Upton Grey is a village and civil parish in Hampshire, England.
History
Roman times
The village is on the line of an ancient
Roman road, the Chichester to Silchester Way.
Norman times
The Grey derives from the years when the village was owned by the de Grey family and was used to differentiate the village from the many other Uptons.
Elizabethan times
The Manor House dates from Elizabethan times when the Matthew family lived there. The famous Elizabethan poet,
George Puttenham, lived at
Herriard House but also had a farm at Upton Grey. It was there that- at least according to his wife in their divorce proceedings- he kept his seventeen-year-old sex slave whom he had kidnapped in London. Eventually she was released when Puttenham's long suffering wife discovered her existence.
Buildings
Old Manor House
Charles Holme purchased several houses and a great deal of the surrounding land in Upton Grey. The Old Manor House, which he rented to tenants for the rest of his life, was in fragile condition. Holme then commissioned a local architect
Ernest Newton to refurbish it, keeping many of the original timbers. Today's Edwardian decoration encloses oak rooms, a sixteenth-century staircase and original roof timbers. Newton's house was finished in 1907.
Gertrude Jekyll created a four and a half acre garden around it.
Hoddington House
Hoddington House is a Grade II* Listed mansion built around 1700 by
John Limbrey. Described by
Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘by far the best house’ in Upton Grey, it is built on the site of a religious house called Edyndon, a monastery affiliated to the Abbey of Beaulieu in the New Forest.
[Property details http://search.knightfrank.com/cho100437] It was the childhood home of George Sclater-Booth, 1st Baron Basing and his brother, the naturalist
Philip Sclater, and was sold in c1945 to
Edmund Stockdale.
St Mary's Church
Monuments in St Mary's Church include an alabaster wall monument to Dorothy Bulstrode, Lady Eyre (1592–1650), a lady in waiting to Queen Anne of Denmark, wife of King James VI and I, with her portrait bust and heraldry.
[ 'Parishes: Upton Grey', in A History of the County of Hampshire, vol. 3, ed. William Page (London, 1908), pp. 382-386. British History Online.]
Governance
The village of Upton Grey is part of the
civil parish of Upton Grey,
and is part of the Upton Grey and the Candovers ward of Basingstoke and Deane borough council.
The borough council is a Non-metropolitan district of Hampshire County Council.
Geography
Upton Grey is near
Basingstoke, which lies to the north-west. There are various other villages located in all directions around the village, including:
Village amenities
There are various amenities in the village. These include the Upton Grey Village Shop, the Hoddington Arms public house, St Mary's Church, a village hall, a duck pond, and a war memorial to the south of the church.
Further reading
Trevor Hart
St. Mary's Church and the Community of Upton Grey 2009 (available from the church and village shop).
A Brief History of the Village is available in the old Telephone booth, across from the pub. This was also written by Trevor Hart.
External links
