The silver thread of the River Wey or Froyle River and the fish pond constructed by the authority of the Lady of the Manor, the Abbess of St. Mary’s Abbey, Winchester, the Nunnaminster and the sunken course of the Ryestream and the watercourse supplying Terry’s Lake. These two rills are now Levants or intermittent springs but in mediaeval times would have a constant flow and would have been important to the economy in the middle ages. From prehistoric to mediaeval times much depended on the River Wey. Water mills are a sign of prosperity and in a short length of river we have Issington Mill, Froyle Mill and later a Fulling Mill, so particular attention must be paid to water. Rivers, streams, rills and springs are all rich sources and in mediaeval times the flow was larger and faster as the water table was higher and in our own time large scale water extraction have reduced their size and flow.

In the latter half of the 16th century, roads were seldom shown. John Norden was the only cartographer of the period known to have drawn in roads and his maps probably served as a model for the weavers working on those splendid Mortlake tapestries of the English counties series. The 17th and 18th centuries reveal a great leap forward in the number of estate maps produced and in the 18th century the introduction of the turnpike improvements to facilitate coach travel by improving alignments and easing gradients.

In 1610 that eminent cartographer, John Speed, was publishing his county maps, one of which shows settlements and parks in north-east Hampshire. The rectangle having for its corner points Silchester, Preston Candover, Blackwater and Farnham covers the Froyle area, but no roads are shown.

In 1675 His Majesty’s Cosmographer, John Ogilby Esq., published Britania, Volume the First or an Illustration of the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales by a Geographical and Historical
Description of the Principal Roads thereof.  Plate 51/2, The Road from London to Southampton, depicts Froile Church (sic) Church (sic) and “the Place”, the latter has engraved “Sr. Denis Gauden” beside it.

North East Hampshire is a region where villages still retain an air of seclusion which is, in the main, due to the highways which confine it. The London Winchester road via Farnham the “Pilgrims Way”, now the dual carriageway A31. The Farnham -Odiham - Basingstoke road and the Roman road from Winchester - Basingstoke- Silchester. The parish of Froyle lies mainly off the A31 but is still surprisingly secluded and is typical of many of the villages lying in the previously mentioned triangle of chalk plateau and open arable upland lying between the 400ft. to 750ft. contours, with its beechwood hangers and golden ploughlands of wheat and barley and golden oil rape. Sloping down to the River Wey or Froyle River is heavy clay ground overlying the chalk which in former times provided the now sadly diminished acreage of hopfields and which, taken with its large acreage of cornfields, ensured the wealth of its yeoman families. We must not forget how profitable sheep could be for the export of wool.
Looking from a vantage point (from one of the downland spurs) in the direction of Bentley Station beyond and across the Wey, rises the Greensand ridge covered by a large remnant of ancient woodland, the royal forest of Alice Holt. Further to the right, Selbourne Hanger can be made out, and in .the far distance, the south Downs extending from Petersfield to Midhurst with Hindhead just visible. The River Wey and the Farnham - Alton road runs parallel to, and about half a mile south of, Upper Froyle, which lies on a loop road from the present highway, now the A31.

The views are charming, the curved hillsides with clumps of trees and clustering undergrowth and, in the distance the Downs, a patchwork of reddish brown soil, greens and yellows, and the dark greens of woods, blue distances and beech clad hillsides around Petersfield. All enhanced by drifting clouds and a strange brilliance and clarity in the sunlight reminiscent of the wonderful atmospheric effects of Venice. The blue green of wheat and rye and the yellower greens of barley and the tints of fields of hay, oil rape, saint-foin and clover. One deplores in this magical patchwork the increasing destruction of the charm of the hedgerow and its varied make up of May, wild rose, elder, hazel and other species selected as cattle resistant.

The Parish of Froyle is to be congratulated and thanked for producing a part of Ordnance Survey Map FROYLE Sheet SU 74 1:25000, headed PARISH OF FROYLE, PUBLIC RIGHTS OF WAY. Foot paths, Bridle ways, “Green lanes”, Carriage ways are clearly differentiated. In many places wooden guide posts have been erected and pointers cut from sheets of plastic show directions and are fixed to stiles. Parishoners, my wife and I have derived enormous pleasure from the variety of these most enjoyable walks. It must be admitted however that guide posts have been known to disappear. Stiles unstable and deliberately difficult to surmount and sections of a path obliterated by a crop, but continuing beyond.

