North Charford
hamlet in Hampshire, England, United Kingdom
North Charford is a hamlet in the civil parish of Breamore, in the New Forest district, in Hampshire, England, near the Wiltshire border. Historically the name refers to a manor which is on the west bank of the River Avon.
History
North and South Charford are usually identified with the "Cerdic's ford" which appears twice in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It first is mentioned under the entry for the year 508 when we are told that following a battle to the east "the land as far as Cerdic's ford was named Natanleaga" For the year 519 we are told that "Cerdic and Cynric succeeded to the kingdom [of the West Saxons]; and in the same year they fought against the Britons at a place called Cerdic's ford". If a battle really did take place here then it is possible that the boundary of Hampshire was first established here.
In the time of the Domesday Book of 1086, North Charford (Cerdeford) was a fairly large settlement of 29 households. The lands were split between the Earl of Salisbury and "Alwy son of Turber". That which Alwy owned may subsequently have become the manor of Hale. Richard II was overlord of North Charford in 1397, but subsequently the Bulkeleys claimed the overlordship, asserting that the manor was held of them as of their manor of Nether Burgate and their hundred of Fordingbridge. This was denied by Edward Abarowe, lord of North Charford in 1563, but seventy years later Sir William Bulkeley was stated to be the overlord.
“North Charford” enters the record as hamlet in Hampshire, England, United Kingdom. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what North, Charford and hamlet can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “North Charford” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.