Details

The monument includes the remains of the medieval settlement of Hartley
Mauditt. The settlement lies on an Upper Greensand escarpment and is in two
separate areas of protection situated either side of a sunken road. The road
is orientated on a north to south axis and represents the principal
throughfare through the village. A series of faint strip enclosures
immediately to its west indicate the location of crofts, the house platforms
associated with which are known to have originally lined either side of the
road. A sub-circular depression up to 1m in depth immediately west of the
church indicates the probable site of the manor house. Finds of stone and
brick in the vicinity suggest that this was a substantial structure, and is
almost certainly the location of a building depicted on a map of 1759, which
probably replaced an earlier manor house. The building is not shown on a map
dated 1840 and had evidently been demolished by this time. A series of
platforms immediately south east of the church indicate the locations of
further buildings, whilst an `L'-shaped depression approximately 38m east to
west and 30m north to south adjacent to the stream probably represents a small
moat or a pond. Trackways are visible within the western portion of the
village as slight scarps or linear depressions, and the settlement was defined
on its south western side by a hollow way up to 8m in width and 3.5m in depth
which runs for 140m on a NNW-SSE axis.
Referred to as `Herlege' in the Domesday survey of 1086 with a population of
19, a document dated to 1283 names 23 tenants within Hartley Mauditt. From the
late 14th century onwards the manor is known to have become the property of
the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1586 men from `Hartlye Mawditt' were implicated in
a plot to fire the beacons around the Meon Valley to call attention to the
lack of food. Three of them, a tailor, a husbandman and a weaver were
subsequently arrested in Winchester. The precise reason for abandonment of the
settlement is not known, but it is believed to have been through emparking. A
survey dated to 1591 suggests that there were then 19 dwellings in the
village. Whilst Hearth Tax returns for 1665 indicate that the number had
increased to 23 by 1665, in 1673 it was 21 and by 1674 had declined further
still to only 16. By 1759 Isaac Taylor's map describes the whole area of the
settlement as Hartley Park, and depicts only one large building next to the
church.
All fences, footbridges, feed troughs and the modern surfaces of all path and
trackways are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath them
is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Medieval rural settlements in England were marked by great regional diversity
in form, size and type, and the protection of their archaeological remains
needs to take these differences into account. To do this, England has been
divided into three broad Provinces on the basis of each area's distinctive
mixture of nucleated and dispersed settlements. These can be further divided
into sub-Provinces and local regions, possessing characteristics which have
gradually evolved during the past 1500 years or more.
This monument lies in the East Wessex sub-Province of the south-eastern
Province, an area in which settlement characteristics are shaped by strong
contrasts in terrain. This is seen in the division between the chalk Downs,
where chains of nucleated settlements concentrate in the valleys, and the
Hampshire Basin, still dominated by the woodlands and open commons of the
ancient New Forest, where nucleated sites are largely absent. Along the
coastal strip extending into Sussex are more nucleations, while in Hampshire
some coastal areas and inland valleys are marked by high densities of
dispersed settlement, much of it post-medieval.
The Hampshire Downs and Salisbury Plain local region is a distinctive, large
area with extremely low densities of dispersed settlement on the chalk, and
dense strings of villages, hamlets and farmsteads concentrated in the valleys.
Fieldwork has shown that these, together with associated earthworks, date from
many periods, reflecting the long and complex history of settlement in these
`preferred zones' within an area generally deficient in surface water.

Medieval villages were the organised agricultural communities, sited at the
centre of a parish or township, that shared resources such as arable land,
meadow and woodland. Village plans vary enormously, but when they survive as
earthworks their most distinguishing features include roads and minor tracks,
platforms on which stood houses and other buildings such as barns, enclosed
crofts and small enclosed paddocks. In the central province of England,
villages were the most distinctive aspect of medieval life, and their
archaeological remains are one of the most important sources of understanding
about rural life in the five or more centuries following the Norman Conquest.
The remains of the abandoned medieval and later settlement at Hartley Mauditt
survive well as a series of earthworks and buried deposits. Many areas of the
settlement have remained largely undisturbed since their abandonment and the
survival of archaeological deposits relating to their occupation and use is
likely to be good. These deposits will contain information about the dating,
layout and economy of the settlement, and together with contemporary documents
relating to the village, will provide a good opportunity to understand the
mechanisms behind its development, decline and eventual abandonment.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Lewis, C, Medieval Settlement in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Project, (1996)
Meirion-Jones, G I, 'Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club' in Dogmersfield and Hartley Mauditt: Two Deserted Villages, , Vol. XXVI, (1969)
Other
Hampshire County Council, SU 73 NW 20,
Hanworth, J., AM12, (1979)
RCHME, NMR: SU 73 NW 30,

Source: Historic England