Parishes: Hound with Netley

HOUND WITH NETLEY

Hune (xi cent.); Howne (xiv cent.); Letelie (xi cent.).

The parish of Hound, covering an area of 4,271 acres, of which 301 are foreshore and 458 tidal water, with a population of 4,548 inhabitants, is situated north of Hamble parish, on the peninsula formed by the Southampton Water and the Hamble River with its tributary Badnam's Creek.

In the extreme south is the tithing of Satchell, which is served by the chaplain of the training ship Mercury, anchored in the river opposite Hamble village.

The land near the coast is low, and part of the shore which is submerged at high tide consists of a long stretch of mud-bank. There is a gradual slope to the north, however, which is over 100 ft. above the ordnance datum.

There are no natural waterways of any size in the parish, but in the west are two sheets of water, used in earlier times by the monks of Netley as fishponds. These were reclaimed by Mr. Chamberlayne, predecessor of the present lord of the manor, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, (fn. 1) and are now inclosed in the grounds of 'The Hermitage' and 'The Fishponds.'

The soil is sandy, with a gravel subsoil, and gravelpits are still worked in many parts. Small crops of wheat, oats, and barley are grown, the land being principally arable, although there are 373½ acres of wood and 357½ of permanent grass. (fn. 2) A small fishing industry is carried on, the produce of which is mainly absorbed by the hospital.

Hound village, in the centre of the parish, on the outskirts of Butlock's Heath, is a small group of old farmsteads and cottages, surrounding the ancient parish church of St. Mary, said to have been built by Hamble Priory about 1230.

Old Netley, a mile due north of Hound, is a picturesque hamlet of timber-framed cottages with trim old-fashioned gardens.

Netley village, which is rapidly increasing in size, stretches along the sea-front from Netley Abbey, in the vicinity of which are many good houses, to the Royal Victoria Hospital, built in 1856, which with its quarters for officers, grounds, and observatory extends more than half a mile inland. It has also a cemetery attached of about 17 acres, and a recreation ground was presented in 1900 by Mr. Tankerville Chamberlayne in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee. On a knoll overlooking the abbey ruins stands the new church of St. Edward the Confessor, while between the abbey and the shore is Netley Castle, a large castellated building which is for the most part modern, occupying the site of the fort built here in the sixteenth century. It is now the residence of the Hon. H. Crichton. A little further up the Woolston road, on the north side, is Abbey House, belonging to Miss Rashleigh, and near by is the vicarage. 'The Towers,' a large white house at the other end of the village, the residence of Mrs. Jarrold, has now no claim to its name, as the tower has been pulled down. Netley Market Hall, a large new building of Portland stone, erected by the late Mr. Whitchurch, is used for meetings and assemblies.

The London and South Western Railway passes through the parish from east to west, and has a station at Netley midway between the villages of Hound and Netley Abbey.

There are no inclosure awards: Butlocks Heath in the centre and Netley Common in the extreme north of the parish are wide tracts of open heath country.

At Butlocks Heath, on which are a few modern cottages, there is an elementary school with accommodation for 245 children, and at Netley Abbey there is room for about 113 children. The following place names occur:—Shotteshale (Satchell), Sholing (now in St. Mary Extra).

A hoard of third-century coins was found here in 1867 during excavations at Netley Hospital. (fn. 3)

Netley Abbey was first inhabited in 1239 by a colony of Cistercians from Beaulieu, and the foundation having been adopted by Henry III it is probable that sufficient funds were available for the buildings, (fn. 4) and that their construction was pushed on without interruption, so far at least as was necessary for the accommodation of their inmates.

The eastern parts of the church, the chapter-house and dorter range, and the frater with the warming-house and kitchen, were all included in the first work, together with part of the southern end of the western range, the quarters of the lay brothers. The church was not finished till the early years of the fourteenth century, and in the first half of this century the western range of the claustral buildings was completed, and certain alterations made in the novices' room under the great dorter. From this time to the suppression there is no evidence of any important building work, if the vaulting of the south transept of the church be excepted, but the gap might be supplied if some of the detached buildings, of which nothing now remains, such as the infirmary and abbot's house, were to be excavated.

