A Church has probably stood on the site of St Michael's since Saxon times, but the main structure of the building in its present form only dates back about 130 years. Major restoration took place in 1865 and there is a suggestion that much of the fabric being worked on was particularly old and that some of it could have been from a very early building. In 1830 substantial repairs were undertaken, but the building as seen today is of the reconstruction which culminated in its reconsecration 1866. The building was in such a bad state of repair that rebuilding was the only option, as was the case of many other village churches in the country which had suffered centuries of neglect. In White's Directory for Hampshire in 1859 St Michael's is described as being a "small, ancient, ivy mantled fabric, with a low tower, containing four bells". The stated number of bells must be an error as all the indications are that there have only ever been three.

In the sixteenth century, Holy Communion was only celebrated at the major Christian Festivals and the purchases of bread and wine are duly noted. It was customary for the appointed Churchwardens to make a "visitation" at which an account of Church matters was presented, and new Churchwardens sworn in, rather like an audit. This was carried out in the presence of a representative of the Bishop of Winchester. It generally took place at the "mother" church (St Michael's,Basingstoke), but sometimes a visitation was made in the parish, perhaps when decisions concerning the building were required and a meeting on site was necessary. All the expenses of the Churchwardens were paid by the parish and this included the cost of travel as well as their food, or "diett" as it is frequently called.

On three occasions, in the eighteenth century the Bishop demanded that the Rector himself should make the return rather than his Churchwardens and these are quite revealing. They were set out in the form of a questionnaire, and the questions themselves reveal almost as much as the answers, certainly about what was regarded as important at the time. The Visitation records of 1725 when Richard Walton was rector, include the size of the parish which he described as being nearly 1 mile in length and half a mile in breadth covering 1,710 acres. The population was 180 which seems a rather conservative estimate and an average of births marriages and deaths is given. There was no chapel, no curate, papists or dissenters and no noblemen either. However, there were two gentlemen, Mr George Yate and Mr Cary Hunt who "cohabit together" and one gentlewoman, Mrs Mary Pinck, Widow. No school was endowed here but there is mention of the Walter Pinck charity which was established in 1636 for the apprenticing of poor children. The nearest post-town was Basingstoke, but Rev Walton requested that "all my letters are directed for me at North Waitham, to be left at Deangate".

For an architectural history of the Church, Len Hewey's book, published in the 1960s, and the Victoria County History of Hampshire, give detailed accounts and both can be seen at the library.

The Methodist Chapel

The Methodist Chapel was established in North Waitham in the 1830s and the first building was put on the site of the old malt house in 1837. It must have been of a relatively temporary construction as the present one replaced it in 1864. During restoration work in the early 1990s, a large underground space was found which led to much speculation regarding secret tunnels! However, less exciting, but the more likely possibility is that it was a storage space or cellar, perhaps dating from the time the malt house was in use. In fact there are several buildings in North Waltham which had or still have cellars.

A Friendly Society or Benefit Society as it was called was the foundation of Methodism in the village. Many founder members of the Primitive Methodist Chapel in the parish belonged to a Benefit Society from which 3d a month was set aside for beer. It was alleged that on the nights the money was paid out, some people got drunk causing offence to some of the more "sober" members. Primitive Methodism was established as a more temperate alternative.

In 1851 a census of Church and Chapel attendance was carried out which showed that the Methodist Congregation was 40 at the morning service and 130 at the evening one. At St Michael's, there were 80 at morning service plus 30 at the Sunday School whilst at the afternoon service there were 125 in the congregation plus 28 at the Sunday School.

Allowing for the probability that some parishioners would have attended a service twice on the day of the census and allowing for the possibility that others from outside the parish attended North Waltham to worship, these figures suggest that at least half the village folk attended a religious service on that day. The 1851 the population census shows that there were 506 people living in North Waltham at the time.

The School

The first reference to any form of education for village children occurs in 1807 when "Dame Rolf was paid 33/ = for teaching 18 children for eleven weeks". Why this venture was introduced at this point is not known, but it is possible that it may have had something to do with an attempt to improve the lot of the poor. The burden on the rates was becoming an increasingly heavy one. Perhaps, as in more recent times, the education of poor children was seen as a way of helping them to help themselves. This entry in the Poor Rates is a solitary one so whether it proved impractical for some reason or whether it continued but was financed in another way is not known. There is a mention, however, of there being a school in the outbuildings of the Rectory prior to 1833 so it is possible that there is a connection of some sort.