The charm for the walker is not only scenic but the interest in following an age old track from village to village or objective to objective. Paths to the church or Mill from outlying farms and homesteads. It is to be hoped there is goodwill between landowner and farmer and the walker. Footpath diversions are spoiling country walks.

Paths that once crossed fields are being “wrenched from their natural and historic ways”. Walkers are being pushed on to “sneaky zigzags” besides hedgerows and wire boundaries and are losing much of their enjoyment of the countryside. “We are in danger of handing on footpaths less interesting, less pleasing, less in touch with the cherished past of our country-side than those we have been so grateful to enjoy”.

“The Countryside Commission’s admirable plan to have all paths usable by 2000 will, as soon as it begins to grip on individual paths, set off an avalanche of further diversions. The tidy minded amateur bureaucrats among us will have a field-day. We shall need principles and guts not to fail those who will walk after us”.

For those walkers who are interested in pre-history, a series of diagrams illustrating probable stages in the evolution of the drainage of the Farnham area and the geology of the area between Alton and Farnham is included.

Froyle is mainly chalk and clay overlying chalk, the Hop belt.  Over the river and Alice Holt forest is lower greensand. Chalk pits of varying size are distributed allover the parish, there being one of considerable size in lower Froyle near Well Lane. Many of these pits, now disused, are of ancient working. The Mediaeval Farmer never really mastered the heavy clay, but used chalk to dress the heavy ground. The introduction of hops, and hop gardens used to form such a distinctive feature of the landscape, proved a money spinner for the yeoman farmer and the provision of hop poles kept the wood reeve or woodward busily employed .

Agreeable colour to the landscape is provided by the building materials. The silvery colour, often oak, of the half timbered houses which formerly had wattle and daub infilling now have this infilling replaced by pleasing red brick. The Georgian houses are faced with similar brickwork. There is no evidence that brickworks existed in the Parish but good quality red bricks are obtainable from Selbourne, Bentley and Crondall.

From the Crondall brickfields came the bricks used in the rebuilding of the church tower in 1722. Brick was also used for the oast houses, many of which have now been demolished (four were demolished at the Old Brewery) or converted but fine groups remain at the Manor House and Hussey’s Farm. Because no estate maps of the Parish exist before the Tithe map of 1845, the earliest edition of the 1:2500 Ordnance map is helpful as identifying malt houses and hop kilns. Bricks and tiles, though expensive, were used to cut down fire risk and offered better insulation to the plenum chamber of the kiln. The undertaking of such expense for buildings which, even when used for both malt and hops, were only in primary use for part of the year is conclusive evidence alone of the importance of growing hops as a valuable source of agricultural income.

Another factor which adds great charm to the older buildings and walls is the use of a local stone “Marle Rock”, a form of “clunch” , which was quarried locally at “Quarry Bottom” , close to the A31, and clearly shown on the first edition of the 2500 Ordnance. sheet. The stone is generally used as random walling wlth brick Quoins and copings for boundary walls. By the beginning of the 19th century the best of the stone had been quarried and a much poorer quality was only available and which weathered badly as exemplified in the boundary wall to Froyle House c.1820 and the village school 1865. At Blundens House and in a farm opposite, the quality is excellent and has weathered well.

Froyle is also exceedingly fortunate in the number and extent of its woodlands and coppices. Many of the names, with slight variants in spelling, can be traced back for centuries. In mediaeval times the land in Froyle and Bentley adjacent to the Farnham - Alton Road was densely wooded giving camouflage for thieves and bands of robbers who lay in wait for groups of merchants and individuals much to the concern of the Bishop of Winchester who owned Coldrey House and its lands. The result was that it was mandatory that a good clear margin to the road had to be maintained to circumvent this hazard.