The general plan as set out in the thirteenth century seems to have been carried out without alteration, except as regards the western range, and a great deal of the original work is still standing, giving much information about the arrangements of the house. This is the more valuable because of the late date of the foundation, Netley being in point of date the second of the three great royal Cistercian houses of the thirteenth century [Beaulieu 1204, Netley 1239, and Hailes 1246], the last to be founded in England with the exception of Newnham in Devonshire, 1246, Vale Royal, founded by Edward I, 1277, Rewley, by Richard king of the Romans, 1280, and St. Mary Grace's by the Tower of London, set up in 1349 by Edward III.

The site is well chosen and still very beautiful, though it can no longer be called secluded. The buildings stand in a wooded recess on the east bank of Southampton Water, sheltered by high ground on the north and east, and open only towards the west and south-west. Netley Castle, standing between the abbey and the water, now shuts off the view on the west, and the main road runs close to the church and cloister on the same side, while houses are springing up on all sides, though hidden from view by the ring of trees which grows on the high bank inclosing the precinct. The bank looks as if it was partly artificial, cut back to make a steeper boundary and to gain more room on the somewhat restricted site, and there is no trace, here or elsewhere, of a stone boundary wall, though such a wall almost certainly existed.

The church stands to the north of the cloister, close to the northern boundary of the site, and is cruciform, its extreme dimensions being 237 ft. by 136 ft. The eastern arm or presbytery has north and south aisles and is of equal width with the nave, 57 ft. within the walls and 60 ft. from east to west, divided into four equal bays. Like all the rest of the church it was designed for a stone vault, and is square-ended, the aisles running as far east as the main span. The walling is of rubble, originally plastered, the columns, responds, windows, &c., being worked in wrought stone, partly from the Isle of Wight and partly Caen stone, the two being used indiscriminately. The aisles are lighted on the north and south by pairs of lancets in each bay, and single lancets at the east, while the great east window of the main span is of four lights, with uncusped lancet heads, having a foiled circle over each pair of lancets and a larger circle in the head. In the inner splay there have been four detached marble shafts, with marble rings of which the bonding ends remain, and the arch is of four moulded orders. All the aisle windows are rebated for wooden frames, but the east window has glass grooves, and is clearly of later date than the wall in which it is set. The arcades, of which only the eastern responds remain, were of three chamfered orders, with round engaged shafts on the cardinal faces of the piers, and moulded capitals and bases; the single respond shafts in the aisle walls being of the same character. Above the main arcades was a three-light clearstory, and at the level of the string at the base of the clearstory sprang the vault, from short marble vaulting shafts resting on foliate corbels in the spandrels of the arches. The vaults were quadripartite with chamfered ribs and rubble fillings, those in the eastern bays of the aisles still remaining in part, while all the rest have fallen.

The section of the ribs in these two bays is different from that elsewhere in the presbytery, having a single wide chamfer instead of a double chamfer, the change of detail marking either a pause in the work or a rebuilding of the vaults. The high vaults belonged to the second type. Below the east window the base of a large altar is still left, with a large fifteenth-century corbel to the north of it, and part of the altar in the south aisle also remains. There is here a double piscina in the south wall with small recesses in its east and west jambs, 12 in. high from the sill, and to the west of it a locker rebated for a door, and having a shelf. In the moulded string, which runs at the level of the window sills, are pinholes at the eastern angles of the aisle, and the same thing occurs in the north aisle. There are no remains of the altar in the north aisle, but at the north-west of the east bay is a rebated recess with a shelf like that opposite, and in the north-east respond of the north arcade a T-shaped groove as if for a wooden bracket, 5 ft. 10 in. above the old floor level.

Of the tower which stood over the crossing only the stumps of the piers are left, the inner orders of the western arch having evidently been corbelled back at some height from the floor level, to give room for the stalls of the monks' quire. There is a curious irregularity in the east side of the south-east pier. The 'foundation stones' of three of the four piers are yet visible. On the north-east pier is H. dĩ gra rex angl, with a shield of England and a cross, for Henry III, on the north-west pier a crown surmounted by a cross, perhaps for the queen, and on the south-west a plain shield with a banner above.

