Tidgrove Warren Farm History

 Saturday 7 June

Tidgrove Warren Farm is part of the Tidgrove Estate situated near Overton on one of the chalk downlands in the north of Hampshire just west of Basingstoke.  As such it finds self in a handy position near Winchester and on the main road between the port of Southampton and London as used during the early centuries of Norman rule in Great Britain.  I believe the arable farm has been in the family for the past hundred years and until 1992 and grew moulting barley for the brewing and distillery industry. I was then that Charles Sainsbury-Plaice abandoned farming and turned the 70 acres into the wildlife establishment we see today; thirty years of dedicated work and inspiration.  Now, the present owner Raleigh Plaice is welcoming we birders to both see the result and enjoy the sight of breeding Stone Curlews and Lapwing overlooked by quartering Red Kites and Buzzards, along with very many bird and insect species, not to mention deer and foxes, etc. 

Further information on the Tidgrove Houses can be found on the Internet  at https://tidgrove.co.uk from which this information was taken.

The farm house and restored land with the largest of three created lakes in the foreground

TIDGROVE, THREE DECADES OF RESTORATIVE ECOLOGY

Tidgrove is located 12 miles to the west of Basingstoke and is situated about half way along the road from Kingsclere to Overton. From the pipe rolls it has long been known that in 1172 Henry II built ‘the king’s houses’ there, but until about thirteen years ago the actual site had not been identified.

In the nineteen twenties, Mr. Bull, a Kingsclere schoolmaster observed, in a corn crop, the outline of a large enclosure which he thought to be Roman. The existence of the enclosure has been confirmed by aerial photography, and its size of the enclosure, when compared with those of known medieval hunting lodges such as Writtle in Essex, suggested that this could be the site of Henry’s buildings. The landowner, Raleigh Place, his historian the late Rev. Robert Legg, and the Kingsclere Heritage Association thought that archaeological investigation would be worthwhile, and were fortunate in gaining the interest of the archaeological department of Southampton University.

Under the direction of Kristian Strutt and Professor David Hinton investigation of the site was begun, with the support of volunteers from the Kingsclere Heritage Association and the landowner.

Henry II builds houses at Tidgrove

Henry was not only King of England and lord of Ireland, but also duke of Normandy, duke of Aquitaine and count of Anjou. He spent more time in his French possessions than in England, some 20 years in France as against 13 ½ in England, Wales and Ireland1. In all he crossed the Channel at least twenty-eight times. The two places routinely visited in England were the treasury at Winchester, and the Exchequer at Westminster, which was the administrative capital whilst the King was out of the country. When in England the royal household probably numbered one hundred and fifty persons or more, and was accompanied by wagons and pack horses for the wardrobe and other heavy goods. This limited progress to about twenty miles a day. The route normally followed was Portsmouth, Winchester, Wolverton or Tidgrove/Freemantle2, Reading, Windsor to Westminster.

In 1171 Henry visited England and Wales and went on to sort out affairs in Ireland, returning to France in May 1172. The journey would have included a stay at Wolverton which, despite the fact that it had been regularly maintained, for some reason he found unsatisfactory. He gave orders for the building of new houses at Tidgrove, and in 1172 the sheriff of Hampshire claimed for: work on the king’s houses at Tidgrove £31 9s. 7d. by the king’s writ.

Remains of King Henry II's hunting lodge

The question must be asked, “Why, after ten years of occupation should Tidgrove be abandoned?” Freemantle, as later identified, was two miles north of Tidgrove, was less accessible, and as Cottington discovered when he built a house there in the eighteenth century, lacked a decent water supply, and no certain archaeological evidence has been identified to indicate a high status residence. The most probable and simple explanation is that by the king’s fiat both the houses and the forest were renamed. This has been obscured because these earlier royal houses, wherever they were, were abandoned after the death of John, but the site on Cottington’s Hill was firmly fixed in the popular mind because in 1251 Henry III gave orders for new houses consisting of a hall, kitchen, chambers for himself and the queen on the first floor, with a chapel at one end, under which there was to be a wine cellar.13 These, together with the deer park he laid out alongside the houses, would naturally be described as being at Freemantle.

Appropriate tree planting mixed with open grassland

Henry made at least three visits to Tidgrove after his return from France in August 1177, the last of which was in April 1180 when he was on his way from Reading to Winchester in order to embark at Portsmouth.19 It must have been then that he gave orders for the carriage of timber to Freitmantel l, and for building work to be done there‘. The crucial question is where was Freitmantel l for there is no evidence for a place of that name before 1181. It seems probable that the king chose to rename both the forest of Witingley and his houses there as Fromental, which the clerks recorded as Freemantle in various forms.

A smaller lake with surrounding low vegetation

The king’s houses built by Henry II seem to have been abandoned after the death of John since there is no further record of work done on them, but in 1251, as has been said, Henry III undertook the building, in Freemantle Forest, perhaps at Tidgrove, or as previously thought, at the top of what is now known as Cottington‘s Hill, a new hunting lodge in or adjacent to a park for fallow deer.

Creating suitable habitats for breeding Stone Curlews and Lapwings

As can be seen from the Liberate Rolls this was on a large and expensive scale. When completed the king made little use of it and in 1256 gave it to his son the Lord Edward who was little more interested and in 1276 gave the houses to Pain de Chaworth with permission to pull them down and make what profit from them that he could.20 In the course of time the houses at Tidgrove were forgotten and only Cottington’s Hill was remembered as the site of King John‘s hunting park, this concept is now shown to be erroneous, firstly the park was not constructed until 1252-4 long after King Johns death, and secondly by the dated finds and physical remains on the site at Tidgrove which shows use well into 13th. century.

Notice the variety of tree/hedge life

Indeed, a very big thank you to Raleigh Plaice for both establishing the environment and habitat and letting us share his work.  Very many thanks indeed.

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