Village History

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This page is not meant to be exhaustive, but is intended to provide a few interesting historical facts about the village. It is ongoing and slowly being added to - if you have any information you think is appropriate please contact me via the link on the homepage.

Request for information from Harvey Leigh Noyes
In a recent email to this wesbsite I received the following request. Is there anyone out there who can help. If you cannot help yourself, but know someone who can please pass on the message.
"May I make this request: is there someone of whom you know in the area with some knowledge of the history during the time of the Civil War who might help me fill in some gaps of interest in my family history? As you may be able to tell from my surname, my 13th forebearer was William Noyes, vicar (or rector?) of St. Nicholas from (I think) 1597 until 1618. Two of his sons, James and Nicholas, emigrated to New England in 1633-34, from both of which branches I descend. Another brother, Nathan, continued, following his father’s death to minister to the parish, but the comments in your church history booklet indicate that he absented himself in Sarum during the Civil War, during which time the church fell into disuse and disrepair. What I wonder is whether Nathan’s exile from his parish could possibly indicate a division in parish loyalty between Loyalists and Roundheads?"

Prehistory and Archaeology

Very early prehistoric activity is recorded by Mozley: " At some remote period attempts had been made to secure the last of the receding water by digging large pits in the watercourse. There was one sunk at the lower end of my own village (Cholderton). After my time this was cleared out, I suppose, for the same purpose that it was originally planned for; and there were found the horns and bones of deer, and even of extinct animals, that had come here to drink." It would be interesting to know if any Palaeolithic flints were associated.

The parish boundary with Hampshire on the north-east follows a prehistoric ditch called the Devil's ditch running up to a summit of Beacon Hill. Another similar prehistoric ditch marks the east-west section of the parish boundary with Bulford. These and a third ditch that ran through the parish formed part of series of late Bronze Age ditch systems focussing on Sidbury Hill north of Tidworth and Quarley Hill about two miles east of Cholderton. Both areas have been subject to recent academic research and parts of the ditch system running through the Hampshire area of the Cholderton Estate were excavated by Barry Cunliffe in 1995. These extensive ditch systems are thought to relate to major re-organisation of the landscape c. 1000-800 BC, possibly associated with cattle ranching. Those near Quarley certainly cut across earlier arable field systems. Two areas of prehistoric field systems one of c. 50 acres south-west of the Devil's Ditch and another of 100 acres in the south-west of the parish may be associated with the ditches.

Three Bronze Age round barrows occur close to the boundary with Bulford and one contained a secondary Roman burial. An impressive barrow cemetery also occurs within the Hampshire area of the Cholderton Estate in the fields and woodland on either side of 'The Avenue'.

Evidence for Iron Age - Roman settlement has recently been investigated on the Rare Breeds Farm as part of the Cholderton Archaeological Project. More information is available at Cholderton Archaeological Project.

Early History

The village is recorded in Domesday Book and the name has been recorded in various forms including Cheldreton, Cheldrington and Choldrington. The estate of Cholderton manor was held in 1086 by William of Eu. Other estates in Cholderton originated in small estates held in 1066 by Alwin, Ulvric, Sewi and Ulward and in 1086 Ernulf of Hesdin owned all of them. Some of the estates owned by Ernulf and his successors apparently merged to form Lower Farm. Eventually in 1893 it was sold to Henry Stephens and incorporated into the Cholderton Estate.

Other esates held by Ernulf of Hesdin were possibly the origin of the Cholderton House estate. The land was held by Mottisfont Abbey at the time of the Dissolution.

In 1086 the four estates at Cholderton had land for 5.5 plough teams and there wre 36 square furlongs of pasture, but neither meadow nor woodland.

Cholderton's assessment for taxation in 1332-4 showed it as relatively prosperous and in 1377 there were 46 poll tax payers. Tax assessments of the 16th and earlier 17th centuries indicate moderate prosperity.

The early village may originally have focused on the church and earthworks in the field to the north of the church have the appearance of house platforms of a medieval village.

Cholderton Church

St Nicholas Church

A summary of the church history and architecture can be found on the church page.

Illustrations of this and the earlier church appear in the Church photo gallery

Later History

Cholderton House was built in 1690 of flint with red brick dressings as a two storeyed house with attics. Various additions and alterations were made during the 19th and 20th centuries.

St Nicholas Lane 1897 AD

St Nicholas Lane 1897 AD

Cholderton Estate

The history of the Cholderton Estate can be found at the Estate's website.

Cholderton & District Water Company
In 1904 waterworks, fed from springs in Hampshire and icluding reservoirs and a water tower in Cholderton, were cpnstructed to supply Henry Stephen's Cholderton estate in Wiltshire and Hampshire.

The Wiltshire-located company was set up in 1904 by Henry Stephens MP the ink company owner under an Act of Parliament. The Cholderton & District Water Company supplies less than 3000 people with drinking water. The company was the country's only private water company for many years until privatisation in the 1990s and it still remains the smallest of the water companies. The company's principal shareholder is a descendant of Stephens.

The Village School

In the Parish Notes published by the rector Edwin Barrow in 1889, records for 1851:
"Opening of new School. Number of children entered, 16. Salaray of Mistress, £26, to rise to £30 per annum."

The land for the school was donated by Frances Elizabeth Dowager Countess Nelson. The materials of the old church were used to build the school. The total cost of building and furnishing the school was £680 7s. 10d. Numbers rose to 35 in 1853 including children from other parishes and in 1858 two teachers taught 40 children. Attendance at the school between 1871 and 1888 ranged between 23 and 34 each year.

The school was enlarged in the earlier 20th century. Average attendance was 53 in 1906-7, 34 in 1932, 46 in 1938 and only 18 when the school closed in 1978.

Earlier schools are also recorded. A school for poor children was held in the earlier 18th century by the curate and provision was made in the will of Anthony Cracherode for a teacher and books for 12 poor children. His school existed from 1753 and in 1818 a poorly qualified woman taught 6-8 children at it. Another school had c. 15 pupils in 1808 and is presumably the school with 16 pupils in 1818. In 1833 the charity school had had 28 pupils and was the only one in the parish.

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