Whitchurch

Some Neolithic to Bronze Age flints were found in a watching brief at a site near Folly Farm but otherwise no prehistoric remains are known. A Roman or Saxon burial ground near Chatwell Stream and other Roman pottery was found at Folly Farm with Roman ditches and near Hardwick Church.

Whitchurch is the site of Bolebec Castle, for which there are historical documents back to the twelfth century. It was a motte and bailey castle, now the motte is all that survives. There is field-name and historical evidence of a medieval park near the castle. There are a few late medieval buildings, such as 58 High Street, which is cruck-built with sixteenth to eighteenth century alterations. 10, 12 & 14 Market Hill date to the fourteenth century and have seventeenth to eighteenth century alterations. The Old Barn is a late medieval cruck barn with later extensions and The Old House and The Priory Hotel also incorporate fifteenth century work. The oldest building is, however, St John the Evangelist church. This has a thirteenth century nave with a fourteenth century chancel, aisles and tower.

There are historical records of a windmill in Mill Piece, a market at Market Hill and a watermill at Dunn Mill, where a windmill mound was also recorded in field survey. These all presumably date to the medieval or post-medieval period.

Many of the other buildings are listed and date from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth century, many of them timber-framed. Of interest is a sixteenth to seventeenth century coin hoard that was found in the roof of The Priory and wall plaster in the Cock Inn dating to the same period. More recent monuments are the eighteenth century milestone near 49 High Street and the nineteenth century brick and tile-works and limekiln at Bushmead Road.

A couple of military related monuments were set up in Whitchurch in the twentieth century. The Firs became part of Churchill's Toyshop, an organisation that invented and tested new weapons for use during the Second World War. After the end of the Second World War the Cold War kicked in and the Royal Observation Corps had observation posts all over the country. One was just south of Oving Road.

Want to find out more?  Read the detailed historic town report for Whitchurch (below).