What happened at Hawkley in 1774? The great landslip
A hillside slid in the night, a gate kept working and a pond turned itself upside down, all recorded by Gilbert White.
In the night of 8 to 9 March 1774, a considerable part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley slid down the hillside, destroying two houses. Gilbert White recorded it in Letter 45 of The Natural History of Selborne.
In the night of 8 to 9 March 1774, a large part of the woody hanger at Hawkley slid down the hill. We know because Gilbert White wrote it down in Letter 45 of The Natural History of Selborne, and the Project Gutenberg text is there to read. The details are strange enough to deserve a page.
What White said happened
White wrote that "a considerable part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its place, and fell down". A gate in a field on the hill top, "after sinking with its post for thirty or forty feet, remained in so true and upright a position as to open and shut with great exactness". A pond near the cottage "had undergone a strange reverse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice versa". Two houses were entirely destroyed. White put the fallen fragment at 251 yards, and about fifty acres were affected. The Hampshire County Council walk page and the British History Online parish entry also mention the landslip, though we saw those through search snippets only.
Not in the Domesday Book
Hawkley is not recorded in Domesday, and was probably part of Newton Valence. The Hawkley Parish Council history page says the civil parish was created in 1894. A family-history guide agrees that it was a chapelry of Newton Valence.
A mill, a seizure and a king
The ancient mill belonged to the Bishops of Winchester. According to the parish history, Adam Gordon seized it and Edward I returned it in 1280. That is a single-source detail, although the county history agrees that Winchester owned the mill and it later passed to Winchester College in 1564.
A church with a Rhenish helm
The church of St Peter and St Paul has a Rhenish helm on its tower. Wikipedia says the church and Hawkley Hurst were designed by Samuel Sanders Teulon, and a Fancy Free Walks guide describes the Rhenish style.
Cobbett on the hanger
William Cobbett, in Rural Rides, described the view from Hawkley Hanger as "like looking from the top of a castle down into the sea, except that the valley was land and not water". The descent was slippery marl, and he let himself down while holding the underwood. We've given no year for his visit, because the gazetteer files the text under 1830, the date of publication, while the ride itself was earlier.
Things we left out
Two stories you may have heard were dropped. One concerns the B3006 being widened for cruise missiles, which we found only in a single source and which was worded as "reportedly". The other is a rare orchid, the red helleborine, again from a single source. We also found no link between the village and the poet Edward Thomas.
If you fancy a walk, the hanger is the thing to see, and now you know what it once did.
Follow Waterlooville.co on Facebook for a new local story every day.
Share this article