Four Marks is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is southwest of Alton, on the A31 road. It is situated on the borders of the South Downs National Park on the Pilgrims' Way that leads from Winchester to Canterbury. It contains within it the medieval hamlets of Kitwood, Hawthorn and Lymington, although now the whole parish is relatively closely settled.
Etymology First mentioned within the c. 1550 Perambulation of the Manor of Alresford (a Perambulation being a detailed description of the boundaries of land) as 'Fowremarkes' . The relevant excerpt details;
"a certain empty piece of land called Fowremarkes near Bookemere and named thus because four tithings abut there mutually, that is to say, the tithings of Medsted Ropley Faryngdon & Chawton".Hampshire Record Office (HRO), 11M59/A1/2/4, p.117.
The 'Marks' element comes from Old English 'mark(e)''' meaning boundary, or border, so, Four Marks directly translates as Four Borders. The borders being those of Medstead, Ropley, Farringdon and Chawton.
History Prehistory
In the New Stone Age there seems to be significant evidence of activity and settlement spread about the parish, which includes several Neolithic polished axeheads found near Headmore Farm, and others found near Swelling Hill pond and Brislands Lane. Several arrowheads and other flint tools have been found scattered within the parish too, suggesting not insignificant amounts of settlement. In the Early Bronze Age three barrows were constructed as graves for important members of the local community. These sit just South of Barn Lane.Hampshire Historical Environmental Records, ID: 72544 Some additional individual finds from this period have been found by hobby archaeologists near to the parish.
A pre-Roman ridgeway from the Old Sarum area, the Lunway, crosses through Four Marks from the north following the drier southern side of the ridge . It is itself crossed near the old Windmill Inn (now the Co-op store) by a summerway from Alresford and its river, following the quickest, driest, 'up-and-over' route to the River Wey.Lorents Rathbone,Chronicle of Medstead, HRO, 32M 94/1/71
Several features and finds dating to the Iron Age have been found in the village over the decades; these show a densely settled and worked landscape. Evidence of settlement was uncovered by pre-construction works near to Brislands Lane. This has been reinforced by finds of pottery, loom weights and coins around Four Marks and neighbouring villages over the years. In the Roman period a road was built from Winchester, then known as Venta Belgarum, to London (Londinium likely crossed through Four Marks), although this theory is not without controversy. The area around Four Marks was very active in this time, with villas and farmsteads, although little is known of within Four Marks except for the occasional coin.
Early history
The area was given by King Cenwalh of the West Saxons to the bishopric at Winchester, starting a chain of ecclesiastical management through to the current day. The commitment was confirmed in writing by a successor, King Ine, in A.D. 701 in a disputed charter.British Library, London, Codex Wintoniensis, Additional Manuscript 15350, folios 20v-21r, Numbers 56 and 57 (s. xii). The charter listed many local gates and watering places, mostly identifiable today, showing that the area contained important Saxon husbandry.George Beardoe Grundy, 'The Saxon Land Charters of Hampshire with Notes on Place and Field Names', The Archaeological Journal, No. 1, Vol. 83, 1921, pp. 55-173. In the following centuries Four Marks seems to be quite empty as the soil was not attractive enough for farmsteads and water access was an issue as the village lies on a ridge. It was because of this fact that Four Marks became the site of the commons of various neighbouring parishes, especially Ropley, whose commons expanded over most of the current settlement of the village.
The earliest medieval settlement in Four Marks was Lymington, likely a small farmstead, which stood halfway between the railway bridge and Five Ash Pond on Lymington Bottom Road. This was first recorded in 1307 as Lenynton meaning the farmstead by the lime trees. This settlement disappeared by the 15th century and survives only in the lane name Lymington Bottom Road.
The oldest still inhabited part of the village is the hamlet of Hawthorn, first recorded in 1424 as Horethornes,Winchester College Archives, Ropley Court Rolls, 211377f4 which sits north of Hawthorn Road. It saw a great deal of activity from as early as the 15th century, and has been continuously settled since the 1500s. Here are also the oldest houses in Four Marks (see below).La O Kirchner, A History of Hawthorn, Four Marks
As mentioned, Four Marks referred to the meeting point of four parishes. It was, therefore, not a place, but a four-way boundary point known as a quadripoint near the current Boundaries surgery (). It was marked by a large white stone, first recorded in 1759, which was reported destroyed by workmen during road construction in the 1960s. An old photograph notes its site tucked into a roadside hedge.Mills, Four Marks. Cornick, Early Memories, p. 37.
