URPoint Details
A one street village set over 500ft on the Winchester Downs is mainly Tudor with many pretty cottages.
The village is famous for one vicar John Keble, poet, essayist and leader of the Oxford Movement and one of the colleges was named after him. He had the parish church rebuilt in 1848, except for the tower and is buried in the churchyard along with Oliver Cromwell’s son Richard.
Richard Cromwell once lived at Hursley Park and in the grounds on the site of an Iron Age fort are the remains of Merdon Castle built in the 12th century by the Bishop of Winchester, Henry de Blois.
The monument on the summit of Pitt Down, records the leap of Paulet St John’s horse into a chalk-pit while fox hunting in 1733. Horse and rider survived, and the horse later won a race under the name ’Beware Chalk Pit’, situated on an unclassified road off A31 to the north of Hursley.
- Type:
- Landmark