Clanfield is a very old village dating from pre-Norman times and is set in the beautiful countryside of Hampshire, about 15 miles north of Portsmouth and 6 miles from Petersfield. It was a tything of Chalton - a Manor of King Harold Godwinson. The rest of the tything of Chalton was made up of the villages of Horndean, Blendworth, Finchdean and Rowlands Castle. Times have changed, however, and Chalton is now in the Parish of Clanfield.

The only industries in Clanfield were agriculture and forestry with the associated specialist jobs of farrier, blacksmith, wheelwright, mason/builder, carpenter, farmer and forester. An ordnance map of 1910 shows just a few houses clustered round the church, four named "roads" - Drift Road, South Lane, Green Lane and Chalton Lane - and the whole surrounded by green fields.

Even in the early 1930's, there was no mains electricity, water or sewerage. Lighting was supplied by candles or oil-lamps and water for domestic use came from the thatched well, while the animals had water from the village pond.

Clanfield remained more or less the same for centuries, not really increasing in size until the Second World War when families moved out of Portsmouth (to avoid the bombing) and camped in the woods, lived in old wooden huts and railway carriages, and were accomodated by the villagers. As time passed many of these evacuees settled, bought land (at about £10 or £15 an acre...) and built houses - there weren't many building regulations then! Much later still, several housing estates were created and "Old" Clanfield and "New" Clanfield were established. Strangely, the building line is such that there is a natural division of green fields between the two parts of the village.

____________________________

The church, St James', is flint-built and dates from 1878 since the original one, built in 1300, was destroyed by fire in the 1860's; the bells and font are from the original church. The churchyard is small and most burials nowadays are at the nearby Catherington church, St Michael's. There are two Methodist chapels in Clanfield although one is now a private house. They both stand in Little Hyden Lane, Newtown. The first, the Ebeneezer Chapel, is the one pioneered by James Tilbury and Hannah (nee Pink). The Bethel Independent Chapel, built of flint, dates from 1855 and is a listed building.

Opposite the church there used to be a row of 16th century thatched cottages. These were demolished in the 1960's and replaced by a row of shops. Two other 16th century thatched cottages, a secluded old thatched house (Rose Cottage) and a half-timbered house (Mews Cottage) still stand. The forge is in Chalton Lane but that has also become a private house. (My husband, who was born and brought up in Clanfield, remembers watching the blacksmith shoeing horses and putting the metal rims on cartwheels.)

Not far from the church at the junction of South Lane and Hambledon Road is the old village school, also converted into a private home. During WW2 when school numbers increased dramatically because of evacuees, the Memorial Hall was employed; this was a wooden ex-army hut that had been used by Canadian soldiers during WW1 and bought by the villagers in 1921 as a memorial to all the men of Clanfield who died during the 1914-1918 war. The school moved, in about 1929, to two small brick buildings in Little Hyden Lane. The whole was enlarged in the 1970's and is now Clanfield Middle School.

The pub, The Rising Sun, is famous for being "the pub that was built in a day" (but that was in the early 1950's). Previously there was a building or an area called The Rising Sun - Censi for 1841, 1851 and 1881 list several families living in The Rising Sun.

Clanfield was for many years part of the estate of Lady Peel. Some of the original estate houses still stand in North Lane and retain the numbering they were given when part of the estate - thus in North Lane there are fourteen houses numbered from 132 to 145. Leydene House, where Lady Peel lived, was bought by the Admiralty and became HMS Mercury (a Naval establishment not a ship!). This lies between Clanfield and East Meon.