Parishes: Goodworth Clatford

GOODWORTH CLATFORD

Godorde (xi cent.); Godewirda, Gudeworth, Godeworth (xiii cent.); Good (xvi cent.); Good Clatford (xvii cent.).

The parish of Goodworth Clatford, or Nether or Lower Clatford as it is occasionally called, is a narrow strip lying between Upper Clatford, Andover, Wherwell and Lower Wallop, and has a station on the Andover and Redbridge branch of the London and South Western Railway. The land slopes upwards from the south-west, where it averages something over 200 ft., to nearly 400 ft. at the top of Cow Down. The soil is a light loam, the subsoil chalk with a small 'outlier' of the Woolwich and Reading beds in Cowdown Copse and alluvial deposits in the valley of the Anton. The principal crops are wheat, barley, oats and turnips. The total area of the parish is 2,200 acres of land and 9 acres of land covered by water. About two-thirds of the land area is arable. (fn. 1) The west end of Harewood Forest, including the spur known as Upping Copse, lies in this parish.

The village is situated near the right bank of the Anton on the high road that comes north from Stockbridge. There is another road running across Cow Down and almost the whole length of the parish.

Manor

The manor of GOODWORTH CLATFORD has from the earliest times followed the same descent as Wherwell (q.v.), and is now the property of Mr. William Henry Iremonger of Wherwell Priory. In Domesday 'Godorde' is assessed at half a hide and valued at 40s., (fn. 2) and in 1291 it was valued among the Abbess of Wherwell's possessions at £10 0s. 9d. (fn. 3)

Henry le Wayte had in 1325 a licence for the alienation in mortmain of a messuage and land in Goodworth, Wherwell and Aston to the Abbess and convent of Wherwell that divine service might be daily celebrated in the abbey church for the souls of the faithful departed. (fn. 4)

There is no mention of a mill at Goodworth Clatford in Domesday Book, but in 1320 Abbess Isabel and the convent of Wherwell granted to John of Trente, Maud his wife and Amice their daughter a piece of ground for building a fulling mill by the bridge between Goodworth and Clatford on the north, a field, a house with a croft, and one beam (lignum) yearly for keeping the mill in repair. (fn. 5) There is now a corn-mill in the north-west of the parish, not far from the Upper Clatford boundary.

Church

The church of ST. PETER consists of a chancel 27 ft. 3 in. by 13 ft. 6 in., with north organ chamber and vestry, nave of like width and 41 ft. 10 in. long, north aisle 10 ft. 1 in. and south aisle 8 ft. 7 in. wide, south porch, and west tower 12 ft. 3 in. by 12 ft. All the measurements are taken within the walls.

The church from which the present structure has grown was probably a small early building with a nave about 30 ft. by 13 ft. 6 in., and a chancel about 10 ft. by 12 ft.

To this nave a south aisle was added towards the end of the 12th century, and soon after, about 1190, the chancel was pulled down and its space thrown into the nave, transepts being added on either side, and a new chancel built to the east. This was lengthened and perhaps rebuilt later in the 13th century, and the tower was added about 1340. It may have replaced one of earlier date and contains a great many stones worked with late 12th-century ornament. In the bell-chamber there are a number of fragments of this date (described in detail below) belonging to the jambs of a doorway or arch. A north aisle was added about the same time as the tower, the transept being thrown into it. Both aisles were rebuilt in the 15th century, the south being made equal in width to the transept. Since then the building has had to undergo the usual necessary repairs: in the sixties of the last century the spire was added to the tower and the organ chamber was added east of the north aisle. The south porch dates from 1872 and the vestry is a still more recent addition.

The east window of the chancel consists of three trefoiled lancets with soffit cusps, the middle light being of greater width than the others; the tracery is re-worked or modern, but the widely splayed inner jambs and the two-centred drop rear arch are original.

In the south wall is a small piscina with a chamfered two-centred arch; the chamfer is stopped out above the sill, which has a shallow round basin, and there is also a shelf in the back. The side windows of the chancel are each of two trefoiled lights with soffit cusps. The inner jambs are widely splayed and have two-centred rear arches; there are two windows in the south wall; of the pair on the opposite side the western has been converted into an arch into the organ chamber, with the loss of its mullions and east jamb. The ledge of the south-east window has been dropped to form a sedile. Between the two windows on this side is an original priest's doorway with a modern outer arch, and in the north wall a doorway to the organ chamber, which has a large three-light east window and a doorway in its north wall opening into the vestry; the latter has a fireplace and is lighted by a window on the north. The chancel arch is, perhaps, of late 12th-century date, and is made to match the transept arches, but has no responds. The arch is pointed and only 1 ft. 7 in. thick; it is slightly chamfered and springs from moulded corbels of late 12th-century section. The first arch on the south side of the nave is twocentred of a single-chamfered order 3 ft. thick; its eastern half has been rebuilt and widened, but the west jamb is unaltered, and has a grooved and moulded abacus with stopped chamfers above and below; the stops vary in shape, one being scalloped and others moulded. The three arches of the arcade west of this are of much narrower span but of similar section; they have labels, grooved and hollow chamfered in the two western bays and carved with dogtooth in the eastern. The two pillars are circular, the bases having square-chamfered plinths and a moulded top member, with leaf spurs at the angles.

