Placenames

Henry of Winchester

Henry of Winchester, King Henry III, born in Winchester Castle and reigned for fifty six years during which the first House of Commons sat under the rule of Simon de Montfort

The Grace Dieu was a huge warship constructed between 1413 and 1420 and destined for the wars with France under the orders of King Henry V. In fact it never got further than the Isle of Wight and its remains lie in the mud in the River Hamble

Agincourt and Michelmersh

Agincourt and Michelmersh The 12th/13th Century church of St Mary’s in Michelmersh would have looked out over the adjacent field, filled with the soldiers and archers who would be accompanying King Henry V to battle at Agincourt. Scattered in fields and villages north of Southampton, King Henry V started to gather his troops, ready to…

William of Wykeham

William of Wykeham, born a humble man in the market town of Wickham Hampshire, he became Chancellor of England twice and Bishop of Winchester. He founded Winchester College and New College Oxford.

Baptismal Font Odiham

The church of All Saints Odiham has a lovely round 13th century font

Margaret Beauchamp

Margaret Beauchamp, who became Margaret Beaufort, was grandmother to King Henry VII and two hundred years after her death is remembered in a Hampshire church in Farley Chamberlayne.

John Buckett’s Headstone

The John Buckett headstone in the old church yard in Stockbridge is as full of character as the man in whose honour it was raised.

Portchester Castle

Portchester Castle is breathtakingly beautiful, sitting on the northern shore of Portsmouth Harbour. Its Roman walls and bastions are as imposing today as they must have appeared seventeen hundred years ago.

The Tichborne Family Chapel

The Tichborne family chapel in the church of St Andrew’s Tichborne is a rare survivor of a Roman Catholic in a pre-reformation church. It has a very different look to the rest of the church.

Site of William the Conqueror’s Palace

William the Conqueror's Palace Winchester

Stroll up a tiny alley way in Winchester to see a vestige of what once was the site of William the Conqueror’s palace and a little way along the church of St Lawrence where his chapel once stood.

Marc Brunel in Portsmouth

The incredible engineers, the Brunels, father and son are in-extrinsically linked to Portsmouth through deed and birth Marc Isambard Brunel was a frenchman who fled the French Revolution and in 1793, fled to America and became chief engineer of New York City. By 1799 he had married Sophia Kingdom and they had three children, Sophia,…

Royal Hampshire Regiment WWI War Diaries

The WWI war diaries for the Royal Hampshire Regiment are available for research through the Royal Hampshire Museum at Winchester

The Pompey Pals

In WWI Portsmouth was able to raise two battalions of ‘Pompey Pals’ the 14th and 15th Hampshire Regiment. Many enlisted at Fratton Park, home of Portsmouth Football Club. How must it have felt to these men of Portsmouth, many of whom would be fervent Pompey supporters, to enter the gates of Fratton Park, not to join the fray of a football game but to enter the affray of war?

Hampshire Horses

Is Hampshire the only county with a preponderance of horse graves? Are Hampshire horses particularly brave?

Data Meon Valley Surnames 1841

Data collected from the 1841 census on Meon Valley surnames, shows the incidence of surnames in individual villages along the Meon Valley. This bank of data reveals some interesting finds. It is an incomplete but growing body of data useful to Hampshire family historians.