The north transept has been almost entirely destroyed, and parts of it are now set up as a landscape gardener's ruin in Cranbury Park, but its plan was the same as that of the south transept, which is the best preserved part of the church. It is two bays deep, with an eastern aisle formerly divided by thin masonry walls into two chapels, and in the angle formed by the presbytery and transept is a stair in a square turret. The chapels are vaulted, and remain in a fairly perfect condition, the southern of the two being lighted by an east window of two lights under a semicircular head. The northern chapel has only a single lancet on the east, being partly overlapped by the stair turret, and a modern door has been cut through below the window. In the south wall of the south chapel is a piscina, and to the west of it an opening broken through to the vestry. Two bays of the eastern arcade of the transept remain complete, with equilateral arches of three chamfered orders, and moulded capitals and bases; above them is the clearstory with windows of three lancet lights in each bay, and rear arches with engaged shafts in the jambs. The sills of the windows are kept up to clear the former lean-to roof over the chapels, and there is no continuous wall passage here, but each bay was entered through a doorway from the chapel roof. The thirteenth-century vaulting shafts remain in the spandrels of the arcade, being here of coursed stone and not of marble, but the contemporary vault has been replaced—if, indeed, it was ever completed—by an elaborate fifteenth-century vault, of which the embattled springers and southern wall-rib remain, all the rest having fallen.

The outer order of the main arcade on the east side is carried as a blank wall arcade round the other two sides of the transept, and the arrangement of the clearstory on the west is like that on the east, except that the passage is here continuous and the window sills are brought down nearly to its floor level, there being no external roof to block them. On the south wall the clearstory stage is treated as an arcade of two bays, each divided into two arched openings with a blank quatrefoil over, and in the spandrel above the bays is a large circular sixfoiled panel. The night stair to the dorter filled up the south-west part of the transept, opening to a doorway in the south wall at the level of the clearstory. It came to the ground close to the small recess in the west wall of the north bay, which perhaps held a cresset, and the doorway next to it on the south belongs to the post-suppression house, being built up of old materials. In the south wall is a doorway to the vestry. The south gable of the transept stands almost complete, though in the destructive clutch of the ivy, and has a wide lancet opening above the vault, formerly of three lights, which existed within the last thirty years, and on the outer face a small stone bell-cot, the bell in which must have been rung from the north end of the dorter.

The nave is of eight bays, and retains the walls of its aisles and its west wall, but as in the case of the chancel its arcade and clearstory have been entirely destroyed. In each bay on the south side is a wide arched recess, having in the head, above the line of the cloister roof, a window of three trefoiled lights. There is a similar recess in the east bay on the north side, but not in the other bays, and the windows on the north, the first three of which from the east retain their tracery of three trefoiled lights, are longer than those on the south because of the absence of any building on the outside. The recesses on the south side are caused by the thickening of the wall to take the thrust of the aisle vaults, a row of external buttresses like those on the north being impossible here on account of the cloister. At Beaulieu and Hailes the recesses are on the outer face of the wall, towards the cloister. In the south wall are remains of three doorways, the largest being in the east bay; it was the principal entrance to the church from the monastic cloister, and had an arch of three orders with pairs of marble shafts in each jamb. It was mutilated and blocked up after the Suppression, and a second doorway cut in the fourth bay. Of the third or western procession doorway in the eighth bay very slight traces are to be seen, and nothing can be said as to its details.

In the west wall of the nave is a wide central doorway, which has had double doors, and over it a large window which has lost its mullions and tracery. (fn. 5) The gable wall over it has been rebuilt with a level top in red brick. At the ends of the aisles are small west doorways, that on the north with a chamfered arch and moulded label, while the other opens to a diagonal passage opening southwards to a former passage along the west wall of the cloister. Above each door is a trefoiled two-light window, with a quatrefoil in the head. It seems that the aisle vault in the west bay of the north aisle was never built, owing to a change of design in the process of building, and it may be that none of the vaults of the aisles were completed. The evidences of slow and intermittent building are clearly to be seen in the church, by the changes in details. The presbytery and east piers of the tower belong to the earliest work, and the south transept was next begun. In addition to the differences in the profiles of the bases, the later date may be seen in the vaulting shafts, the foliate corbels to those on the west side of the transept being of late thirteenth-century style. The five eastern bays of the south aisle followed, and then the western piers of the crossing, the north transept, and five bays of the north aisle. The two western bays of the nave and the west front belong to the end of the thirteenth century and early part of the fourteenth.

Very slight traces of the actual arrangements of the church remain. The monks' quire was partly under the tower, but did not come as far as the eastern piers, and the destruction of the nave arcades has made it impossible to say how far it extended down the nave.

