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Welcome to Compton Place

Welcome to Compton Place

Compton Place (Saxon..Plasce..marshy ground) lies behind the Tudor Wall and gate on the pathway to Compton Lock (footpath 23).

It is a site of archaeological significance with the remains of a Norman moated encampment and site of a Tudor Manor House and formal garden.

The Parish Council, with help from the Hampshire Gardens Trust and Hampshire County Council, have erected an information board by the Tudor Gate.

We are grateful to Janet Hurrell and the Hampshire Gardens Trust  for sponsoring this feature board.

Compton Place display board

J.S.Drew’s book Compton, Near Winchester, published by the Wykeham Press in 1939, provided the information for the text on the display board, reproduced below.

Medieval Buildings

The site is believed to have contained a moated house and chapel. Only low earth works survive.

The 1302 post-mortem report for John Wascelyn records ‘a house, garden, arable land and pasture’. John was the last in the male line of the Wascelyn family.

Thomas de Thornecombe, a later owner and great-nephew of John Wascelyn, had a licence for the celebration of mass  in the ‘oratory’ of his manor house. This suggests that it was a dwelling of some substance.

The Tudor House, Wall and Gateway

By 1455, tenancy had passed to John Philpott, Sheriff of Hampshire.

The Hearth Tax record from 1673 mentions a house of ‘10 hearths’, making this later building also quite substantial.

In 1713, the lease of land by Sir Henry Worsley to John Goldfinch includes “ … lands where the ancient manor house, outhouses and gardens lately stood”. The only remaining evidence is a fragment of the 16th century brick and flint wall, and the narrow Tudor arched gateway.

Before the renovation

John Wilkinson. Environment & Footpaths Representative C&SPC, and Local History Society.


Submitted for publication in the August 2016 Parish Magazine

See also: Details of the Moated site 300m south-east of Compton House as scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979