Accommodation in Bramshaw

New Forest Accommodation - Bramshaw

ABOUT Bramshaw New Forest, Hampshire, UK.

Bramshaw is a small village and civil parish in Hampshire, England. It lies just inside the New Forest. The name Bramshaw means Bramble Wood. Until 1895, Bramshaw was divided into two parts, one half in Wiltshire, and one half in Hampshire. The village of Bramshaw is stretched out for several miles along the B3079 road, with the church to the north, the hamlet of Brook to the south and Stock's Cross at its centre.

Bramshaw is a village and civil parish in the New Forest National Park. It includes large tracts of land owned by the National Trust, and Crown Land administered by the Forestry Commission. It is located some 10 miles west of Southampton. The parish contains the hamlets of Brook and Fritham.

Bramshaw Commons, owned by the National Trust, comprise some 575 hectares (1,420 acres) of manorial wastes and commons. It is some of the best surviving example of lowland heath in Europe, still managed by the common grazing of ponies, pigs, donkeys, cattle and sheep. The parish also contains the highest point in the New Forest at Pipers Wait, some 129 metres above mean sea level. The site of a 14th-century Royal Hunting Lodge ("Studley Castle"), can be seen nearby. The site of a former stocks and gallows can be seen at Stocks Cross, at the intersection of Furzley Lane and the B3079. The gallows were still in use in 1831, when records show that they were repaired.

The Admiralty Shutter Telegraph Line had a station at Telegraph Hill, near Bramshaw. It was an optical shutter signal station used as a communication link for the Admiralty during the Napoleonic Wars.

Telegraph Hill, site of a former Admiralty signal station Bramshaw appears twice in the Domesday Book for Wiltshire, when the lands were held by Wulfnoth and a certain Edmund. Odo of Bayeux was overlord of these lands in Bramshaw at the time of the Survey. The name Bramshaw probably derives from an Old English word for "bramble bush wood."

The manor of Bramshaw, together with that of Britford, appears to have been granted by one of the Norman kings to the family of de Lacy sometime during the 12th century. By 1284 it had passed by marriage to Thomas de St Omer. The manor passed to his son, grandson, and then a great-granddaughter Elizabeth, who passed the manor on to her daughter Joan who in 1436 conveyed the property to trustees, by whom it was subsequently sold to Robert Lord Hungerford and Margaret his wife. Their son Robert was beheaded after the Battle of Hexham in 1464 as a supporter of the Lancastrian cause, and by the time of his mother's death in 1477–8 the manor passed to Richard Duke of Gloucester who, when he became king (Richard III) in 1483, granted the manor to John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk. John Howard was slain at the Battle of Bosworth Field two years later and the manor reverted to the Crown. In 1485 Henry VII granted the manor to Mary Hungerford, granddaughter of the aforementioned Robert Lord Hungerford, and wife of Sir Edward Hastings. It passed to her son George Lord Hastings, created Earl of Huntingdon in 1529, whose grandson, the third Earl, sold the manor of Bramshaw (which from this time seems to have been also known as "Moore Closes") in 1561 to Thomas Dowse. It was sold several times in the next 150 years, until it was purchased in 1713 by Richard Paulet, in whose family the manor remained until 1887.

Saint Peter's church belonged at an early date to the Premonstratensian priory of Britford. In 1158, however, Henry II granted the church to Salisbury cathedral, when it was appropriated to the resident canons, and from that date the patronage was in the hands of the Dean and chapter of Salisbury. The current church dates from the 13th century, albeit with many later additions. The earliest part of the church is the west end of the nave, which is of mid-13th-century date, and there is a cambered beam roof of late 15th century date. Much of rest of the church, including the chancel and vestry, are of 19th century construction.

Bramshaw was partly in Wiltshire and partly in Hampshire until the "County of Southampton Act 1894" placed it all into Hampshire. The county boundary ran through the churchyard, and through the church, which had its nave in Wiltshire and its chancel in Hampshire. There were separate parish councils, one for Bramshaw (Hampshire) and one for Bramshaw (Wiltshire), which survived as Bramshaw (West) and Bramshaw (East) until 1932 when they were unified.

Accommodation in the New Forest

List of New Forest Accommodation in Bramshaw

• 1	B&B Bramshaw Forge, The Cross, Bramshaw SO43 7JB
  2	Hotel Bramble Hill Hotel, Bramble Hill, Bramshaw SO43 7JG

  
  

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