Visitors :

Flint tools found in the Parish indicate that people were in the Clatfords before the creation of the English Channel some 10,000 years ago..  The Harrow Way is only two miles away which provided an important route to Kent in the East and Cornwall in the West.  The intersection of four main stream towards the River Test; Dever, Bourne, Anton and Wallop clearly generated associated settlements around these.  With the Pilbrook running through the Parish, this would have supported a settlement in this area.

Upper Clatford’s Bury Hill fort has long attracted antiquaries and its close association with Danebury Hill fort  has attracted deep curiosity, why was it created and what was its purpose?.  The outer ditch is some half mile long and dug to a depth of twelve feet, all of which without mechanical aids.  The entrance to which is off Red Rice Road.

Upper Clatford was in a line of Anglo Saxon settlements which stretched along the Pillhill Brook and the River Anton.  The dates of which can only be surmised.  The Domesday Book documents that Upper Clatford has 2209 acres.  Around c996 the Clatfords lay under the lordship of “Saxi”, leading to Saxley Farm being named after him.  c1066 the Clatfords were granted to William Fitz Osben one of William the Conqueror’s most powerful advisors.  When Fitz Osbern died in 1071 his lands went to his son, William, his feudal land included Earldom of Chester.  His son Roger lead a revolt against William the Conquer which resulted in his imprisonment and confiscation of all his land.  The King therefore appointed himself as Lord of Clatford in 1086.  In 1086 Upper Clatford  or “Clatdford” as it was called had been assessed at eleven hinds, but the Domesday Book reduced that to four and a half.

In 1155 the lands had passed to Tornebu Family.  Thomas was recorded as owing the Treasury nine shillings in connection with land in Hampshire.  Later the monks of Lire received twenty shillings in alms (acts of religious virtue) in Clatford from Thomas de Tornebu and in 1196 the Sheriff of Hampshire accounted for twenty pounds for the farm of Clatford with the inheritance of Almarcius de Tornebu..

In 1202 Hugo de Nevill allegedly owned the Exchequer four years tax for farms in Clatford.  It was contended and this was led to a formal grant of Clatford to Hugo de Nevill in August of 1204..  The manor at Clatford remained in Royal hands throughout the confusion of King John’s reign with his battles with the Barons, passing back to the Tornebu family after the Magna Carter in 1215.

Around 1217, the Sheriff of Hampshire granted the Manor to William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke.  Clatford thus became part of one of the great feudal estates in England.  William the Marshall ended his career as Regent for the young Henry III, marrying Isabel, daughter of Richard De Clare, Earl of Pembroke, being the second richest heiress in England.

The next two centuries when the population of the country was rising, probably resulted in the population doubling in size.  In 1316 it was linked to Goodworth, a village some two miles south of Upper Clatford. To distinguish Upper and Goodworth Clatford an entry in 1327 in the maneluia of the Andover Gild Merchants refers to Matilda Hickes de Southclatford, while in 1422 a description of the boundaries in Andover twice references “the tenants of South Clatford”. Upper Clatford was called North Clatford in 1435.