Anglo-Saxon Romsey and the Lower Test Valley
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Timsbury
by Mary Harris 2022
Timsbury has been part of the combined civil parish of Michelmersh and Timsbury only since 1932. Timsbury has been a separate parish from Michelmersh from the 10th century when parishes were probably established. It was also in the hundred of Kings Somborne whereas Michelmersh was in Buddlesgate.
GEOLOGY
Timsbury is largely south of the chalk and is an area of mixed area of sands, clays and gravels. There are lenses of clay within the sands and this creates some unexpected spring lines like that along Rudd Lane running just SSW of the ridge line. Just behind the houses are wells which reach the spring line at about 12 foot deep. The water is of good quality and is still tapped for drinking water at the foot of New Road. The other consequence of these lenses of clay is that some fields are extremely marshy even on the higher ground like the field between Hunts Farm and Chapel Lane. The clays provided the raw material for tile making in the 20th century at the redland Tile Works.
The main channel of the Test forms the western boundary of Timsbury but the valley is very flat in this area and the river regularly floods over part of this valley land. This land has been used as meadow and pasture land throughout Timsbury's history.
Prehistoric finds in Timsbury
There are a few scattered scattered flint tools and flint pot boilers from Timsbury so the area was already in use by humans from early times. In 1980 a fisherman found a skull in the Test opposite Timsbury Manor which is thought to date from the Bronze age from the amount of chalk deposit on it.
Bronze Age Sword
More importantly a Bronze Age sword was found by metal detectorists close to the Test bent and broken into 3 pieces. This is a common practice in the Bronze Age when weapons of this sort were ritually 'killed' before being deposited in water or marshy areas but the only example known from the lower Test.
The original sword compared with a replica made using Bronze Age methods.
PRE-ROMAN ARCHAEOLOGY
Finds have been recorded of flints and potboilers etc from Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age, mostly scatters but a settlement site at Broom Hill, Braishfield in the Mesolithic. An Iron Age enclosure, ditches and pottery have also been recorded.
Roman finds in Timbury
IRON AGE and ROMAN
A few scattered Roman artefacts have been found in Timsbury, and a hoard of 61 Iron Age and Roman coins were found near the Test at Timsbury Manor in the 19th century.
SAXON ARCHAEOLOGY
A possible piece of Saxon horse harness has been found in the garden of Pump Cottage, Rudd Lane.
Fragments of Michelmersh Ware pottery are found scattered through both Michelmersh and Upper Timsbury. There are also some handmade (not wheel thrown) sherds which suggests at least one kiln firing hand made pots near by.
Handmade pot found in Upper Timsbury, possibly Saxon.
The earliest written record of Timsbury is in Domesday Book when it is called Timberberie, meaning timber fort or enclosure. This sort of name is often associated with late Saxon settlements, possibly formed with the holder responsible for guarding the surrounding area, in this case, possibly a river crossing or the route N-S alog the river valley, or both.
Timsbury was a small estate at the time of Domesday
At some time between 1086 and 1201 part of Timsbury came into the hands of William Brewere. He founded Mottisfont Priory and endowed it with his lands in Timsbury and the adjoining parishes. Although there is no detailed description of this division in the 13th century the two sections remained separate until the 19th century and so it is possible to map the two sections.
St Mary's, Winchester
Mottisfont Abbey
Timsbury church contains no Saxon material but is a small Medieval church which is probably on its original site. Timsbury church is one of the few churches in the Test Valley which is close to the Test but the geological map below shows its position on a gravel area which does not flood. Moreover, without the modern trees it would have been visible from the higher land of the parish to the east.
Timsbury Church before the fire of 2015.
There is no Saxon charter for Timsbury but the charters of Michelmersh 985CE, and Romsey c970 and the River Test give a clear outling of the parish in the 10th century as being the same as it was on the maps of the 19th century.
This map shows the topography as revealed by LiDAR. The bright green areas are what was the open common land, Timsbury Gore and Casbrook Common.
LAND SETTLEMENT AND FARMING
The earliest map is from 1774 of the estates of Michelmersh and Timsbury when they came into the ownership of the same family. This map was then used to add the enclosure awards of 1796. This map shows that strip farming was still taking place in the three arable fields of Michelmersh but there is no trace left of it in Timsbury by then.
However, it is clear from Medieval references that there were open arable fields using a strip system in the Hillfields area of Timsbury in the Middle Ages and possibly already in Saxon times. The way in which the demesne fields were used is described in Mottisfont Abbey's Custumal written in about 1347. This records that in Timsbury there were three different 'sowings' in furlongs within the three fields i.e. the three fields were not used for a single crop each.
Until 1796 there were two large areas of common pasture land, Casbrook Common and Timsbury and Michelmersh Gore. The Gore was shared between Timsbury and Michelmersh.
Timsbury has large areas of meadow land along the Test. The last of this was divided into individual ownership in 1796 with the common pasture but some at least had been used communally previously. Timsbury had detached meadow land in the Fishlake.
By about C17 at the latest Timsbury was a scattered settlement with dwellings spaced around the edges of the areas of the remaining commons.
Virtually all the houses from the16th and 17th centuries which still survive are on the common edges but it is important to remember that a large number of the smaller, older houses have disappeared. The finds of a few sherds of Saxon pottery in the gardens to the northeast of Rudd Lane suggest that this scattered pattern may date from Saxon times but the sherds may just be those which found their way onto the arable lands through manuring. The settlement in Saxon times might well have been more nucleated.
THE GREAT FISHPOND
In the southern part of Timsbury parish is Timsbury Lake. This was formed in the late 12th century by the building of a dam across the Fairbourne. The lake was owned by William Briwerre, warden of West Bere Forest, sheriff of Hampshire (and several other counties including Nottingham). It was probably built to provide quality fish when Briwerre played host to the Angevin kings at Ashley. Briwerre's other lands in Timsbury were given to Mottisfont Priory at its foundation. The fishpond itself was initially excluded from the grant but was acquired by Mottisfont soon after, probably when the family no longer played host to royalty. In the 19th century the pond was allowed to silt up but was reexcavated to create a fish farm in the early 20th century. It is now used by Solent University as a ship handling centre to train harbour pilots, masters and senior ship's officers.