In 1833, the Bishop of Winchester gave land at Corndell for a purpose built school to be established, replacing the one in the Rectory grounds. The cost of the building was paid for by local subscriptions and each child was required to pay a contribution of 1d a week. For some larger families, the pennies must sometimes have been difficult to find and on occasions there would have been a choice to be made between education and food. Seventy five children could be accommodated, but the schoolroom at Corndell (now a house), was soon bursting a the seams and the new school, which still thrives today, was built and in 1873, 150 children moved in with their teachers and the occasion was marked with appropriate celebrations. Enchantment with the new buildings did not last long. By 1889, following a visit by a Medical Officer for Health who had been appointed to ensure that recent laws concerning public health were carried out, he complained that

"his instruction concerning the school lavatories had not been implemented".

The war of the toilets seems to have been a long running one and either the same problems, or some new ones were still unresolved as recently as the 1920s.

The School Log Books which contain the daily happenings in the school are very revealing and there is no escaping the harshness meted out to the children being educated in a "typical" Victorian school. The children stayed at the school until they were old enough to leave, nominally at 14 when it was presumed that they had reached the required standard. The teachers must have had a tough time too as many of the older boys and girls must have been difficult to keep under control. The teachers did, however, literally have the "whip hand", and seem to have been supported by the Rector in the treatment of the children. Punishments, which were frequently physical would be regarded as unacceptable today.

The parents of some of the children who were so severely chastised were prepared to air their concerns about the treatment of their offspring. In June 1872 a mother:

"came this morning to complain of finding marks of the cane on her son's arm. I told her I was very sorry and admitted that the punishment had been somewhat severe for so young a child (about 6 yrs of age) though I felt bound to tell her that we had found him very troublesome and constandy inattentive especially to his reading."

A year later, on January 1st, the entry reads:

"the mother of the boy Albert Russell came down and complained of his being ill-used, saying she found marks on him. I admitted that it might be so; expressed my extreme sorrow, promised amendment for the future; and advised her, in this and all such like cases to refer to the Rev. William Blackley.

Jan 2nd: Ellen Pointer complained of being ill-used on Tuesday."

William Longford was the headmaster who made these entries in the Log Book and it is interesting to speculate on what one of his predecessors, a Miss Hardy had done in 1867 as she was dismissed on the grounds of being too strict. Even the teachers were not above discipline. In 1874 they were given 30 lines of poetry to write before being allowed to leave school because they had been sliding with the children on the ice and they were "kept in" the following year as punishment for coming late to lessons. Obviously the 30 lines of poetry had not been sufficient to make them mend their ways!

All accidents and illness had to be reported and nits other "itchy" complaints were much in evidence. It is interesting that over a century later the problem of nits is an ongoing one which still defies medical science. The death of a child was not infrequent and one sad entry reads

"Death of Frederick Blake - a bright little boy".

Mr Langford, the headmaster taken to task by parents for administering such harsh punishment lost a child of his own. He explained that he was unable to mark the registers

"owing to the illness of my little boy who lay dying in my arms".

An extraordinary entry appears in the Log Book in 1919 which raises questions of its own:

'in excavating soil at Dummer Down by North Waltham workmen, a goodly hoard of ancient coins were unearthed; lying loose. The coins were principally of the 16th and 17th centuries mainly of Ed VI; James I and Charles I Lessons today based on Civil War of Charles I -undoubtedly these coins were secreted during "The Strife" in the neighbourhood."

The entries span a period of enormous change and an increasing enlightenment concerning the treatment of children. The evolution of the improvements concerning their welfare and educational opportunities has resulted in an environment whereby the majority of young people have the chance to develop to their full potential, free from fear and able to enjoy their childhood in pleasant surroundings.

Shops

Shops have come and gone in North Waltham over the centuries. Dame Love was perhaps the first "shopkeeper" on record and she kept a shop on behalf of the parish. It sounds as if this might have been an early sort of "co-operative" as the food sold, was paid for out of the Poor Rates in the first instance whether the poor who used the shop were required to pay for the food or whether it was a way of distributing it to the needy, is not clear. The entry concerning this is in 1800, the time when the poor were having an especially hard time.

