Wootton is a hamlet in the civil parish of New Milton in Hampshire, England. It is in the south of the New Forest.
Overview Wootton is just north of the village of Bashley in the civil parish of New Milton, although the farmland and woodland to the north of Wootton is in the parish of Brockenhurst. Locally the hamlet is known principally for the Rising Sun public house.
History The name Wootton derives from Old English for "wood farm".Old Hampshire Gazetteer - Wootton According to the Domesday Book, Wootton ("Odetune") was held by one Godric from the King before 1066, but by 1086, most of the estate had been placed under the New Forest.Domesday Map - Wootton A Primitive Methodist chapel was erected in Wootton after a preacher visited the hamlet in 1843 and "converted a number of sinners . . . and formed a society of nine members."John Petty, (1864), The history of the Primitive Methodist connexion, page 445 The chapel building still survives and is a red brick structure with a slate roof on Tiptoe Road.Hampshire Treasures Volume 5 (New Forest), page 265 The two-storey brick building to the west of it was once a shop. In 1855 the population of Wootton is reported as including an inn-keeper for the Rising Sun, a shop-keeper, a schoolmistress, a post-office "receiver", a shoemaker, two blacksmiths, and two carpenters."Milton" entry in Post Office Directory of Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire, (1855), pages 85-6 In the 19th century Wootton had a Church of England village school,A. T. Lloyd, J. E. S. Brooks, (1996), The History of New Milton and its Surrounding Area, Centenary Edition, page 37 but this burned down in 1914, and a new school was built in nearby Tiptoe.A. T. Lloyd, J. E. S. Brooks, (1996), The History of New Milton and its Surrounding Area, Centenary Edition, pages 38 and 78
The Rising Sun public house at Wootton has been on its present site for over two hundred years.The Rising Sun, Bashley, New Milton The inn was rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th century, and it was described by one visitor in 1907 as "the best hostelry and the most moderate I have come across in England".The Autocar (1907): Volume 19, page 432
Wootton was once entirely within the parish of New Milton, but in 1926 the land to the north of the hamlet was annexed into the civil parish of Rhinefield, which itself was eventually incorporated into the parish of Brockenhurst.Relationships / unit history of Milton, A Vision of Britain through Time, retrieved 30 December 2011
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