of the ways. It bears date 1540, and from the reign of Henry VIII till that of Edward VII a Masters shod the horses of travellers at this spot; now it has passed into other hands. Just beyond the forge a low-browed workshop and thatched cottage used to stand a little back from the road, where Mr. Pope and his forebears for many generations—one may say for many centuries—practised a unique industry, the making of hobby horses, for which the district has been famed time out of mind. The little old premises with precious store of wood were burnt in a disastrous fire one Christmas night; but the old business is still carried on, though in new quarters, and still the traveller may see in the station yard piles upon piles of these conventional steeds of exactly the same pattern, beloved of our ancestors in their childhood, straight-bodied, straight-legged, standing on four little wheels, so as to be dragged along by a string, each adorned with a narrow strip of fur nailed along his neck to represent a mane, and brightened with daubs of red or blue paint, laid on with just the traditional touch. They go forth in their hundreds—north, south, east, and west—to find a market; so the children must love them still, and have not grown too sophisticated to find joy in their crude suggestion.
As we go up the village we note, with a sigh, how fast new shops are ousting old thatched cottages,
and new names replacing the old, though still one, Purkess, said to be the lineal descendant of the charcoal burner who conveyed the body of the slain king to Winchester, carries on a long-established grocery business.
Brockenhurst is hardly so much one village as a bundle of hamlets loosely tied together, rejoicing in such names as Shark’s Island, Gulliver’s Town, or the Weirs. Even the parish church is not in the village, but stands alone on a knoll at the edge of the park, nearly a mile away; but then it has only of late years been made a parish church, having existed anciently as a chantry chapel, probably a timber or wattled structure. Portions of the present building, the nave and the beautiful south door, date from the twelfth century. The Early English chancel is a later addition, and very much later is the north aisle with its prim Georgian windows. It is thought the dedication to St. Peter was made either when it was rebuilt in stone or when the chancel was added. About the end of the eleventh century it was placed under the charge of the vicar of Boldre, and after the Reformation it remained attached to Boldre as a chapel-of-ease, served by the same vicar until 1866, when it was made into a separate ecclesiastical parish, the advowson being sold by John Peyto Shrubb to John Morant of Brockenhurst Park.
Though regrettable modern patchwork has marred the simple beauty of its lines as approached from the village, yet, seen from the shady lane on the other side, the little church is still delightful, seeming to crouch down into its crowded graveyard with its high-shouldered gables and its quaint steeple, surmounted by the traditional weathercock. By the gate stands an historic yew, and another hollow trunk is carefully shored up, showing scarce a sign of life amidst its shrouding ivy. Big trees stand round, and about the grassy margins of the lane the little rabbits nibble, scurrying away at the approach of the early worshipper.
The road follows the park paling, and at one point a double avenue gives a fine view of the house, much of which was rebuilt in Georgian style in the early part of the last century. Though stately, the front is far less picturesque than the older portion facing the gardens. These are a marvel of topiary art, with pleached alleys, arches, and columns, not of yew merely, but of the far less tractable hornbeam.
That Brockenhurst Manor, or the nucleus of it, existed before the afforestation is attested by an entry in “Domesday Book”: “The same Alvic holds a hide in Broceste. His father and uncle held it in parage. It was then assessed at one hide, now at half a hide. There is land for one plough.... There is a church and wood worth twenty swine.”
This mention of the church raises an interesting point. Recent writers have referred it to Brockenhurst church, but since Boldre, of equal antiquity, stands contiguous to the Manor of Brockenhurst—the Broceste of “Domesday”—and was for centuries the parish church of Brockenhurst as well as of Boldre Bridge, Pilley Street and Pilley Bailey, East End, East Boldre, Lymington, and Sway, it is more likely this is the one specified, whereas that at Brockenhurst was merely a chantry attached to Boldre. In Dugdale’s Monasticon, vi. 304, is this entry: “Richard de Redvers, who died in 1107, confirmed to the Priory of Christchurch, Twyneham, the church of Boldre with the chapel of Brockenhurst. This confirmation was repeated by his son, Baldwin, Earl of Devon, and by Henry (de Blois) Bishop of Winchester.” In 1291, by which time a vicarage had been ordained, the church of Boldre with a chapel was assessed at £21, 6s. 8d., a pension to the Priory being chargeable as compensation for tithes. The extent of the parish is suggested by the saying that the blue lungwort with red buds, called by the country folk “Joseph and Mary”, is found only in Boldre parish. Rare elsewhere, it grows freely in the south of the Forest, most of which was comprised in that parish.
