| Whitchurch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The name Whitchurch means
more or less what it says, a white church, this is probably because an
earlier church was built of chalk. Whitchurch was first mentioned in a
charter of 909AD that confirmed the lands to the monks of Winchester. In
the Domesday Book of 1086, it is listed as the Bishop of Winchester
holding Whitchurch but Henry de Blois granted the manor to the Hospital
of St Cross somewhere between 1132 and 1144. It was later passed back to
the Prior and Convent and it remained with them til 1541 when it was
transferred to the Dean and Chapter of Winchester and it remained there. Winchester Cathedral Priory was granted a market by Henry III in 1241, and then in 1247 to 1249 the Cathedral granted a borough charter to Whitchurch, this had the same status and privileges as Portsmouth, this charter was confirmed in 1284 and again in 1285, and Whitchurch was governed by a Court Leet which used to convene each October, and it was in 1586 that Whitchurch returned two members to Parliament. Charles I and his troop stopped here in 1644 en route to the Battle of Newbury the local people sent a complaint to Lord Fairfax in 1649 about the considerable losses they had sustained when the soldiers of Colonel Martin were stationed there. It was in 1696 that Whitchurch was granted a fair by William III and the town started to prosper especially in 1712 when a Huguenot refugee by the name of Henn de Portal arrived and brought he silk of paper-making to the town. Portal opened his first mill on the River Test at Bere Mill and the industry soon grew. This famous paper is still produced at Whitchurch and nearby Laverstoke, and is used for producing many banknotes of the world. Flour milling, silk manufacture and woollen cloth and other associated textiles were some of the local industries in the 18th and 19th centuries.
IMAGES OF WHITCHURCH
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
