Contact: Adrian Abbott
The study of this village encompasses its history, geography, population, transcriptions of the village births, marriages and deaths, transcriptions of the censuses, tithe apportionment maps and transcriptions, a family tree of the known residents covering the years since parish records began (1561) containing over 20,000 individuals, History of notable buildings, the school, historical ownership of properties, history of the church, the Methodist chapel, the churchyard burial ground, notable residents and other ephemera. The aim has been to make this information accessible where possible, using the Internet and/or depositing information in the county archive in Winchester.
The village is located at approx. 50.94N, 1.26W. It is about 10 km NE of Southampton, about 12 km SSE of Winchester and 20 km NW of Portsmouth. The land is undulating, mainly open fields with some woods, and varies from about 20 m above sea level to around 75 m. The southern boundary is the River Hamble. The area is 1010 ha, or 2497 acres.
It is believed this numbered around 300 in the 1500’s and by the time of the 1841 Census had grown to around 400. By 1911 it had increased to 650 and currently stands around 1020. The village historically was classed as a non-nucleated settlement with no real centre. The two main groups of houses became known as Durley Street, along the main road through the village, and Lower Durley, around Heathen Street. In the picture below the building on the left is The Farmer’s Home pub on Heathen Street.
The first known reference to the village was as “Deorlaage” in a Charter of 901 AD endowing lands to the Minster of Winchester. The description of the boundaries is almost identical to the current parish boundaries. The name went through several iterations and is generally believed to mean Deer Wood. Deer are still to be found in numbers in the area.
The village has never had a real centre. As was the case for most medieval villages, administrative areas known as tithings were set up, and three were established – Durley, Mincingfield, and Wintershill. Strangely, we have found no record of where the exact boundaries were. There was no Lord of the Manor, since Durley was part of the large Manor of Bishop’s Waltham. Manor Farm in Durley appears to have acquired the name only because it was the largest estate. The records show that various families became dominant as landowners, and that up to the 20th Century agriculture was the dominant industry.
The Manor of Bishop’s Waltham records show that in the 1600’s there were about 70 people paying rental to the manor for the land in Durley, and it is probable that the population was around 400. Durley was relatively untouched by the Black Death and other plagues, and it seems that population numbers were fairly static until the mid-1800’s. In 1840 the tithe apportionment shows there were 38 landowners. The three largest owned nearly half the village between them, yet not one of them lived in it.
Over last 100 years the population has slowly grown, the availability of personal transport encouraging people to reside here and work elsewhere. There has been a major change over the years since about 1980 due to several causes – the growth of nearby Hedge End as a commercial centre with major stores and typical out-of-town shopping areas; the opening of a railway-station in Hedge End allowing access to main-line services, and perhaps surprisingly the reputation of the village Primary School, that has attracted families who want to live in the catchment area.
The village seems never to have had a major wealthy land-owner, but the erection of the Church of the Holy Cross in maybe about 1100 must have been a big investment. It was attached as a Chapel to the village of Upham until 1873, but there has been no evidence of a wealthy donor there. Rather, it seems to have attracted a number of medium-sized landowners to hold the land and rent it out to small farmers.
The large house built in medieval times at the highest point of the village was known as Manor Farm, but was demolished after the War in the late 1940’s.
The agricultural situation remained static with the land being mainly used for arable farming, until during the 19th Century there was a move towards market gardening, with the growing nearby, urban populations providing a ready market for produce. Around 1900, in common with many villages in Southern Hampshire, strawberry growing became a major activity, with the local railway station at Botley providing transport to places as far away as Glasgow and Wimbledon. There is now only one producer, and many of the farms have turned to providing accommodation for horses. There remain, however, a small number of beef cattle, sheep and areas of cereal.
A water-driven flour mill on the Hamble has been present in the village probably since the days of the Conqueror, although this ceased operation in the 1950’s. There was also a paper mill on the banks of the Hamble that closed in the mid 1800’s.
Industry was always related to the demands of the agricultural life – smithing, building, shoemaking, baking etc. until a small specialist industry of hoop-making for barrels grew up in the 1800’s centred on Botley, to the south. This lasted until the late 1800’s by which time a saw mill had been set up in Durley, employing up to 40 people. This closed in 1990 and was replaced by housing and industrial units. There are now several more of these units attached to properties in the village, with the usual assortment of small businesses covering a wide variety of purposes.
The 2011 Census showed that 61% of the population was employed in a wide variety of occupations, with 22% retired. The most surprising fact was that only 14 people described themselves as working in agriculture; the larger proportions were health and social work, education, construction, retail and manufacturing.
As stated, the village has had a Christian chapel for maybe as long as it has had a name, certainly from early 1100’s and probably back into Saxon times.