The lay brothers' quire must have been in the western part of the nave, (fn. 6) and their approach to the church was by the passage outside the west wall of the cloister and through the south-west doorway. By the time that the church was being finished they were a far less important item of a Cistercian house than in the twelfth century, and the provision made for them here at Netley may be instructively compared with that at Fountains or Furness. After the Suppression the nave and south transept were turned into living rooms, the first three bays of the nave becoming a large hall, with a doorway from the cloister in the fourth bay and another opposite to it in the north aisle. The arrangement suggests that the screens were here, with the kitchen, &c. to the west, and there are marks of a stone bench, 3 ft. high from the floor, in three of the four western bays of the south aisle. The south-east doorway of the nave was walled up, and that in the south transept made instead of it, and there are traces of the bonding of a brick wall, apparently the east wall of the hall, just west of the line of the western crossing piers. The south transept shows many marks of damage caused by the insertion of floors, and the marks left by the western screens of the chapels are easily to be distinguished from the careless hacking of the later workmen. On the other hand it must be noted that the arcades in the south transept, and the tracery of the windows in the three east bays of the north aisle of the nave, owe their preservation to the fact of their inclusion in the sixteenth-century house.

The cloister, on the south side of the church, is approximately a square of 115 ft., being a little wider on the west than the east. No traces of the inner walls of its four alleys are now to be seen, but they were covered with wooden pent roofs, many of the corbels for which remain. On the east side of the cloister are the south transept, vestry, chapter-house, inner parlour, and novices' room, with the great dorter over. There are two book cupboards, one in the west wall of the south transept, and partly underlying the night stair to the dorter, the other, of much larger size, taking up the west bay of the vestry, and originally cut off from it by a masonry wall 15 in. thick, of which the traces are still to be seen on the plaster of the north and south walls. It opened to the cloister by a pointed doorway with a large pierced trefoil over, inclosed in a moulded arch with roof shafts. The vestry is vaulted in three bays, the wall cells and cross-ribs being nearly semicircular, and has an east window of two lancets under a semicircular head, with wide internal splays and a segmental rear-arch. In the east bay is a tall recess on the north side, rebated for a wooden frame, and on the south side a trefoiled piscina with recesses in the jambs on each side, and a square rebated locker to the west of it. On the east wall below the window are marks of the altar formerly here, and its plan is marked on the floor in broken mediaeval tiles. In the second bay is the door from the church on the north side, and on the south a wide recess like that in the east bay, rebated for a frame; both recesses contained wooden cupboards for vestments, &c. The south wall of the west bay has been broken through in post-monastic times, and a doorway inserted opening to a passage which ran along the west side of the eastern range.

The chapter-house has three two-light windows on the east, each with a sixfoiled opening in the head under a pointed inclosing arch, all being rebated for wooden frames. It was vaulted in three spans and three bays, being 19 ft. square, and had stone benches round the walls on which the vaulting shafts rested; these with their capitals and bases were of Purbeck marble, the vault-ribs being of simple chamfered section. The vault has fallen, and the benches and shafts have been cut away on the north and south sides, but on the east there are seats in the sills of the windows. Towards the cloister there are the usual three openings, beautiful moulded arches with quatrefoiled piers and Purbeck marble capitals and nook-shafts, the central opening having been the doorway, and the other two being originally filled with low walls, carrying open arcades of two arches with central marble shafts. These have now been removed, the low wall remaining only in the southern opening. In the south wall of the west bay of the chapter-house are traces of an original doorway opening to the parlour, and to the west of it, partly destroying it, was a sixteenth-century doorway as in the vestry.

The parlour has a plain round-headed barrel vault without ribs, and pointed chamfered archways at east and west, that on the east having been fitted with a door, opening to a wooden pentise from which a branch ran north-east towards the isolated thirteenth-century building described below as the visiting abbot's lodging. It is probable that between it and the parlour lay the infirmary, approached by this passage, but nothing of it is now above ground. It is to be noted that there is a masonry joint between the east wall of the parlour and its north and south walls, the east wall being built first.

