CHURT

A Brief History Of Churt

Churt, on the extreme west of Surrey and adjoining Hampshire, is an ancient village. A narrow band of fertile soil in this area of predominantly bleak heathland, enabled man to exist here from pre-historic times. Indeed, within a 5 mile radius archaeologists have discovered a mammoth tusk and bones, flint implements of Neolithic man, burial mounds of Bronze Age man and Roman sites. When the population of England was around 2 million persons, Churt was significant enough to have its own name, Cert.
In the 7 th century Caedwalla, the pagan King of Wessex, converted to Christianity and ensured the safety of his soul by donating land to the church, including land at Churt. This land became part of the Bishop of Winchester's Great Manor of Farnham so for a thousand years he was Churt's Lord of the Manor. The Winchester Pipe Rolls - rolls of vellum on which the clerks recorded the legal and financial matters of the manor - reveal several centuries of village history. The medieval period in Churt remains visible in its timber houses, mostly of farming origin. Today they have been converted into luxurious private residences. One medieval building open to the public is the old barn at Quinnettes, which can now be booked for private functions.
The vast woodlands in the area provided not only timber for houses but wood for enterprises elsewhere. The roof for the Great Hall at Westminster was "pre-fabricated" near Churt and then shipped by river to London in the later 14 th century.
Farming and hop-growing were the principal means of existence, though in the 16 th century Surrey was a major part of industrial England with its iron workings. On the edge of Churt lies Hammer Lane, a reminder of the hammer ponds used to provide the power for the hammers used in the smelting process. Two of the three mills situated on the "Shirebrook" (the stream separating the 2 shires of Surrey and Southampton) stand as private homes today
Frensham Parish Church served for centuries as the only place of worship for many miles south, as far as Shottermill. Not until 1838 did Churt have its own small church and even that was not consecrated until 1868. Over the years it has been enlarged and beautified from its first basic construction.. The village school dates from 1871.
Eventually in the mid 19th century the Frensham Enclosure Act resulted in the "sale of the Bishop's waste" when waste land, common land, was sold. This provided the opportunity for the construction of several large properties in Churt employing local staff. Subsequently the residents provided amenities such as the village hall, presented in 1928 by Frank Mason. The recreation ground, a war memorial to the fallen of World War I was the outcome of an appeal to Churt inhabitants and was opened in 1921.
Progress in modern times has been rapid as can be expected. Churt is known as the Friendly Village; its numerous clubs and societies are proof of the enthusiasms of its inhabitants. Newcomers and visitors are welcomed. A very new development, in April 2003, was the formation of Churt Parish Council whereby the villagers make their own choices.
Olivia Cotton
The full book version of Churt History can be purchased from:~
www.johnowensmith.co.uk/books/chr.htm

Other books about Churt

Gillian Devine's book 'A time of Change..a short history of Churt, the period between 1840 and 1880' describes more about the development of the modern village following the enclosure of the common land.  Price £6, available by ringing 01428 606108.

Churt: A Medieval Landscape by Phillip Brooks Obtainable from J O Smith 19 Kay Crescent, Headley Down

Churt, an Oasis through Time
Churt Remembered These are on sale from Auburn Antiques, Churt
Further Reflections on Churt
The First Ten Years (of the village school)
Churt, a Medieval Landscape

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Harry Louis Nathan, 1st Baron Nathan of Churt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Harry Louis Nathan, 1st Baron Nathan, PC (2 February 1889-23 October 1963) was a Liberal politician, who later joined the Labour Party.

Born in London in 1889, son of Michael Henry Nathan, a fine art publisher and J.P. Educated at St Paul's School, he became a solicitor and member of the firm of Herbert Oppenheimer Nathan and Vandyk. He became honorary secretary of the Brady Working Lads' Club, the oldest and largest of the London Jewish Lads' Clubs. Nathan served in World War I, leaving with the rank of Major. He acted as honorary solicitor to the Land and Nation League.

He stood as a Liberal without success in the 1924 general election for Whitechapel and St. George's. He was first elected in 1929 for North-East Bethnal Green and was re-elected in 1931. In 1934, he defected to the Labour Party. Although Labour won the seat at the 1935 general election, Nathan was not their candidate, opting instead to stand in . He lost by just 541 votes.

In 1937, Nathan was able to return to Parliament in a by-election in Wandsworth Central as the Labour candidate. He in turn stepped down in 1940 to make way for Ernest Bevin, and was created a hereditary peer as 1st Baron Nathan of Churt in the County of Surrey in 1940. He continued in active politics from the House of Lords, serving as Under-Secretary of State for War (1945-46) and Minister for Civil Aviation (4 October 1946 - 31 May 1948). He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1946.

His wife Lady Eleanor Nathan served on the London County Council. He was succeeded by Roger Carol Michael Nathan (b. 1922).