The capitals are enriched by small scallops with sunk faces and with bunches of foliage at the angles. While those of the west pillar are all alike, the scallops in the other pillar vary and are in parts worked in the leaves, &c., part of the capital being unfinished. The two responds have plain abaci like the eastern bay; the west has no base; the east base is simply chamfered.

The north arcade has three bays. The first is similar to that opposite, and like it widened eastward. The two pillars are round with moulded octagonal bases. The capitals are moulded; the abacus of the west pillar is octagonal, but the other is halfoctagonal to the west and square to the east, with carved heads set in foliage at the angles; this is done to take the square-edged arch on the east. The two western arches are of two hollow-chamfered orders and are two-centred; the inner order in the west respond springs from a corbel of similar detail to the capitals, resting on a human head. The aisle opens into the organ chamber by the rear arch of a 15th-century east window. On each side of it are two moulded brackets of 15th-century date; the lower pair, which are 6 ft. 3 in. above the floor, are semi-octagonal in plan and doubtless carried images; the others are 4 ft. 6 in. higher, and are larger; they probably carried the timbers of an extension of the rood loft across the aisle. The widening and cutting back of the eastern arches of the arcades is doubtless due to the same thing.

The north wall has two windows of two cinquefoiled lights under square heads; the outsides are modern, but the quoins of the splayed inner jambs are original and also the rear arch of the first window; the west window is modern of two cinquefoiled lights under a pointed segmental arch.

The east window of the south aisle and the three in the south wall all date from the 15th century and have been partly restored with new mullions, &c.; they are of two cinquefoiled lights under square heads with moulded labels outside; the inner jambs are splayed and have rear arches of pointed segmental form. The modern south doorway, between the second and third window, is pointed and of two hollow chamfers. The aisle has no west window. The south porch is of wood, on a low flint wall.

The tower is of two stages and is built of ashlar. The arch opening into it from the nave is a rough pointed one with its apex much to the south of the centre line; it is evidently a late alteration, being set much higher than the original arch would have been. The west window in the lower stage is of two ogee trefoiled lights, with wide inner splays and segmental rear arch. The next story above the horizontal string has a single west window with an ogee trefoiled head, and similar single lights pierce each wall of the bell-chamber; these latter have modern brick rear arches. The walling in the middle of the tower has a great many stones carved with zigzag ornament and a few with diaper work. In the bell-chamber are several other worked stones, including two pieces of a round attached shaft, pieces of small scalloped capitals and moulded bases, and of grooved and hollow-chamfered abaci; they are all of late 12th-century date. The parapet is plain with a moulded string course, at the middles and angles of which are gargoyles. Above the tower is a modern wood spire changing from square to octagonal and covered with oak shingles.

The roofs of the chancel, nave and north aisle are gabled, open timbered below and covered with tiles. Many of the timbers in all three are old. The south aisle has a modern flat lean-to roof covered with lead.

The furniture in the church is all modern except the font, which has a bowl and base dating from the end of the 12 th century. The former is of Purbeck marble, square in plan with sloping sides, which are worked with shallow round-headed arcades on three sides, and two quatrefoiled leaf patterns on the fourth; the round stem and four angle shafts are modern, but the base is old, with angle spurs.

The church possesses no ancient monuments or gravestones.

There are three bells; the treble by John Wallis, dated 1622 and inscribed 'Give thankes to God'; the second has 'Love God I.D. R.T. 1627,' with many of the letters of its inscription reversed, the tenor is dated 1700 and bears the names of the churchwardens of the time.

The plate consists of a silver chalice of 1872 and a silver paten and flagon of 1841.

The first book of the registers contains baptisms and burials from 1538 to 1727 and marriages from 1555 to the same date; they are mixed from 1692, and there is a hiatus from 1610 to 1622. The second book has baptisms and burials from 1726 to 1783 and marriages to 1754, whence in the third and fourth books they are continued up to 1812.

Advowson

The church of Goodworth Clatford belonged originally to Wherwell Abbey, and there was a prebend of Goodworth there. The right of presentation to the vicarage has never been parted from the manor since the Dissolution, the living at the present time being a vicarage in the gift of Mr. William Henry Iremonger.

In 1343 Abbess Amice granted to John of Shaftesbury, prebendary of Goodworth, and his successors a piece of land (in length 12 perches, in breadth 7 perches) in the town of Goodworth, adjoining the rectory on the east and the tenement of John le Tomber, a villein of the abbey, on the west, to be held for inclosing, building and planting for ever as the right of the prebendal church; an acre of arable land beyond the manor court of that town to be given in exchange. (fn. 6)

Early in the 17th century George Widley, clerk, who had a lease of the parsonage for twenty-one years, built a parsonage-house at Goodworth Clatford. (fn. 7)

There is a Primitive Methodist chapel.

Charities

The school was founded by the Rev. Lascelles Iremonger, formerly vicar, who endowed the same with £1,000 consols.