The novices' room, vaulted in five bays of two spans, joined the parlour on the south, and was entered from the cloister at the north-west by a small doorway which has lost the moulded stonework of its head. The door close by, leading to the parlour, is a post-suppression insertion. The vault, which has fallen, had chamfered ribs, and round-headed wall cells as in the vestry; it sprang from moulded corbels which remain in the walls. The room was lighted on the east by four lancet windows, of which that in the south bay remains, but the other three have been replaced by wider windows of two trefoiled lights with a transom, c. 1330, all having internal rebates for frames. The wall at the north-east angle has been rebuilt, and contains a sixteenth-century window and fireplace, but part of the rear arch of a small thirteenth-century window remains; it would have opened under the pentise which was set against the east face of the wall. At the south-east angle is a thirteenth-century doorway, and part of a later doorway to the north of it; there are traces of a third doorway, probably original, partly destroyed by the inserted fourteenth-century window in the next bay. The southern half of this wall seems to have been masked by a sixteenth-century staircase, now destroyed. In the west wall of the novices' room are two fireplaces, one in the southern bay, with a doorway close to it in the south-west angle, and the other in the next bay. It was the larger of the two and had a stone hood, but is now destroyed. A little distance to the north was a thirteenth-century cupboard or recess, nearly obliterated by the making of a later cupboard, so that only two stones of its head remain. Below the line of vault corbels ran a band of painted decoration, which still shows faintly. It is probable that this room was divided up by wooden partitions, the south bay and perhaps the north being cut off in this way. The dorter extended on the first floor from the south transept to the south end of the novices' room, and, besides its night stair already mentioned, was reached by a day stair from the south-east angle of the cloister, both the lower and upper doorways of this stair being still in existence. It was lighted on both sides by rows of small square-headed windows, a good many of which are still to be seen blocked with masonry, having been replaced after the Suppression by wider mullioned openings. Part of the cornice remains on the east side, with plain rounded corbels under a flat soffit, and the steep pitch of the roof shows on the transept wall. The east ends of the vestry and chapter-house, projecting beyond the line of the east wall of the dorter, formed separate rooms, the former having a barrel vault and a roof gabled from north to south, and the latter a lean-to roof in continuation of that of the dorter; the east wall of the dorter ran right up to the transept, being carried on arches over the chapter-house and vestry. The room over the vestry has two small square-headed windows on the east, one of them a later though mediaeval insertion, and a doorway on the south towards the narrow room over the east end of the chapter-house. Its position and its stone vault suggest that it may have been a treasury or strong-room. The narrow room to which it opens had two small square-headed windows, which were reset higher in the wall after the Suppression; it can hardly have been other than a passage.

At the south end of the dorter, running in a north-easterly direction, probably to suit the line of the stream which flushed its drain, is the rere dorter, on the same level as the dorter, with the latrines on the south side, lighted by small square-headed loops. Its east window is gone, and the north wall is rebuilt in red brick. It overlapped the south end of the dorter for half its length only, and in the space to the west of it was a one-story pent-roofed building, through the south side of which the drain is continued, which was a small kitchen, or perhaps a wood-shed. It opened on the north to the novices' room, and at the north-east to the ground floor of the rere dorter; on the right hand of each doorway is a small hatch, with one side widely splayed towards the kitchen, through which small articles could be passed.

The room under the rere dorter is vaulted in four bays, the vault still standing, though its ribs have fallen. It is in a very shaky condition, covered with earth and bushes, and not proof against heavy rain, and is likely to fall at any moment. The room has a widely splayed east window of two lights with a quatrefoil over, and has been lighted on the north by two single lancets, between which is a fine hooded fireplace. The eastern of the two lancets has been widened, but is now blocked, and below the second lancet is a plain chamfered doorway. The fireplace is part of the original work, and has lamp brackets on either side of the hood, and a fine back of herring-bone brickwork. On the south side of the room, masking the pit of the drain, are four wide recesses, their back walls now in part broken away, and in the west bay is a small door which led to a latrine. Mr. Brakspear suggests that the room may be the infirmary of the novices, the recesses being for beds, and in this case the use of the pent-roofed building to the west as a kitchen seems probable. There is a cupboard recess in the north wall of the west bay, and in the west wall traces of a second doorway, blocked and apparently of two dates. In the sixteenth century the west wall of the dorter and the south wall of the rere dorter were prolonged, making a two-story block on the site of the kitchen, and traces of other foundations running south and west from their junction are yet to be seen.

