King Edgar granted land at Owslebury to the Bishop of Winchester in AD964 and according to the Domesday Survey the Manor of Owslebury was held by the bishop both before and after the Normans arrived. The manor was called Twyford with Marwell and in the 14th century the Twyford name was dropped and it became Marwell or Marwell Woodlock although the parish was still known as Owslebury.

The Woodlocks enclosed lands at Marwell and in the 16th century Bishop  Fox granted the demesne lands at Owslebury to Corpus Christi College at Oxford.

The Manor of Marwell later passed to the crown in 1551 and this was granted to Sir Henry Seymour. Marwell Hall was the scene where Henry VIII courted Jane Seymour. Marwell Manor then returned to the bishopric of Winchester when Mary came to the throne, but by 1577 it was back in the hands of the Seymour's.

In 1626 it was conveyed to Sir Henry Mildmay and remained the Mildmay and Paulet St John family well into the 19th century.

Marwell was the site of a park owned by the Bishop of Winchester from the 13th to the mid 17th century and here animals were hunted and timber cut. The Bishop also owned nearby Longwood Warren and farm until 1580 then it was given to Thomas Ellys and Edward Vaughan. Bishop Henry de Blois built a small college of secular priests here and the building and bishop's house were moated.

The village of Owslebury is a pretty scattered little place situated in woodlands among the downs and stands on a chalk ridge about five miles southeast of Winchester.

St Andrews church

In 1830 the Owslebury riots occurred when a mob of rioters broke the thresing machines and other farm machinery.

The Owslebury  vestry minutes begin in 1825  and are  largely formal  and uninformative  until 1830, when widespread poverty and discontent, giving rise to the Swing Riots,  forced the  local farmers  to take  action.   They passed a series of  resolutions effectively laying down  minimum wages for various age brackets,  supplemented by doles of  bread for families above a certain size.  They concluded that  'having (as they conceive) removed  all reasonable cause of  discontent,  they will not yield to threat or intimidation on the part of any of the men, but will prosecute  to the utmost extent of the  law such base conduct'.  They also urged the provision of cottagers' gardens  to   supplement their food supply and 'for the encouragement of industry'.

The rioters had an ally in the form of a local farmer named John Boyes who petitioned for higher wages for the farm labourers and he was convicted and transport to Australia for his part in the riots. 245 men were arrested and sent to Winchester for trial and two of the prisoners were executed at the gallows.
 

"Hampshire convict to Australia.
John Boyes sailed on the "Proteus" in 1831 he was a native of Owslebury."
Malcolm Boyes who runs the One Name Study about him said
"John Boyes was an interesting character, He was a farmer and went round to
other farmers suggesting if the landlord would lower their rents they could
pay their farm workers more. Lord Northesk's steward accused John Boyes of
felony on a trumped up charge. He was tried and the jury found him not
guilty. They tried him again on the same charge with a different jury and he
was convicted and received seven years. After 3 years he was pardoned and
returned to Owslebury where he reclaimed his farm and continued farming
there for many years. Folk songs were written about him."

THE OWSLEBURY LADS

As Owslebury was near to both Southampton and Portsmouth it was an ideal place during the Second World war to be made into an assemly point for both men and equipment ready to be sent to the D-Day embarkation points. American troops were billeted at Longwood

IMAGES OF OWSLEBURY

St Andrews Church, Owselbury		The interior of St Andrews
The Serpent, a horn played in St Andrews in the 1800s		The Old Schoolhouse Owselbury
Owselbury countryside		Owselbury village scene
More views of Owselbury
The Ship Inn, Owselbury		The Oak tree on the traffic island

A Greyfriars bus run by a Mr Matthews, who ran a bus service out of Owslebury via Twyford. This one was  on a special outing to Bournemouth in 1941- standing back left, Des Rogers, Arthur New, William Oliver wearing a trilby hat, unknown, Jack Thatcher; seated front left, Mary Berril and sons, Arthur and Bill, Edith Oliver with Wendy and Walter peeping over his sister's shoulder.