| Clanfield | ||||||||||||||||||
| It was in 1932 that the parishes of Chalton and
Clanfied were amalgamated. During the time of the Domesday Survey they
were part of the Hundred of Finchdean. The name of Clanfield is believed
to have come from the Old English meaning 'field clean of weeds' Windmill Hill is the dominant feature of the area and it has recently been restored though it is known that a mill once stood here in 1289. The church of St James was rebuilt in 1875 and has to ancient and mediaeval bells. In the 1086 survey for the Domesday book it is said that Clanfield was a part of the Ceptun estate owned by Earl Harold and was later placed in the hands of the Duke of Beaufort who later in 1918 sold it to Clerke-Jervoise and it was in his hands that it remained. Thatched cottages adorned the village until the end of the mid 20th century and shops replaced some cottages that had collapsed. The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book and the 1086 survey records that it was part of the Ceptun estate that belonged to Earl Harold. Later passing into the hands of the Duke of Beaufort who then re-sold it to Clerke-Jervoise in 1918 and who hands it remained. There were a lot of thatched cottages right up until the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s, when a row of cottages that had fallen into disrepair were demolished to make way for shops. It was once a small community that relied on farming and in 1929 the population was recorded at 129 at end of the 1940s it had risen to around 500 but a steady increase shows 4,500 people living there in 2003. The forge still stands and was originally built around a tree and on the door there are German Shoes carved in the Germanic lettering which is said to have been the work of a German prisoner or war during WWI, but even though the door has been removed the panel that shows the script has been set into a new door. Like most villages and towns fire was a constant danger to the houses which were mostly thatched and a mediaeval barn was damaged as well as the Rising Sun pub, though the pub, (probably due to its popularity) was rebuilt in just one day thanks to new building techniques, fabrication which became popular. supermarket now line the busy A3. Today the village has become known as Old and New Clanfied, the old part being the centre with the church and the pub no longer exists as time has moved the centre to the area around the shops in the Drift Road locality. One of the modern amenities of the area is
situated at Hinton Heights, on the Portsmouth Water Company's reservoir
at the end of Hinton Manor Lane is the Clanfield Observatory, which has
been a local landmark now for around 22 years.
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