Some extrapolation and some guesswork
It becomes much more difficult to get an impression of what Abbey Close looked like at this time but some guesses can be made by extrapolating back from the well founded understanding of its appearance in 1800. The large double-roofed house, Sir William Petty's birthplace, was there in the late 1500s but almost certainly without the weaving shed extension. It is known that the house next door (top of picture) was substantial with gardens, outhouses and an orchard so the watercolour shows a Hampshire house of the period copied from one at the Weald and Downland Museum.

Winchester College property
Winchester College owned all the other houses on the site but there is little description of their appearance. However, we know what the timber-framed building next to the belfry looked like because it survived until 1974. It is assumed to have been thatched at this time. Winchester College records contain an immense amount of detail. They have plans of the properties and give detail of who rented them and who the neighbours were. For example, the timber framed cottages were rented by: 1559 William Raynolds, 1603 Nicholas Reynolds, 1631 Matthew Reynolds, 1654 Thomas Penton, 1681 Samuel Wartensins, 1695 Walter Kervile and so on to: 1775 Richard Sharp,1803 William Tarver. Both Sharp and Tarver feature on the 17th century page of this summary. It was puzzling to find that the deeds of this building refer to Church ‘litten’ to the west (which would have been the churchyard) and also to the south.

The old belfry
‘Litton’ (sometimes spelt 'litten' in the deeds) appears to mean 'property' and further searches revealed that the property to the south of the cottages was the site of the belfry to the Church of St Lawrence. Before the Dissolution, the Abbey had allowed parishioners to use the north aisle of the Church and to build an extension onto the north wall. This was called the Church of St Lawrence and parishioners had built a belfry with six large bells to accompany it. The belfry survived until 1625 when it became unsound and had to be pulled down. The bells were transferred to the Abbey Church.

Very little information survives about the belfry but it must have been a large structure because the bells themselves were large. It stood in what is now the rear entrance to the Magistrates Court.

TOP 16th century