local history
in brief
Hamstead Marshall
In Saxon times Hamstead Marshall was a
cluster of dwellings above the southern bank of the river.
Little is known of this settlement because no records survive
from this era. However Hamstead appears in the Domesday Book of
1086, when it is in the hands of a Norman called Hugolin the
Steersman. The population was counted as four villeins, eight
smallholders (three with ploughs) and 10 slaves. The mill was
also noted.
Over the next 200 years Hamstead became
important as the seat of the Earl Marshal, the monarch's chief
adviser and administrator. The manor of Hamstead was owned by
several of these title-holders in succession, during which time
the park was enclosed and a wooden motte-and-bailey castle
built. The church was also established, initially as an
offshoot of Kintbury's parish church, but from 1241 as a parish
church in its own right. Several medieval kings of England were
known to have visited their Earls Marshal at Hamstead.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries the village centre expanded from around the church
and mill to additional sites in what are now Chapel Corner, the
Kintbury Road and Holtwood. It was probably the poor quality of
local farmland that caused the village to grow in this pattern
of dispersed settlements. Irish Hill (counted as a separate
manor in Domesday, but incorporated into the parish of Hamstead
soon after) remained as a distinct community in the
north-western corner of the parish.
In the early seventeenth century the
manor was acquired by the Craven family, whose ownership
continued without interruption until the mid-twentieth century.
The first Earl of Craven was a close associate of the Stuart
royal family, and the story of his romance with Elizabeth,
sister of Charles I and one-time Queen of Bohemia, has entered
local legend. The first earl's successors were less politically
active, preferring field sports on their vast landholding,
which grew to span several counties. The Craven Hunt and the
original Newbury racemeetings were Craven-founded, not to
mention the Craven-A cigarette brand.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
the manor house in Hamstead Park was more often occupied by
Craven widows than by Craven earls. Several of the
title-holders died young, a trend which continued into the late
twentieth century. Death duties took a heavy toll of the Craven
fortune. In 1967 the manor house was leased to a nursing home,
and in the following decade many smaller Craven-owned
properties in Hamstead were sold off. In 1984 the rump of the
Hamstead estate was put up for auction. The buyer re-sold
several houses, farms and the fishery, but he retained the park
and the manor house, which he reconverted to private occupation
when the nursing home lease expired.
Today most of Hamstead's 267 residents
are relatively recent incomers, and very few of them work on
the land. There are however descendants of some of the former
Craven tenant families living, if not in this village then
close by. St Mary's Church, the village hall and the White Hart
Inn continue to be well supported, and the village is still a
predominantly farming environment.