In the southern range of claustral buildings were the warming-house, frater, and kitchen, all pulled down in the sixteenth century, except their north wall and part of the west wall of the kitchen. At the east end, between the warming-house and the dorter, was the day stair to the dorter, the arch by which it was reached from the cloister still remaining, with a sixteenth-century arch below it; the upper doorway into the dorter also exists, but the stairs are entirely destroyed. The warming-house was vaulted in two bays, being entered from the north-east, and having a locker in its north wall; the fireplace was probably at the west. Above it was a room lighted by a square-headed window from the cloister side, of which nothing more can be said. Between the warming-house door and the frater door was the lavatory, with four vaulted compartments under a wide relieving arch; at its east end is a sixteenth-century arched recess partly overlapping it. The east jamb of the frater door still exists, but the rest of it has been destroyed by a wide four-centred sixteenth-century doorway, the gatehouse having been made here after the destruction of the frater. Part of an original cupboard recess remains to the west of the doorway on the south face of the wall, and above the doorway a few stones of the north window of the frater, though there is no trace of a gable towards the cloister, as at Beaulieu. The frater was 20 ft. wide, and according to excavations made some time since, about 134 ft. long. The north and west walls of the kitchen still stand, showing that there was a room over the kitchen with three small north windows, the walls of this room having been heightened. On the site of the kitchen is the present caretaker's house. The south wall of this range of buildings is of sixteenth-century brickwork, and has had a projecting central gateway flanked by octagonal turrets, and similar turrets at either end of the range; the south ends of the east and west ranges of the claustral buildings were left standing to form two sides of a forecourt, while the cloister made the inner or principal court of the house. On the west side of the cloister the monastic buildings were of no great importance, and for two-thirds of the length from the south wall of the church there was nothing but the boundary wall of the cloister, with a pentise to the south-west doorway of the church running along its west side. Near the south-west angle was an entry of fourteenth-century date, against which the pentise returned, and running southwards from it a contemporary building of the same width, of which only the lower story with a few single lights is preserved. It seems to occupy the site of a thirteenth-century building, probably the lay brothers' frater, and its small size and probable use as a storehouse witness to the gradual extinction of this section of the community, which in the twelfth century had been one of the great sources of strength to the Cistercians. A doorway opens to the storehouse from the cloister, its jambs being fifteenth-century insertions, and the door to the entry is of late date set within older jambs. Against the north wall of the entry is a mass of red brickwork, apparently part of a large sixteenth-century oven.

The detached thirteenth-century building to the east of the main block, already referred to as the visiting abbots' lodging, is an interesting dwelling-house, with a vaulted hall of three bays on the west, a chapel on the south-east, and a cellar and latrine on the north-east. The entrance is from the south-west, and there may have been a fireplace in the east wall of the middle bay of the hall, but the wall is here broken away. The hall has north and south windows, and in the west wall a three-light fifteenth-century window and an original lancet light. The cellar has had a barrel vault, and the chapel has a rib vault of two bays and the remains of an east window of two lights and of one or two windows on the south, destroyed by later work. In the north wall is a locker, and the west door from the hall is set to the north of the centre line of the chapel, perhaps in order to be on the east side of a screen crossing the west bay of the hall from the south-west door. There has been a second story over the whole building, of which little can be said, and the position of the stair which led to it is not certain, but may have been in the angle formed by the chapel and hall. The general arrangements of the house which was built here after the suppression have been noted as far as they can be seen. Browne Willis, writing about 1718, (fn. 7) says that the M—of H—'converted the west end of the chapel below the cross isle into a kitchen and other offices, keeping the east end of it for a chapel, in which state it continued till about fifteen years ago, when Sir B— L— (fn. 8) sold the whole fabrick of the chapel to one Taylor a carpenter of Southampton, who took off the roof (which was entire till then) and pulled down great part of the walls.' Willis further tells us that Taylor, who, to add to his other sins, was a Dissenter, had forewarnings of personal catastrophe in dreams during his sacrilegious doings, and these were effectually fulfilled, for as he was hacking at the west wall of the church, the tracery of the great west window fell on him and put a stop to his destructions.

MANORS

The manor of HOUND does not appear in the Domesday Survey in Mainsbridge Hundred, but is included in Meonstoke Hundred as belonging to Hugh de Port's manor of Warnford, not, however, paying geld with Warnford, but with the lands in Mainsbridge Hundred. (fn. 9) In 1242 Robert de St. John, as heir of the Ports, granted land to the abbey of Netley, which Henry III had built and founded in the parish three years before. (fn. 10) From this time until the dissolution of the smaller monasteries in 1536 Hound remained in the possession of the abbey.

