| Fordingbridge | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The town of Fordingbridge lies within Southampton and S.W. Hampshire and contains the villages of Breamore, Damerham, Hale, Hyde, Martin, Rockbourne, Sandleheath, Whitsbury and Woodgreen, and one of the best known landmarks is the medieval bridge which spans the Avon, and the church of St Mary. But there are more places with just as much interest hiding in the old streets of the town waiting for the visitor to find them, places such as the infirmary which was once the Union Workhouse and just to the south of the bridge can be found a rather unusual sign post with 'Fordingbridge 0' on it.
The town got is name from 'Forde' and the 'bridge' part was added when the Avon was first spanned at this point. The medieval bridge has seven arches and was in existence in 1286 and even earlier, The parish church dedicated to St Mary is mainly Early English but the tower is Perpendicular and on the north side is the chapel from the beginning of the 13th century. The town Hall was in 1877 an Oddfellows Hall but the town has no Town Council even though its population today exceeds 6,000.
In 1702 like most towns and villages had a huge fire which completely destroyed many of the old houses and the houses that are there today are dated from 1703 onwards but there are a few of the older houses remaining. Not a lot of people realise that there was a small museum in Church Street called Sherings and being open only on Wednesday afternoons in the summer time it did not get many visitors which is a shame as it hosted a fascinating collection of rare and odd items from years gone by, not only from the town but also from far away, and among these were old tools, motor relics and souvenirs from the Great War. But sadly it closed a few years back and a new museum was opened in the corn mill off of Salisbury street but it does not contain the vast wealth of treasure that was in Sherings.
Augustus John who was a celebrated artist from 1928 to 1961 used to live in Fryern Court which was in Upper Burgate and his grave can be seen in the cemetery, a statue to him is a short walk from the medieval bridge. Bicton is a village which stands a mile outside of Fordingbridge and is believe to the village that stands furthest away from a railway station as it is 12 miles away from Salisbury. Here there was a mill recorded in the Domesday Survey and where the water divides there is a water meadow that is actually floating. A 'floated' water meadow was flooded then drained by sluice gates and as the water contained a lot of lime and silt grass seed was sown so that sheep could graze much earlier in the year, In this way a lot of food that had been store was saved and this meant the farmer had more money and could buy more sheep thus producing more manure for the land!
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