Apart from the accident of boundaries, 'Four Marks' for almost all its history and most of its modern times was an empty, but busy, place. People passed through, or near by, without great notice using the Roman Road, then later the King's Highway through Chawton Park Wood, and, beginning in the 18th century the Alton to Winchester turnpike (now the A31).Surrey and Southampton Roads Act 1753 (26 Geo. 2. c. 51) for 'amending' (repairing and widening) the roads leading from Basingstone (the Jolly Farmer), near Bagshot, through Frimley, Farnham and 'from thence through Bentley, Holybourne, Alton, Chawton, Ropley, Bishop's Sutton, New Alresford and Mattingley, otherwise Mattingley Lane, to the City of Winchester (Alton Lower District)'. This act was renewed, at least, in 1768 and by the Bagshot and Farnham, and Alton and Winchester Roads Act 1817 (57 Geo. 3. c. xxvi). The high point of the roads at about 215 metres was a chalk ridge, capped with clay and flints, lying between Telegraph Lane and the centre of Medstead.Heal, Ropley's Legacy, Chapter 11, 'The Making of Four Marks'. Rainwater flows to the north to the River Thames and, to the south, to the Solent. Under 50 inhabitants clustered away from the through road around small farms dotted along the old river bed called Lymington Bottom and, for instance, at Hawthorn, Kitfield and Kitwood.Holly Fletcher, Bournemouth University, Population Study, 2018, based on 1801-1921 Censuses
Historic buildings By the 18th century Four Marks was home to several farmsteads, many of which still stand today. Below is a list of properties built prior to the 1830s:
Historic buildings By the 18th century Four Marks had grown in size and was home to several farmsteads, many of which still stand today. Despite the listing of some historic buildings, several have gone unlisted. Below is a list of properties built prior to the 1830s:
NameDate of constructionStateHeadmore Farm1500sWell preserved & grade II listed Jayswood CottageCirca 1680Well preserved & grade II listed Beech farm1730sWell preservedKeepsake cottage1700sWell preservedKitwood Farm1700sDisappeared (not modern Kitwood Farm, which was built in the later 1800s)Brislands Farm1700sDisappearedWindmill Inn1790sBurnt down and rebuilt in 1920sWillis FarmEarly 1800sWell preservedCobb FarmEarly 1800sWell preservedSemaphore Farm 1827Well preserved & grade II listed
Modern history
The birth of the new village came in the years between 1894 and World War I. At least five major developers, one unidentified, descended on Four Marks intent on social improvement or plain commercial gain. Winchester College Estate conducted at least two major sales: 350 acres in Medstead and Soldridge offered in April 1894 and, in May 1912, around the main road in Four Marks.Winchester College Archives, L14/49/9, 'Copy and draft deeds and other papers relating to property in Medstead, 1864-1912. The Land Company of London held two auctions at Lymington Park Estate in 1896, offering over 140 plots with a hotel and shops on a farm bought from Charles Frederick Hemming.For example: Southend Standard and Essex Weekly Advertiser, 22/2/1894; Barking, East Ham & Ilford Advertiser, Upton Park and Dagenham Gazette, 10/8/1895; Daily Telegraph and Courier, 2/6/1896; London Evening Standard, 2/6/1896; Westminster Gazette, 10/7/1901; London Daily News, 13/7/1901; Daily Mirror, 17/5/1907, 4/11/1907; East London Observer, 3/8/1907; Tower Hamlets Independent and East End Local Advertiser, 17/8/1907; West London Observer, 18/10/1907. Lymington Park Estate surrounded Lymington Farm, a substantial set of buildings on the corner of Brislands Lane, grandly renamed Lymington Park Road for the auction, and Lymington Bottom, called Medstead Main Road. At almost the same time, William Carter, owner of Herbert Park, offered large opportunities in Alton and Kitwood Lanes. A local man, Frank Gotelee, who in 1901 had acquired much of the land in Medstead which had been accumulated in the 1850s and 60s by William Ivey, tried to sell freehold plots for development, although with less success.
Carter's development was initially called the Homestead Movement. Its defining characteristics were cheap, rural or semirural land suitable for market gardening or self-sufficiency, and the option of a basic house, usually single-storey 'colonial' style bungalows in a 'do-it-yourself' community. 'Colonial' was a trade name with the several standard designs, mostly one, two or three bedrooms with a living room and kitchen costing from £100 upwards. The higher prices also brought tile roofs instead of corrugated iron.Examples of the designs are held at the HRO, 38M48/5 with early pictures of the serried developments. Homestead's developments were sold without utilities: no clean water (use of a water tank or a well to be dug), no electricity (generator, solid fuel stoves and fireplaces, kerosene or gas lamps) and no sewerage (outside earth closet toilet).
In the ten years to 1901, the settlement around Four Marks doubled: inhabitants to 279 and dwellings to 67, and by 1911, a further increase to 334 people and 87 homes.Fletcher, Population Study. Three maps of the sales survive for Winchester College, The Land Company and for Carter's Herbert Park.Sale map, 10/6/1896, courtesy of Norman Read. HRO, 38M48/5, Herbert Park. Together, they contain 242 plots comprising an estimated 251 acres, about half the total acreage enclosed in the 1709 Ropley enclosure and on approximately the same land. The maps also cover almost every nook and cranny of the early Four Marks developments, with the exception of the early bungalows on the southern side of Blackberry Lane; about 23 according to the 1912 map of Winchester College.Hilaire Belloc, The Road. Heal, Ropley's Legacy, Chapter 11.
Within five years, the population of this small area to the south and east of the London to Winchester road had almost trebled to close to 250 people with over 30 new homes. Many new inhabitants, noted in later censuses, came from 'London': Battersea, Bloomsbury, Bow, Bowes Park, Camberwell, Chiswick, Ealing, Holborn, Hornsey, Islington, Kilburn, Kingston-upon-Thames, Leyton, Old Bailey, Paddington, St Pancras, Stamford Hill, Tooting, Tottenham, Tower Hamlets, Walworth, Westminster and Windsor.