Hartley Wintney


Hartley Wintney is a village and civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire, England. It lies about northwest of Fleet and east of Basingstoke. The parish includes the village of Phoenix Green as well as the hamlets of Dipley, Elvetham, Hartfordbridge, and West Green.
The 2011 census recorded the parish's population as 4,999.

Character

The parish includes the large wooded areas such as Yateley Heath Wood and part of Hazeley Heath. The River Hart flows through the parish northeast of the town. The River Whitewater forms the western parish boundary. The southern boundary now follows the M3 motorway.
The town has a typical wide Hampshire main street, lined with local businesses, shops, an osteopath, public houses and a Baptist church. The town has also a Methodist church. The Roman Catholic church of St Thomas More was built in the 1960s. In 2016 a fire destroyed its roof.
The town is known for its numerous antique shops. At the southern end is the green and with thatched duck house. The pond is called Hatton's Pond, after a landlord of the Waggon and Horses public house in about 1870. The red-brick Church of England parish church of St John the Evangelist overlooks the green.
Beyond the green are the Mildmay oak trees. They were planted at the behest of Lady St John Mildmay in response to a call in 1807 by Admiral Collingwood after the Battle of Trafalgar for landowners to plant oaks to provide timber for naval ships. The cricket green, home of the oldest cricket club in Hampshire, is behind the shops, with a second duckpond and Dutch-gabled farmhouse, Causeway Farm, a short distance away through a stand of oaks..
In 1831 the parish had a population of 1,139. In 2004 the ward had a population of 4,954. The town is twinned with Saint-Savin near Poitiers, France and with Malle in Belgium.
Hartley Row is a former hamlet within Hartley Wintney.

History

In prehistory the area was probably fairly heavily wooded with a lake and a marshy area. The Domesday Book of 1086 does not record Hartley Wintney by name. Both before and after the Norman conquest of England it was probably part of the royal manor of Odiham.
The earliest record of Hartley Wintney by name is from the 12th century, when Wintney Priory of Cistercian nuns was founded there. In the 13th century its toponym was variously recorded as Hercelega, Hurtlegh or Hertleye Wynteneye. This last version means "forest clearing where the deer graze by Winta's island". Winta was probably a Saxon who held the island in the marshes. The toponym was recorded as Hurtleye Winteney or Wytteneye in the 14th century and Herteley Witney in the 16th century.
About 100 years after the Norman conquest Hartley Wintney was made a separate manor held by the FitzPeter family. It was Geoffrey FitzPeter who founded the Cistercian priory. A deer park stretched from Odiham to the outskirts of the settlement and to the north. It was used for 600 years by royalty and others for hunting, and its wood was used for fuel.

Parish churches

, about south of the centre of the town, is Hartley Wintney's original Church of England parish church. It was built in the 13th century and given new windows in the 14th and 15th centuries. In the 19th century the brick transepts and west tower were added and more windows were inserted. St Mary's is a Grade II* listed building.
In 1869–70 a new parish church of St John the Evangelist was built nearer the centre of the town. It is a Gothic Revival building designed by EA Lansdowne. In the 20th century the Diocese of Winchester declared St Mary's redundant and vested it in the Churches Conservation Trust, leaving St John's as the parish's sole Anglican place of worship.

Elvetham

Elvetham is a hamlet about east of Hartley Wintney. Until the 20th century it was a separate civil parish. Hartfordbridge, about northeast of Hartley Wintney, was partly in Elvetham parish and partly in Hartley Wintney.
Elvetham was a manor by the time of Edward the Confessor in the 11th century. There has been a country house there since at least 1535, when John Seymour entertained Henry VIII there. Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford entertained Elizabeth I there in 1591. Of that house no trace remains. The present Elvetham Hall was designed by Samuel Sanders Teulon and built in 1859–62. It is now a Grade II* listed building. Formerly the seat of the Barons Calthorpe, the house is now a 70-bedroom hotel, conference and banqueting venue.
Elvetham had a parish church from an early date, but in 1840 it was dismantled. The present Romanesque Revival church of St Mary the Virgin in the grounds of Elvetham Hall was completed in 1841. In the 20th century the Diocese of Winchester declared it redundant. The church is now one of Elvetham Hall's conference and banqueting venues.
GR.VI of No. 200 Squadron RAF. This is the same version of B-24 as the one from 311 Squadron that crashed at Elvetham.

Air crash

On 5 October 1945 a Consolidated B-24 Liberator GR.VI aircraft of No. 311 Squadron RAF crashed and burst into flames in a field on the Elvetham Hall estate. All of its passengers and RAF crew were Czechoslovak. All 23 people aboard were killed, including five young children who were from 18 months to three years old. The Flight List had the names of the 5 crew and the 17 civilians who were on board the plane. However an extra civilian was found, a woman. 13 of the civilians were buried in a communal grave in Brookwood Civil Cemetery. The 5 aircrew received a military burial 100 metres away in Brookwood Military Cemetery. It was realised that the extra casualty was Edita Sedlakova who had been offloaded in favour of a replacement but she had stowed aboard the flight. She had not long been married to the Flight Engineer, Zdenek Sedlak, and this was their honeymoon flight home. Edita lies in the communal grave while Zdenek is in the military. Edita was just 19 years old.

Other notable buildings

is a Non-League football club that plays at The Memorial Playing Fields.
The village is believed to have one of the oldest continuously used cricket grounds in England. and in 2020 the Hartley Wintney Cricket Club celebrated its 250th Anniversary.

Transport

Road

The town is on the A30 at its junction with the A323 Fleet Road, almost equidistant between Basingstoke to the west and Camberley to the east. This was the main trunk road to the West Country and Southampton from the stagecoach era until 1971, when the M3 motorway was opened. Its nearest junction is Junction 5, about southwest of the town.
At the Phœnix pub in 1934 a group of people formed the Vintage Sports-Car Club which has gone from strength to strength until it now numbers nearly 7,000 members with races and other sporting events all over the world.

Railway

The nearest railway station is at on the South Western main line. It is about south of Hartley Wintney and is signposted from the village.

Bus

primarily serve Hartley Wintney. The "Tiger" route 7 links Fleet and Reading via Hartley Wintney. In addition, Stagecoach South route 65X runs between Alton College and Phoenix Green via Hartley Wintney and route 408 runs between Farnborough College of Technology and Odiham via Hartley Wintney during term time.
Hartley Wintney Community Bus Service runs a regularly weekday commuter service to Winchfield railway station and services to Hook, Yateley, Frogmore and The Meadows. A Saturday service goes to Camberley as well as The Meadows from Hartley Wintney, via Yateley and Frogmore.

Nearby towns

Hartley Wintney Preservation Society was founded in 1966 but in 2019 chose to change its name to Hartley Wintney Heritage Society, to more accurately reflect the Society's positive and forward-thinking attitudes.