Hampshire Treasures

Volume 2 ( Basingstoke and Deane)

Page 205 - Newtown

The mediaeval borough of Newtown was formed from part of the parish of Burghclere, and flourished in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Sandleford Priory in Berkshire was founded between 1193 and 1202 and an entirely new town was created just over the border in Hampshire. In 1218 the grant of a market and a fair at Newtown was made to the Bishop of Winchester, and in the bishop's account roll of 1218-19 fifty-two burgesses are listed, who occupied sixty-seven plots of land in the new borough. The Prior of Sandleford bought three plots in Newtown. Also in 1218-19 a chapel was built for the local people of the new borough, and was originally known as the Chapel of Sandleford.

In 1224-25 a ditch was dug around the town at the bishop's expense, and in 1225-26 the bishop's own house was built in the borough. By the sixteenth century the town had begun to decay, although the reason for its decline is not known, and in 1674 only sixty-four houses remained, probably scattered throughout the parish. No traces of the mediaeval borough can be seen above ground today.

The parish church of St. Mary and St. John the Baptist was built in 1865 on the site of the original mediaeval chapel. The building was financed entirely by Edmund and Elizabeth Arbuthnot. Butchers, bakers, ironmongers and shoemakers were listed in the old borough records, but more recently the parish has been famed locally for making wooden rakes.

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