Exbury is a village in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, England. It is in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Exbury and Lepe. It lies just in the

New Forest The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, featu ...

, near the

Beaulieu River The Beaulieu River ( ), formerly known as the River Exe, is a small river draining much of the central New Forest in Hampshire, southern England. The river has many small upper branches and its farthest source is from its -long tidal estuary. ...

and about a mile from the

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and mainland Great Britain; the major historic ports of Southampton and Portsmouth lie inland of its shores. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit whi ...

coast. It is best known as the location of

Exbury House Exbury House is an English country house in Exbury and Lepe, Hampshire, situated on the edge of the New Forest. It is a Grade II* listed building with associated Grade II* listed parkland and gardens. The house consists of an 18th-century co ...

, built by the

Rothschild family The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish noble banking family originally from Frankfurt. The family's documented history starts in 16th-century Frankfurt; its name is derived from the family house, Rothschild, ...

, and the famous Exbury Gardens. The Rothschild family still have significant land ownings in the area.

Overview

The village was originally in the southwest corner of the parish but moved inland in the early 19th century. The present village was built to provide homes for workers on the Exbury Estate and still does provide homes for a few workers but is now mainly private housing. A prominent feature of the village is a water tower which provided the water to the gardens that was used to water the plants. The parish church was built in 1827, replacing an earlier chapel near Lower Exbury Farm. Until 1863 Exbury was a

chapelry A chapelry was a subdivision of an ecclesiastical parish in England and parts of Lowland Scotland up to the mid 19th century. Status A chapelry had a similar status to a Township (England), township, but was so named as it had a chapel of ease ...

in the parish of Fawley. The village forms part of the civil parish of Exbury and Lepe, which in turn is part of the

New Forest district New Forest is a local government district in Hampshire, England. Its council is based in Lyndhurst, although the largest town is Totton. The district also includes the towns of Fordingbridge, Lymington, New Milton and Ringwood. The district ...

of the

county of Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, Dorset to the west, and Wiltshi ...

. The parish, district and county councils are responsible for different aspects of local administration.

History

People have lived near Exbury since prehistoric times. An

Iron-Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progr ...

promontory fort is visible on the east bank of the

, where it is defended on the east side by a bank and outer ditch. In the 13th century the Foliot family were holders of the Exbury in chief of the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, parti ...

.Victoria County History of Hampshire: Exbury
/ref> At the end of the century the estate was divided into two, but by the end of the 14th century both parts were in the hands of John de Bettesthorne. On the death of John de Bettesthorne in 1399, his inheritance passed to his daughter Elizabeth and her husband Sir John de Berkeley. It remained in the hands of the Berkeley family for most of the 15th century. At the end of that century the manor had passed to Katherine Berkeley, who had married John Brewerton, and it then descended to the Comptons of

Compton Wynyates Compton Wynyates is a Tudor architecture, Tudor English country house, country house in Warwickshire, England, a Grade I listed building. The Tudor period house is constructed of red brick and built around a central courtyard. It is castellate ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

, who held it for the next two hundred years. In 1718 Exbury passed to William Mitford, and by the early 1800s it had descended to his grandson

William Mitford William Mitford (10 February 1744 – 10 February 1827) was an English historian, landowner, and politician. His best known work is ''The History of Greece'', published in ten volumes between 1784 and 1810. Early years William Mitford was bor ...

the historian of

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. William decided to build a new village at Upper Exbury.The Parish Church of St. Katherine Exbury
/ref> The original village and its chapel at Lower Exbury to the south-west were removed,
and a site was designated for a new church, which was built in 1827. William Mitford died in 1827, and his grandson Henry Reveley Mitford succeeded to the estate. He sold it, in the 1880s, to Major John Forster. His son Henry William Forster inherited Exbury, living in

Lepe Lepe is a Spanish town in the province of Huelva, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is near the Portuguese border. According to the 2022 census, the city has a population of 28,617 inhabitants. Economy Until the late 1970s its econom ...

House.

Exbury House

In 1919 the eminent banker

Lionel Nathan de Rothschild Major Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, OBE (25 January 1882 – 28 January 1942) was a British banker and Conservative politician best remembered as the creator of Exbury Gardens by the New Forest in Hampshire. He was part of the prominent Roths ...

bought Exbury House, the house being nearly derelict at that time.Family Links The Rothschild Family
/ref> The house was remodelled in 1927, and Lionel created a new garden, collecting plants from all over the world. When he died in 1942, the house was requisitioned by the Royal Navy and used for the planning and operation of the Dieppe raids and D-Day landings. Exbury estate was used for experimental firing, and barracks housing up to 300 men were constructed within the grounds. Lionel's son Edmund Leopold de Rothschild took on the responsibility for the estate after the war, restoring the house and gardens. Exbury Gardens opened to the public in 1955. When Edmund died in 2009, his brother

Leopold David de Rothschild Leopold David de Rothschild, CBE, FRCM (12 May 1927 – 19 April 2012) was a British financier, musician, and a member of the Rothschild banking family of England. Leopold David was the fourth and youngest child and second son of Lione ...

took over, creating a Charitable Trust to secure the financial future of the gardens and railway which opened in 2001.

Church

The earliest mention of a chapel at Exbury is in 1291, when "Master Nicholas de Audeby" held the church of Fawley with the chapel of Exbury. The chapel of St. Katherine was at Lower Exbury. This chapel was served by the

Cistercians The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

from

Beaulieu Abbey Beaulieu Abbey was a Cistercian abbey in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1203–1204 by John of England, King John and (uniquely in England in the Middle Ages, Britain) populated by 30 monks sent from the abbey of Cîteaux in France, the ...

, the tradition being that the monks used to cross the river from Saint Leonard's on stepping-stones. The chapel was pulled down in 1827, when the present church at Exbury was built. Exbury church is a stone structure with a northwest tower.Hampshire Treasures Volume 5 (New Forest) Page 118
It was consecrated in 1827. It contains a 13th-century

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

Purbeck stone Purbeck stone refers to building stone taken from a series of limestone beds found in the Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous Purbeck Group, found on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset in southern England. The best known variety of this stone is Purbeck ...

from the old church. To the east of the church is the family vault of the Mitfords.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Hampshire New Forest