In the middle of the 19th century, bread was baked and sold from Chalk Cottage in Chapel Street and the baker at that time was Hannah Blake. when Hannah died, her son Henry and his wife Drusilla took the business over and although it ceased to be a bakers towards the end of the century, it continued as a shop for several years. There is a photograph of the cottage in 1896 and sweet jars can be seen clearly in the shop window. It has now been incorporated into the house, but it was only when the house was renovated in the 1960s that the shelving was taken down and the oven and chimney removed.

Two "front-room" shops which are remembered by villagers and again, which can be seen in old pictures, were situated in Yew Tree Road and beside Hook and Hatchet in Chapel Street. The latter was a brick construction, attached to the house, whilst the one in Yew Tree Road was run literally from the front room of a cottage attached to Nos 1 and 2 Yew Tree Road and which was destroyed by fire and demolished in the 1930s. At the time, this was being run by a formidable lady called Mrs Moore who is still remembered by older residents.

There were two other known shops. One, an interesting old thatched building of cruck construction, which was demolished after being deemed unsafe and the other The Old Post Office on the village green. The Police House now stands on the site of the former, whilst at the latter, the shop and Post Office area have been incorporated into the dwelling. The Post Office changed location quite often before being lost to the village altogether in the 1990s. It started off at Cuckoo Bushes during the last century, moved at various times between The Old Post Office and the demolished shop and finally ended its days at the Barn Stores. It is ironic that North Waltham does not enjoy the postal service facilities in the 1990s that it did in the 1890s.

The Barn Stores, the present shop, has been built where a beautiful old thatched barn once stood. The barn caught fire and was burnt beyond repair one night in the 1960s and the shop was erected on the site, leaving only a name and some photographs to show where it had once stood. With "out of town" supermarkets being the preferred shopping option of so many today, the village is very fortunate to retain the services of a village shop.

The Pubs

There are currently three pubs within the parish boundaries, The Sun, The Wheatsheaf and the Fox. The Fox is the most recent addition and was built in 1836. There are nine empty bottles inserted high up in the wall of which the bottoms form a pattern. This was a common custom when building pubs at the time. It was built more as a "local" rather than to serve the travellers along the main road. The Sun and The Wheatsheaf provided refreshment and lodgings for passing trade as did The Flowerpots which used to be an Inn until 1897.

When Flowerpots closed, a referendum was held in the village to see if parishioners wanted the licence transferred and for a new pub to be built where the Old Forge still stands today. The Rector, the Methodist Minister and the newly formed Parish Council were not in favour and the majority vote went against the proposal. As far as is known, that is the nearest the village has come to having a pub built in its centre, the most traditional place for a village pub to be.

Whilst the locals had to walk a little distance to be served in a public house, there have been several ale houses or "jug and bottles" as they were known which sold beer to be consumed off the premises. Hook and Hatchet was an ale house at one stage in its history.

The Reading Room, Methodist School-room and British Legion Hall

All of these buildings were originally of a temporary nature, but which served a need in the community well beyond their "shelf-life". The Reading Room was the oldest of these and is remembered today only by a very few. It was a wooden building which stood at the bottom of Cuckoo Close and was used as a meeting room at the end of the last century and the beginning of this by the Parish Council amongst others organisations. There is no indication of when it was put there, but buildings such as these were often provided for villagers by the Church or perhaps a local benefactor as a venue for evening classes such as teaching adults literacy skills, crafts and the like. It was, in effect, the village hall. It can be seen clearly on an early photograph of the village centre.

Both the Methodist Schoolroom and the British Legion Hall were put up after the First World War and were in use for the next seventy or eighty years. They were wooden buildings, which were dismantled and sold off as surplus stock at the end of the war and there are many which still survive in other parts of the country. The British Legion Hall was at the junction of Popham Lane and Fox Lane and a new house now stands on the site, whilst the Methodist Schoolroom was in Chapel Street and the site has now been incorporated into the garden of Chalk Cottage. Both buildings were used by local organisations and for private functions as well as public events.

The Rathbone Pavilion on Cuckoo Meadow, which was built by the Village Trust in the 1980s made the Schoolroom and the Legion Hall redundant. Its building fulfilled the wish of William Rathbone, who gave Cuckoo Meadow to the village that a permanent hall be built on part of the land for the use of the villagers. William Rathbone gave the meadow to the village in 1952 when he sold North Waltham Farm, the Village Trust was formed to administer its use and care on behalf of the village and nearly fifty years later, it still fulfils the same function.

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First Posted March 2000 Copyright © Ann Lloyd 1998.

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