John Keble's Parishes: A History of Hursley and Otterbourne

th the accession of Sir William Heathcote, the fif

. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Lovelace Bigg Wither of Manydown Park in the same county. She was early left a widow, and she bred up her only son with the most anxious care. She lived chief

e and Dr. William Sewell were the only boys who jointly retarded the breaking out of the rebellion against Dr. Gabell, which took place after their departure. However, in April 1818 he left Winchester, and became a comm

al, the youngest daughter of Charles George Lord Arden. Both he and his wife were deeply religious persons, with a strong sense of the duties of their station. Education and influence had done their best work on a character of great rectitude and uprightness, even tending to severity, such a

the latter under Mrs. Ranger and her daughter, whose rule continued almost to the days of national education. One of his first proceedings was to offer the living of Hursley to the Rev. John Keble, who had spent a short time there as curate in 1826. It was actua

the Church Service to them at the times when it was not held at church. The only week-day school was on the hill, kept by a picturesque old dame, whose powers amou

roadway that had led into the paddock before it became a

, Mrs. Bargus, "you sha

for kitchen and bedroom for the mistress, and a brick floor; and the firs

d over them. Nor could she keep the boys in any order, and the big ones actually kicked a hole nearly through the cement wall behind them. At last, under the sanction of the Rev. Gilbert Wall Heathcote, who had succeeded his

William's second son, told me that he remembered being locked into the strong room on some alarm, but whether it came actually to the point of an attack is a question. It was also said t

as colonel, Sir William was major and captain of such a troop, Mr. Yonge a captain; but at one of the drills in Hursley Park a serious accident befell Sir William. His horse thr

g him three sons and a daughter. In the midst of his grief, he was able to bring his old fr

t to mee

ng the living to become a fellow of Winchester, it was again given to the Rev. John Keble. Mr. Heathcote had brought to Otterbourne a young Fellow of New College, a deacon j

oetry at Oxford, when he came to Hursley; having married, on the 10th of October 1835, Charlotte Cl

e Tracts for the Times, which were rousing the clergy in the same direction, but which were so much misunderstood, and excited so much obloquy, that Mr. Norris of Hackney, himself a staunch old-fashioned churchman, who had held up the ligh

ent, was willing to accept the proba

church. The population was 700, greatly overflowing the old church, so that the children really had to be excluded when the men were there. It was also at an inconvenient distance from the main body of the inhabitants, who chiefly liv

hen President of St. Mary Magdalen College, and used yearly to come on progress to the old manor house, the Moat House, to hold his court, took great interest in the project, and the college gave an excellent site on the western slope of the hill, with the common crossed by the high road in front, and backed by the woods o

indeed deserved the title. An architect at Winchester, Mr. Owen Carter, was employed, but almost all the ideas, and many of the drawings of the details came

rey on one side. Hearing of a church (Corstan, Wiltshire) with a bell-turret likely to suit the means and the two bells, Mr. Yonge and Mr. Wither rode to see it, and it was imitated in the design. The chancel was, as in most of

and grapes, presided over by angels, and with two groups of kneeling figures; on one side, apparently an Emperor with his crown laid down, and the collar of the Golden Fleece around his neck, followed by a group of male figures, one with a beautiful face. On the other side kneels a lady, not an empress, with a following of others bringing flowers. At the divisi

portation had long ceased. He entered into communication with the quarrymen there, sent out a stone mason (Newman) fro

in Whitsun-week 1837 by Julian Bargus, Mr. Yonge's five-year-old son. A school for the boys was built on a corner of the ground intended as churchyard, and a larger room added to the girls', the expense being partly defrayed by a bazaar held at Winchester, and in part by Charlotte Yonge's first book, The Chateau de Melville, which people were good enough to buy, though it only consisted of French exercises and translations. The consecration took place on the 30th of Jul

to meaning. His belief was that Holy Scripture is so many-sided, and so fathomless in signification, that to dwell on one point more than another might be a wrong to the full impression, and an irreverence in the translation. Thus, as a

od order under the management of Sir William Heathcote and Mr. Yonge, that under the new Poor

and beech trees, which formed lovely vaulted arcades, one of which Mr. Keble used to call Hursley Cathedral. The

were, of the pine plantation on a rising ground above the road to Romsey, so that when the first stone was laid by Gilbert Vyvyan, Sir William's third son, the Psalm, "Lo, we heard of the same at Ephrata, and found it in the wood," sounded most applicable. St. Mark was the saint of the dedication, which fell opportunely on 21st April 1841, very near Mr. Keble's birthday, St. Mark's day, and to many it was

e Rev. Peter Young, then a deacon, who inhabited the old vicarage. The present one, which had been

hter of Evelyn John Shirley, Esq., of Eatington, Warwickshire, a marriage o