VCH Hampshire Publications

The county of Hampshire, with the Isle of Wight, has produced five red book volumes to date which provide complete geographical coverage of the county.

The first of these, Hampshire volume I (published in 1901), was the very first Victoria County History publication and the only book to appear in the lifetime of the series' original dedicatee, Queen Victoria.

VCH Hampshire

This volume was published in 1901. It was the very first produced by the VCH, edited by William Page, and was the only volume published within the lifetime of Queen Victoria. It contains the following entries:

Natural History
Early Man
Romano-British Remains
Silchester
Anglo-Saxon Remains
Introduction to the Hampshire Domesday
The Text of the Hampshire Domesday
The Winchester Survey (dating to the reign of Henry I, known as the 'Winton Domesday')

The full text is available via the Internet Archive.

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1903. It contains entries on the following topics:

The entries on medieval religious houses are on British History Online.

The full text is available via the Internet Archive.

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1908.

It contains accounts of parishes in the following hundreds:

Selborne
Bishop's Sutton
East Meon
Finchdean
Havant Parish and Liberty
Bosmere
Portsdown Hundred with the Liberties of Portsmouth and Alverstoke
Fareham
Titchfield
Hambledon
Meonstoke
Bishop's Waltham
Fawley Hundred with the Liberty of Alresford
Bermondspit
Micheldever
Buddlesgate
Mainsbridge
The Borough of Southampton

This volume is on British History Online.

The full text is available via the Internet Archive.

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1911.

It contains accounts of parishes in the following hundreds:

This volume is on British History Online.

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1912. It contains entries for the parishes in the following Hampshire Hundreds:

Winchester
Christchurch
Westover Liberty with parishes of Holdenhurst and Bournemouth

It also contains entries for the parishes of the two hundreds of the Isle of Wight:

East Medine Liberty or Hundred
West Medine Liberty or Hundred

This volume is on British History Online.

Cliddesden, Hatch and Farleigh Wallop, by Alison Deveson and Sue Lane, was published in 2018.

The book traces the history of two small, closely-linked parishes which lie to the south of Basingstoke on the edge of the chalk downlands, and a third parish, Hatch (abandoned towards the end of the 14th century and has formed part of both of the others).

Read more about Cliddesden, Hatch and Farleigh Wallop.

Dummer and Kempshott, Two Chalkland Parishes, by Jennie Butler and Sue Lane was published in 2022

Dummer, a small parish on the chalk downlands south of Basingstoke, has a rich and well documented history which is of interest to a wide audience beyond Hampshire. Manorial records from the 16th century onwards provide a fascinating account of communal farming practices before enclosure of the land in 1743. The parish was distinguished by an unusual level of protestant non-conformity in the late 17th century, followed by the strongly evangelical outlook when John Wesley visited and preached in All Saints' church in 1736 and 1739. The diaries of lord of the manor, Stephen Terry (d. 1867), which vividly bring to life Dummer and Kempshott in the 19th century, are excellent exemplars of the value of personal testimony in local history. Read about Jane Austen, the Swing Riots, emancipated enslaved Africans, trade unionist Joseph Arch and the childhood home of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. At Kempshott, joined with Dummer in 1879, the Prince of Wales (future George IV) leased the grand mansion as a hunting lodge and transformed the social life for the gentry of north Hampshire.

The original VCH account of both parishes appeared in Hampshire volume IV, published in 1911. This can be read at British History Online.

The first Hampshire VCH 'Short', published in 2015, by John Hare, Jean Morrin, and Stan Waight, Mapledurwell was the work of the revived VCH Hampshire project.