Fritham is a small 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 lies in the north of 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

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

border. 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 Bramshaw.

History

The name Fritham may be derived from

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

meaning a cultivated plot (''hamm'') in scrub on the edge of a forest (''fyrhth'').Old Hampshire Gazetteer - Fritham
/ref> The oldest feature in Fritham is a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

Bowl barrow A bowl barrow is a type of burial mound or tumulus. A barrow is a mound of earth used to cover a tomb. The bowl barrow gets its name from its resemblance to an upturned bowl. Related terms include ''cairn circle'', ''cairn ring'', ''howe'', ''ker ...

, known as ''The Butt'', which lies just east of the village, although it has been partially damaged on top by a brick structure. Fritham is not mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086.Througham (Truham)
, Pastscape It was once thought that the Domesday settlement of Truham (or Trucham) may have been Fritham,Victoria County History, (1912), A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 5, Pages 623-626
/ref> but this is now thought unlikely as Truham was within Boldre Hundred. The first mention of Fritham appears early in the 13th century, when Geoffrey de Baddesley held land in Baddesley and Fritham. Fritham remained attached to the manor of South Baddesley in the parish of Boldre at least until 1429. The Royal Oak - a thatched cottage with red-brick additions - is one of the oldest

pub A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the late 17th century, to differentiate private ho ...

s in the New Forest, dating back to the 17th century. Fritham Lodge, dating from 1671, may have been one of Charles II hunting lodges. A school and chapel opened in Fritham in 1861. From the 1860s until the 1920s Fritham was home to the Schultze

gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...

factory.Norman Henderson, (2007), ''A Walk Around the New Forest: In Thirty-Five Circular Walks'', pages 87-8. Frances Lincoln The factory specialised in smokeless powder for sporting guns. Established in 1865, it was at one time the largest nitro-compound gunpowder factory in the world, with sixty separate buildings and a staff of one hundred.Kenneth Hudson, (1968), ''The industrial archaeology of southern England: Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, and Gloucestershire east of the Severn'', page 35 It supplied three-quarters of the world's annual consumption of gunpowder for sporting purposes and often sent 100-ton consignments to the Americas loading road vans and special railway trucks for the docks at

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

. Little now remains of the factory except for the superintendent's and gatekeeper's houses.Eyeworth Pond, Fritham, and the Schultze Gunpowder Factory
/ref> Eyeworth Pond, near Fritham, was specially created by the factory as a reservoir to hold water needed during the manufacturing process. In 1904 the village gained a church in the form of Fritham Free Church. Four young men from Fritham went down with the ''

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 as a result of striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers a ...

'' in 1912: Lewis Hickman (aged 32), Leonard Mark Hickman (aged 24), Stanley George Hickman (aged 21), and Ambrose Hood (aged 21).The Royal Oak, Fritham
, Lymington.org The

Ham class minesweeper The Ham class was a class of inshore minesweepers (IMS), known as the Type 1, of the British Royal Navy. The class was designed to operate in the shallow water of rivers and estuaries. All of the ships in the class are named for British place na ...

HMS Fritham HMS ''Fritham'' was one of 93 ships of the of inshore Minesweeper (ship), minesweepers. Their names were all chosen from villages ending in ''-ham''. The minesweeper was named after Fritham in Hampshire. References

*Blackman, R.V.B. ed. ' ...

, launched in 1953, was named after the village.

Notes

External links

Eyeworth Pond, Fritham, and the Schultze Gunpowder Factory
New Forest Explorers Guide {{authority control Villages in Hampshire New Forest