In 1251 Henry III granted the abbot and convent free warren in their demesne lands of Netley, Hound, Shotteshal (now Satchell), and Sholing, and also made a grant of a market to be held every Monday in their manor of Hound. (fn. 11)

On the suppression of the smaller monasteries the monks from Netley migrated to the larger Cistercian abbey of Beaulieu, from which their predecessors had originally come, and Hound manor, with its windmill, and other lands in Shotteshal and Sholing, in this parish, were granted by the crown to Sir William Paulet, kt., Baron Beauchamp, and first marquis of Winchester. (fn. 12) He took an important part in the politics of his day, became controller of the king's household and treasurer, and cleverly managed to retain his position through the reigns of the three successors of Henry VIII until his death in 1572. (fn. 13) He was succeeded by his son John, who mortgaged the manor of Hound with its appurtenances in the same year. (fn. 14)

John died in 1576, and his son William inherited the estate and held it until his death in 1598, when it passed to his son Thomas. (fn. 15) The latter was soon involved in financial difficulties, and in 1602 sold his manors of Netley and Hound and his other property in Hound parish to Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford, (fn. 16) who remained seised until his death in 1621.

His grandson William, who inherited the estates, married Frances daughter of Robert earl of Essex in 1618, (fn. 17) and settled the manors of Netley and Hound on her for life. He survived his wife and lived until 1660, when the dukedom of Somerset was restored to his family. (fn. 18) William his grandson, who succeeded to the estates in 1660, died in his minority eleven years later, when his sister Lady Elizabeth inherited the property and the titles went to his uncle. Lady Elizabeth did not long remain in possession, for in 1676 the two manors were purchased by the marquis of Worcester. (fn. 19)

The descent of the manors cannot be ascertained for the next forty years, but they had passed before 1718 into the possession of Sir Berkeley Lucy, (fn. 20) probably by purchase from the marquis or his heirs. Mr. Thomas Lee Dummer of Cranbury purchased Netley and Hound, with all the lands and mills belonging to them in Shotteshal and Sholing, from Sir Berkeley Lucy before the year 1765, when a pamphlet entitled The Ruins of Netley Abbey was dedicated to him and printed at his expense. (fn. 21) The next year he sold his possessions in Hound parish, which included the two manors of Netley and Hound, to William Chamberlayne, (fn. 22) who died in 1775, leaving a son William as heir. At his death, without issue, in 1830, these manors passed to his cousin Thomas, father of the present owner, Mr. Tankerville Chamberlayne of Cranbury Park.

At the time of the Survey NETLEY was held by Richard Puingiant. In King Edward's time Alward had been the holder, and it was then assessed at 3 hides. Under Richard it was assessed at 1 hide, but its value had risen from 60s. to 100s. (fn. 23)

In 1241 Netley manor was the property of Geoffrey the Chamberlain, who that year granted it to Robert the abbot and the monks of the newly founded monastery in Netley, in exchange for lands in Mildenhall. (fn. 24)

The grant was confirmed by Henry III in the following year (fn. 25) and again in 1251, when the king also granted to them free warren in their manor and the site of their monastery in Netley. (fn. 26) This grant, which included other possessions in the parish of Hound, was again confirmed by Edward I in 1285, (fn. 27) by Henry IV in 1400, (fn. 28) and later still by Henry VI. (fn. 29)

With the dissolution of Netley Abbey in 1536, its possessions went to the crown, and in 1537 the site of the monastery, with the manor and grange of Netley, was granted with the manor of Hound to Sir William Paulet. (fn. 30)

From this date the histories of the manors of Netley and Hound (q.v.), with the exception of the mortgage of Hound in 1572, have been identical.

FORT.

In 1545 a small fort was built by Sir William Paulet within the grounds of Netley Abbey at the request of Henry VIII, for the protection of the coast and the approach to Southampton. Certain manors and lands were granted to him for the upkeep of the fort and its garrison, which consisted of a captain, two soldiers, a porter, and six gunners. (fn. 31) This garrison was still maintained in 1627, (fn. 32) but the fort, known as Netley Castle, was shortly afterwards enlarged and turned into an ordinary residence, occupied at the present day by the Hon. H. Crichton.