The Church was the pivotal organisation; it tended to rule lives at the local level, while the Manor of Bishop’s Waltham ruled the collection of taxes on behalf of the Bishops of Winchester. Of course the King or whatever Government was in power would get involved, frequently. Although the Chapel, as it was originally named, was governed by the Rector of Upham, the system tended to be very lax, since the rectors hardly ever set foot in the village. They collected their tithes, they employed curates, ministers, or whatever they chose to call them and paid them as little as possible. The surviving records give a mixed picture of the relationship between these ministers and villagers. There were several where the indications are that the incumbent was a much-loved benevolent individual, and some where the villagers actually took the rector to court over his high-handed actions. Around 1700 the records show that Durley was used as a Chapel of Convenience, many of the marriages being between people both from villages elsewhere, and this sort of thing was what caused the Hardwicke Marriage Act of 1753 to rein in on such practices.
In 1873 the Bishop of Winchester decided to cut the Upham link and made Durley a Rectory. The then curate, Thomas Scard, became the Rector. The eventual reduction in congregations caused a return to a joint Upham and Durley Rector in 1954, then in 1978 Durley joined instead with the neighbouring parish of Curdridge, until in 1994 Botley was added to the group.
The Church was substantially rebuilt in 1879, and the small graveyard was enlarged at that time and has been subsequently further enlarged twice. It is still the village cemetery.
In 1828 a Wesleyan Society was formed, meeting in members’ homes until in 1851 a Chapel was built in Durley Street. This flourished until reducing congregations caused closure in 1983. It has since been turned into a private residence.
The village has a modern Memorial Hall maintained by the Parish Council, home to a variety of sports and social activities. Groups include Durley Divas, (a spin-off from the Women’s Institute), luncheon club, bridge, tennis, yoga, etc.
There is a group named Friends of The Church of the Holy Cross, founded as a non-sectarian body to raise money for the preservation of the fabric of Durley Church.
There is a recreation ground with a small pavilion, home to Durley Football Club.
The village has two thriving pubs, both now mainly acting as restaurants, gathering diners from a wide area.
Special events in the village are organised on an ad-hoc basis for national and local events.
Durley School was founded in 1823 and remains, much enlarged, and is classed as a Church school, part of national primary school system.
As well as the Primary School there is a pre-school group, The Ladybirds, who meet in the century-old Thresher Room, originally a Church room.
There has never been a G.P. in Durley; villagers use surgeries in Bishop’s Waltham or Hedge End.
The post office, which had been in the village for around 150 years, was closed about a decade ago. In the past there was a bakery and several local stores, but these have been lost for many years.
Durley was on the main route from Southampton to Bishop’s Waltham from ancient times. It was also half a mile north of the Roman road from Winchester to Portchester. It seems that the Church was used by pilgrims travelling by foot to Canterbury commencing from the late 12th Century, but this left no visible impact.
The Robin Hood pub on Durley Street was a coaching inn from at least the 1700’s, although it could never have been a much-travelled route. After the toll roads were built in the 19th century from Bishop’s Waltham to Botley, and also to Fishers Pond and thence to Winchester, traffic had little need to come through Durley, and the parlous state of the roads gained it the title of “Dirty Durley”.
Durley was therefore a backwater and there was a very static population, with many families resident from the first recorded days. It seems fortunate that the population growth coincided with the needs for domestic servants when large houses started appearing, particularly in nearby Curdridge, and the census shows that many of the inhabitants worked elsewhere. However, to this day there has been a considerable number of families who have moved away but have chosen to be married and/or buried in Durley.
There is an irregular bus service through the village plus a voluntary service provided by Bishop’s Waltham, but the main means of travel is by car, and increasingly, bicycle.
As above, many families have been in the village for centuries, and names of particular longevity are Carpenter, Cousins, Houghton, May, Mears, Prowting – all with various spellings.
Famous people have included members of the Cromwell family, who lived at Manor Farm around the late 17th Century; Gilbert White, the naturalist, who was curate from 1754-1756 ; Sir William Jenner, Queen Victoria’s physician for 36 years; Admiral Mark Kerr, and his sisters Constance, Maid of Honour to Queen Victoria, and Nona, Lady in Waiting to Princess Victoria, the Queen’s grand-daughter.
Memorials in the Church and Memorial Hall contain the names of 17 Durley men who died in the First World War and 9 from the Second World War, three of whom are buried in the graveyard.
During the Second World War, Wintershill Hall was used as the headquarters of Hampshire Fire Brigade and at the end of the war the owner, James Montefiore, opened the hall as a centre for recuperation for Jewish children rescued from German camps. (The building is actually in Upham, but the entrance being in Durley has led to the local assumption that Durley can claim it).
The County Archives hold a wide variety of items relating to Durley; these may be searched on-line.
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