| Fritham |
| One of the oldest pubs in the New Forest The Royal
Oak at Fritham was famed for its beer that came straight from the barrel
and which was to be partaking of in a tiny parlour! The tiny hamlet of
Fritham, recorded in the Domesday Survey as Thorougham or Truhamlies
near to the Hampshire and Wiltshire border and has a population of
less than 200 people. There is not much to see here and the only other place where the locals could meet was in the tiny tin chapel which always seemed to have a good attendance and it is said that every child in the place was scrubbed up for the weekly visit to Sunday School which was held in a small hut next door that was also the school. The old cottagers here had was was then known as Forest Rights whereby they could collect wood and turf and allow their cattle and ponies to roam free in the forest. Pigs were also allowed to forage for roots and acorns under Pannage Rights during Sept 25th and Nov 22nd. But these rights did not belong to the cottager themselves but to the chimney and hearthstone of the cottage and this tradition is still maintained in a few cottages today. Like all villages Fritham knew disaster and in 1912 four young men of Fritham went down with the Titanic. The five men were, Leonard Mark Hickman, Leonard
Hickman, Stanley George Hickman, Ambrose Hood In a small glade near Eyeworth Lake was the Schultz Gunpowder Factory and this brought employment to Fritham, it was built to produce ammunition for sporting guns mainly and most of the inhabitants worked there, the Schultz company eventually took over the tin chapel and a new brick building was built in its place. The gunpowder factory closed a few year after 1912 and the the village went back to its carefree life again. There was a post office and shop but these closed down with the advent of the motor car and people were able to get to the nearby towns to the supermarkets to do their shopping and the only commercial concern now is the mobile library which stop on the village green every two weeks! The tiny chapels congregation has dwindled but there is still a bit of camaraderie between the inhabitants of Fritham.
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