Village History

Amport History

William the Conqueror gave the land to Hugh de Port and since 'an' or 'anne' was a Celtic word for 'brook', so the village was called Anne de Port. Later this became Amport.

Evidence of man's occupation here stretches back over 5,000 years. Twenty-four Neolithic burial grounds are recorded in the parish. Beside the brook is the site of a Saxon Christian village. Today there are still tracks to be found which were once straight Roman roads. The Roman exports from this area included boy slaves, and near here a burial ground has been found containing the bones of over 60 girl babies.

Until the beginning of the 20th century sheep fairs were held in Weyhill, at the end of Sarson Lane. These were large fairs with over 140,000 sheep being sold in one day. Cornishmen also came to sell gold to Londoners, who travelled to Weyhill to buy the bullion. Thomas Hardy once attended a Weyhill fair and saw a drunk selling his wife and babe, for £5. He recorded this in his book The Mayor of Casterbridge. There are still some sheepfolds left at the site of the fair.

St Mary's church was built about 1320, probably on the site of a wooden, thatched church. It has been extended and altered several times. In 1988 it was re-roofed and now will stand for many more decades.

The present Amport House was built in 1857 and replaced two earlier houses built on the same site. After use by the Royal Air Force during World War II, it was purchased in 1957 by the Ministry of Defence and is now the home of the Armed Services Chaplaincy Centre. It is an impressive building set in beautiful gardens laid out by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
(Thanks to Southern Life(UK) )

East Cholderton

We live in East Cholderton, a name that often causes confusion to people - specially to visitors from afar who cannot understand why a) it is not shown on any motoring atlas or b) it isn't merely on the eastern outskirts of Cholderton, which is shown. Hardly surprisingly, a lot of our visitors tend to be late for lunch. We also meet some very animated lorry-drivers who think they are on the road to Salisbury.

It wasn't until looking up the derivation of the name in a reference book that I realised you have to go back to the Domesday Book of 1086 to reach the truth: which is, that they then had different names (though similar) and over the years these have gradually come together to form the modern name of Cholderton.

Back in 1086, East Cholderton - the Hampshire Cholderton - was recorded as Cerewartone. The 'tone' ending derives from the Old English 'tun', a homestead or village, and the first part of the name is that of the family living there. The full derivation is roughly 'the homestead of Ceolweard's people'.

Meanwhile Cholderton in Wiltshire appeared in Domesday Book as Celdrintone or Celdretone. This too has a similar derivation, thus perhaps the homestead of Celdrin's people.

With few written records until modern times, the names gradually changed over the years. More recently, the Wiltshire Cholderton became known as West Cholderton, but this distinction was soon dropped so we are left with the present, typically English, muddle of lost lorries and late lunch guests.