North Stoneham
The large medieval vil lying to the north of Southampton. The area north of Burgess Road, all the northern suburbs between Hill Lane, Coxford Lane on the west, and Monks' Brook on the east, have been carved out of North Stoneham.
North Stoneham House
In the 17th and early 18th centuries the 400-acre North Stoneham estate was owned by the Fleming family. In 1737 it passed to their distant relatives, the Willis family, who took the surname Fleming (to become the Willis-Flemings) because of the prestige attached to it. In 1778 the estate was improved by the famous landscape gardener Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, who also added a summer house at the south-west corner of the grounds. The old manor house, described in 1804 as “an old dwelling seated rather low, but has been much improved and enlarged”, was pulled down in 1818 and construction was started on a larger classical style residence, designed by Humphrey Hopper. A lodge, an exact model of a Greek temple, was built near the church.
Progress on the construction of the new house was slow, partly because a fire in 1831 destroyed part of a wing and partly because the family was running into financial difficulties. The house was never completed or fully occupied. In 1860 the Fleming family moved into Chilworth Manor, a smaller house nearby. Part of North Stoneham House was later converted into flats, the rest remaining empty. It was demolished in 1939. The stable block survives as a guest house at Park Farm.
Further reading:
Lost Houses of Southampton, by Jessica Vale. (HS/i)
‘The Country Houses of Southampton’, by Jessica Vale in Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society, volume 39, 1983, p180-181, 185. (HS/i)
Book of the Stonehams, by John Edgar Mann, p11-49. (HS/h)
'The park at North Stoneham' by Christopher Currie, in Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society, Section Newsletters, New Series, no. 11, Spring 1989, pages 9-12
'Recent discoveries at North Stoneham Park' by Christopher Currie, in Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society, Section Newsletters, New Series, no. 15, Spring 1991, pages 11-12
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