| Damerham |
| Damerham lies on the Hampshire Dorset border and is
said to be the birth place of Aethel-flead who was the wife of King
Edmund, this picture postcard little village straddles the Allen River
just to the north of Fordingbridge. Part of the estates of Glastonbury
Abbey before the Reformation, Damerham Manor was given to Catherine
Parr, one of Henry VIIIs wives as a wedding present from him but
reverted to the crown o her death in 1547. The estate handed any produce
grown to the abbey and this was stored in a tithe barn which can still
be seen at Court Farm. A fire destroyed about fifty percent of the village in 1863 but there are still some pretty little houses, a mill alongside the river and a Grade I listed Norman church dedicated to St George which seems to be a common occurrence in England but in Hampshire they are few and far between. the fire let to the building of the row of houses that stand opposite The Compasses public house which was once known as The Barracks and they were built as temporary accommodation to the villages whose houses were destroyed. Today they are known as The Terrace Above the south doorway is a carving which shows St George killing a Saracen at the battle of Antiock during the First Crusade in 1098. The carving was discovered in 1916 embedded in the old vicarage wall and is thought to be Norman and a strange thing about this church is its tower which is not normally placed at the southeast corner of the nave!
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