. The line passed through the Forest of Bere before heading across the water-meadows at Wickham on an embankment. The meandering course of the River Meon, the constraints of the landscape and the railway’s ruling gradient meant that the railway needed five under-bridges within half a mile (1 kilometre), three to cross the Meon and two to cross roads in Wickham.

In the early days of the railway, it was used for shipping local agricultural and horticultural produce, including watercress (from the still active watercress beds at Warnford), fruit (especially strawberries and apples), milk and cattle. Local residents and businesses apparently had high hopes for the railway, and an inn was built next to Droxford station in the hope of accommodating tourists and travellers.

The Meon Valley Railway trail
Photo © Carolyn Hughes

People were impressed by the line’s speed, the scale of its engineering works, the high quality of the stations and the beauty of the scenery it passed through. Unfortunately, the expected London through-traffic never materialised, and after only fifty years passenger traffic was cut in 1955. The line was closed altogether in 1968, and subsequently, 17.5 km (11 mi) of the route was made into the trail for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders.

  

However, the Meon Valley Railway did have an important role to play during World War Two. During the build-up to D-Day, men and equipment had to be moved to the south of England, and large numbers of tanks were moved by rail to Mislingford goods yard, from where they were then dispersed to local lanes and fields for temporary storage.

Old loading gauge at Mislingford

(As an aside, I’ve a small tale to tell… I’m not really a particularly mystical individual, but I’ve often sensed “something” at this spot… Ghosts perhaps of those D-Day soldiers disembarking from the trains? In fact, there’s a timber yard quite close by, so maybe it has only ever been the noises from there, the clanking of machinery, and the sound of workmen’s voices that I’ve heard…? Or maybe not…)

Droxford station in July 1975
Photo by Nick Catford

The railway’s most famous wartime role came on 2nd June 1944, when Winston Churchill and the War Cabinet met General Eisenhower, General de Gaulle and other Allied leaders in a special train parked at a heavily guarded Droxford station. Their mission was the final preparations for the D-Day landings. The station was only a short car journey from Eisenhower’s invasion headquarters at Southwick, and, being mostly hidden, was considered a safe location for the crucial meeting.

If the river and the railway run alongside each other, so the railway line also runs alongside the remains of the Forest of Bere where it lies within the parish of Soberton.

Forest of Bere, near Soberton Heath
Photo © Carolyn Hughes

Bere Forest was once very extensive, stretching from Romsey, south towards Southampton, east to beyond the Sussex border, and as far north as Winchester. It is presumed that the Norman kings used Bere Forest for hunting, as well as the New Forest over in Dorset, and it is reputed that Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Charles I also hunted here.

But the Forest of Bere was not just a royal hunting ground.

Evidence of a Roman bloomery, a type of furnace once widely used for smelting iron, was found during excavations for one of the forest’s car parks in Soberton Heath. For centuries, the oak woods provided timber for building and acorns for pigs. Villagers of the southern part of the village (Soberton Heath) had rights to turn their cattle into the forest, including horses and pigs but not sheep. The deer that roamed the forest – which we often still see these days both in the forest and on the road – were not of course for the common people.

In the 13th century, oaks were cut in quantity to repair warships and build bridges, and for building work in Winchester. At the beginning of the 14th century the size of the forest began to decline, presumably because of the amount of timber being taken. In Tudor times, the timber was reputedly used extensively for Henry VIII’s shipwrights, including perhaps the building of the Mary Rose, which in 1545 would sink in the Solent at the far end of the Meon Valley, and can now be seen in all its wonderful glory at the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth. In the 17th century, Cromwell, Lord Protector, reputedly used a vast quantity of Bere Forest timber to repair his ships, then, in the later 18th, there was so much work for Portsmouth dockyard associated with the Napoleonic Wars that, by 1815, there was apparently no suitable oak left!! Replanting didn’t start until 1855.

Crater pond in the Forest of Bere
Photo © Carolyn Hughes

Great quantities of timber were again felled during the First World War and then again over the period of WWII, this time for the building of aircraft, using beech wood. During WWII, two land mines were dropped on the forest – the enemy was probably looking for the railway – creating two large and very deep ponds. Alongside the involvement of the railway in the war effort, our lovely forest was also used, both to hide tanks within the trees, and to shelter people who, during the worst of the bombing, came out from Portsmouth to find a degree of safety.

It’s somehow wonderful, and somehow humbling, to remember, in these places where I take my walk, and where I sometimes stop to stand and stare, how very many men and women have been here in the centuries before me. 

References 

1. From “Saxons in the Meon Valley: A Place-Name Survey” by Dr Kelly A. Kilpatrick, Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham, Sept 2014. http://www.saxonsinthemeonvalley.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/MeonValleyPlaceNameResearch_Sep2014.pdf
2. The River Meon, National Rivers Authority, Southern Region, July 1993. http://www.environmentdata.org/fedora/repository/ealit:3872/OBJ/20003280.pdf
3. Stories of the river, railway and forest can be found in The Story of Soberton and Newtown by Ann Pendred (1999)
4. From The Warship and the Watermill https://web.archive.org/web/20081030083543/http://www.chesapeakemill.co.uk/historypdf001.pdf

Picture references

• Map of Hampshire by William J Blaeu, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1645. From: http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/hantsmap/hantsmap/blaeu1/bla1smaf.htm
• The River Meon in flood in the 1950s. From East Meon History Archive: http://www.eastmeonhistory.org.uk/content/catalogue_item/east-meon-floods-1953/severe-flooding-in-east-meon-in-the-1950s-picture-gallery
• Chesapeake Mill, Wickham Photo © Richard Thomas [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
• The old loading gauge at the former Mislingford goods yard. Photograph in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
• Droxford station in July 1975. Photo by Nick Catford. From: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/d/droxford/