CHURCHES

The church of OUR LADY is a plain rectangle measuring externally 84 ft. 3 in. by 20 ft. 4 in., divided into nave and chancel by a wall 24 ft. from the east end, and 3 ft. 8 in. thick, the other walls of the church being only 2 ft. 7 in. thick. The reason for this extra thickness, unless intended to take a masonry bell-turret, is not evident. There is no trace of such a turret, and the bells hang at the west of the nave in a wooden turret carried on posts coming down to the floor of the church. The general structure belongs to the first half of the thirteenth century, the chancel having an east window of three lancet lights under an inclosing pointed arch, the rear arch being round, and two rather high-set lancets in each side wall. At the south-west is a fifteenth-century cinquefoiled light at a lower level, and just east of it a small blocked priest's doorway. The chancel arch is pointed, of two chamfered orders, with half-round shafts to the inner order, and moulded capitals and bases. The nave has at the north-east a small modern vestry, and three lancets in the north wall. On the south side are two lancets and a plain pointed doorway under a modern porch, and at the south-east a wide two-light window to light the south nave altar, with a piscina recess below it, but no drain. There is a plain west doorway. The north side of the church is overgrown with ivy, hiding any traces of a north door to the nave, if such existed. The roofs are old, with trussed rafters, collars, and tie-beams with king-posts from which the pole plates are strutted. Externally they are red-tiled, the bell-turret being boarded, with a slate roof. At the north-west of the nave stands a Purbeck marble font with octagonal bowl, much retooled, with two pointed arches sunk on each face; it has an octagonal central and four smaller shafts, and dates from c. 1200.

There are pits for four bells in the turret, but only three bells, all of 1607; the tenor has the founder's initials R.B.

The plate consists of a cup of Elizabethan type, but without hall-marks, with initials and date IL IB 1689, the initials being those of the churchwardens; a paten of 1723, given in 1724 by an unknown benefactress; a modern chalice and paten of 1879 and 1880 respectively, two silver-mounted glass cruets, and a plated flagon.

The earliest register preserved is the burial register for 1792–1812. For earlier entries see Hamble.

To the south of the church is a fine yew tree, and the churchyard, which is entered by a stone lichgate at the north-west, has been lengthened westward from the line of the west wall of the nave.

The modern church of Hound and Netley stands to the south of the site of Netley Abbey, in remembrance of which it is dedicated in honour of ST. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. It was built from the designs of J. D. Sedding in 1886, and consists of chancel with north vestry and organ chamber, a tower of three stages with an eastern chapel on the south side of the chancel, and a nave with chapels of two bays on the north-east and south-east, and a western narthex or baptistery. It is a very attractive example of Sedding's work, and its fittings and colouring are excellent. Under the tower are two stones from Netley Abbey—one a small Purbeck marble effigy of a knight in mail, with shield and sword, of thirteenth-century date, which probably covered a heart-burial or the like, and the other a fifteenth-century incised slab with the figure of a Cistercian monk in his habit. It has had an inscription, of which only the word Joh[anne]s is left. In the tower is a ring of eight bells of 1886.

ADVOWSON

No mention of a church at Hound occurs in the Domesday Survey, although the existence of Netley chapel is recorded. (fn. 33) Tradition states that Hound church was built by Hamble Priory about 1230, ten years before the founding of Netley Abbey. (fn. 34) Neither Hound nor Netley church is entered among the possessions of the priory in the Ministers' Accounts of 1325, but in 1344 the king, who owing to the French wars had the possessions of Hamble-le-Rice and other alien priories in his hands, presented Richard de Montserrel to the church of Hound, (fn. 35) which must therefore have been acquired by the priory before 1344. In 1391 the possessions of the priory were all sold, and William of Wykeham acquired the church of Hound for his college of St. Mary, Winchester. From this date the warden and governors of the college have always held the advowson.

A chapel at Netley is mentioned in Domesday, (fn. 36) but since there is no further mention of it with the manor, it is possible that the prior and monks acquired it at the same time as they did the church of Hound, and that with it it passed to Winchester College.

CHARITIES

In 1882 Henry Usborne, in the chapelry of Scholing or Sholing St. Mary, formerly part of Hound, by deed, gave a sum of £100 consols, income to be applied for the benefit of the poor. The stock is held by the official trustees, and the dividends are remitted to the vicar and churchwardens for application.