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Anthony William Vivian Loyd (born on 12 September 1966) is an English journalist and noted war correspondent.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Loyd grew up in Churt on the Hampshire/Surrey border and attended Eton College. He later served with the British Army in Northern Ireland and the first Persian Gulf war. On leaving the army he became a war photographer and relief correspondent for The Daily Telegraph in Bosnia. Afterwards he was put on retainer by The Times of London and regularly sent to war zones around the world. Among the wars he reported were the conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Iraq. Loyd was noted for the risks he took in pursuing his stories. His most recent bylines (as of 15 September 2005) have been from Baghdad, where he has been out on patrol with both the American and Iraqi forces.

My War Gone By, I Miss It So , is a noted book based on his experiences in Bosnia and Chechnya. The memoir is a chilling depiction of the depravity of war and adrenalin addiction Loyd experienced covering the violent dissolution of Yugloslavia in the mid-1990s. Kirkus Reviewers described My War Gone By as "a breathtaking, soul shattering book". Loyd staggers chapters about war in Bosnia (and Chechnya), and boredom tinged with heroin addiction in London.

Loyd's risk-taking shows similarity to his maternal great-grandfather, Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (1880-1963). Unlike Loyd, the great-grandfather was able to keep excitement in his life while not in battle (Second Boer War, World War I, Somaliland Campaign, Polish-Soviet War, Polish-Ukrainian War, World War II) with a strenuous life of hunting, fishing, polo, fox hunting and pig sticking. Though Loyd was born three years after his great-grandfather's death in 1963, the fact that he had a poor relationship with his father may well have made him model his life after De Wiart. This would account for the extreme risks Loyd takes. His great-grandfather was not only a highly decorated British soldier, he was also one of the most wounded (eleven times, which included the loss of an eye and a hand). He was admired by figures as diverse as Winston Churchill, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Marshall Józef Piłsudski. He was also the reputed model for Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook in Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour Trilogy. Both his great-grandfather and great-grandson served in the British Army, but had little patience for peacetime routines, and both married into the landed aristocracy. Loyd refers to Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart as his grandfather in several articles, whereas Carton de Wiart is actually his maternal great-grandfather. Loyd married Lady Sophia Hamilton, daughter of the 5th Duke of Abercorn in 2002 at Baronscourt, the Duke's 5,500 acre (22 km²) ancestral estate, near Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. They were divorced in 2005, on an amicable basis, occasioned by Loyd's frequent absences reporting on wars. There were no children.

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Anthony Caro

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Anthony Alfred Caro, OM, CBE, (born 8 March 1924 in New Malden, then in Surrey) is an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblies of metal using 'found' industrial objects.
Caro was educated at Charterhouse School and Christ's College, Cambridge, earning a degree in engineering. In 1946, after time in the Royal Navy, he started at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) to study sculpture for a year. He transferred to the Royal Academy Schools in 1947, staying until 1952.

Anthony Caro found modernism when working as an assistant to Henry Moore in the 1950s. After being introduced to the American sculptor David Smith in the early 1960s, he abandoned his earlier figurative work and started constructing sculptures by welding or bolting together collections of prefabricated metal, such as I-beams, steel plates and meshes. Often the finished piece is then painted in a bold flat colour.

Caro found international success in the late 1950s and for a time was popular in the US. He was also influential as a tutor at St Martins School of Art, now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London inspiring a younger generation of abstract British Sculptors led by his one time assistant Phillip King as well as reaction group including Bruce McLean, Barry Flanagan, Richard Long and Gilbert and George. He and several former students were asked to join the seminal 1966 show at the Jewish Museum in New York entitled, "Primary Structures" representing the British influence on the "New Art".

Caro taught at Bennington College from 1963 to 1965, along with painter Jules Olitski and sculptor David Smith.

He is often credited with the significant innovation of removing the sculpture from its plinth, although Smith and Brancusi had both previously taken steps in the same direction. Caro's sculptures are usually self supporting and sit directly on the floor. In doing so they remove a barrier between the work and the viewer, who is invited to approach and interact with the sculpture from all sides.

In the 1980s, Caro's work changed direction by introducing more literal elements with a series of figures drawn from classical Greece. Latterly he has also attempted large scale installation pieces. One of these large pieces, Sea Music, stands on the quay at Poole in Dorset. To mark his 80th birthday, a retrospective exhibition was organized by the Tate Gallery in 2005. He was knighted in 1987 and received the Order of Merit in May 2000.

In 2008, he did the "Chapel of Light" installation in the Saint Jean-Baptiste Church of Bourbourg (France)

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Richard Christopher Carrington

British astronomer born May 26, 1826, London, Eng. died Nov. 27, 1875, Churt, near Farnham, Surrey. Carrington built an observatory on the top of an isolated conical hill, 60 feet high, known as the Middle Devil's Jump.

English astronomer who, by observing the motions of sunspots, discovered the equatorial acceleration of the Sun; i.e., that it rotates faster at the equator than near the poles. He also discovered the movement of sunspot zones toward the Sun’s equator as the solar cycle progresses.