The importance of timber and underwood in mediaeval times cannot be overestimated and a study of the species in hedges and woodland can be a most useful and interesting study when walking the parish. The majority of hedges at any period were planted to form a stockproof barrier. Hawthorn, or May, (Crataegus Oxyacantha) and Blackthorn, or Sloe, (Prunus Spinosa) are the most suitable for this purpose and one or other or a combination of these two form a high proportion of hedgerows in this country.

Growing with them are a number of species valuable as sources of materials which in mediaeval times were essential to man, and for which then there was often no substitute. Ash (Fraxinus Excelsior) and Hazel (Corylus Avellana) were managed by coppicing to produce long poles which, in the case of Ash, was fashioned into handles for tools and weapons, shafts for carts, wheel rims and hoops. Before the reign of iron and steel was quite universal, Ash timber was in demand for many uses where the metals have now supplanted it. It was far more grown as a hedgerow tree than is now the case. Selby laments, the neglect of this former custom, which kept up a supply of  tough and elastic timber, useful in all agricultural operations, and added much to the beauty of the country. Hazel was used for hurdles, thatching spars, wattles and props.

Dogwood (Cornus Sanguinea) provided skewers and goads because, as the Latin Cornus signifies, it was of horny hardness and toughness. Maple (Acer Campestre), a small tree that attains a height of twenty or thirty feet in the tall hedgerow or in the wood, but is most familiar as a mere bush in the low field hedge. It has no importance as timber, but the cabinet maker is glad to make use of its fine-grained, pale brown wood. Willow (Salix) is in use for baskets, carts, weather boards and, nowadays, also cricket bats. Elder (Sambucus Nigra). None of our trees grow more rapidly in its earliest years and every bit of its living wood will readily take root, so that its presence in the hedge is often due to planting for the purpose of rapidly erecting a live screen, the wood was used for skewers and cabinet work. Hornbeam (Carpinus Betulus), the wood is exceedingly tough and difficult to work, but is considered to make admirable fuel. Evelyn says, “It burns like a candle” .It was much used for cogs and screws.

Documentary evidence has shown that timber trees were planted in hedges in the Middle Ages, particularly Oak (Quercus Robur) and Elm (Ulmus Campestris). Oak was always in demand for buildings, ships, furniture and panelling. It produced the best charcoal for smelting iron, whilst the bark was used for tanning. Elm wood is resistant in waterlogged conditions and so is suitable for harbour works, sluices and watermills and for furniture and coffins and in former times water pipes.

Plants in the hedgerow were also an important source of fuel, food and animal fodder. Ash, Holly and Hornbeam all provided good firewood, and Hornbeam like Oak, supplied charcoal. Nutritious food was produced in the form of nuts from Hazel and the fruit of Crab Apple (Malus Sylvestris), Bullace (Prunus Domestica), Blackthorn, otherwise Sloe, and other berries and fruits.

Acorns, Beech nuts and the foliage of Oak, Ash, Elm, Hazel, Holly (Ilex Aquifolium) “In some places the young shoots are gathered by the peasants, dried, bruised and used as a winter cattle feed.” and Hawthorn (May) were all eaten by domestic animals.

Moreover according to the old Herbalists nearly all the common shrubs and trees had medicinal properties and were welcomed and encouraged for this purpose. As Rudyard Kipling so aptly writes:
Anything green that grew out of the mould  
Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old.

The higher number of species in older hedges may be explained by the tendency of man to encourage and introduce useful trees and shrubs as well as by the process of normal colonisation by other species. The need for multiple planting would have decreased as alternative material or other sources became available. In the lath century, the great age of Parliamentary Enclosure, a quick growing stock-proof hedge would have been the objective and for this the concentration of culture on Hawthorn was found to be the most suitable.

Although it is generally accepted that older planted hedges contain more species it must be remembered that the possibility of multiple planting at any period can rarely be entirely ruled out.

The Spindle tree (Euonymus Europoeus) is of particular interest on account of its distribution and for the tree itself. The Spindle is on the borderland between trees and shrubs. For though it will grow into a tree twenty feet high, yet our hedgerow examples are usually bush-like and only ten or twelve feet high. Until the autumn the Spindle is rarely recognised but gets confused with Buckthorn and Dogwood. In October, however, its quaint fruits have changed to a pale crimson tint which renders them the most conspicuous feature of a hedgerow, even of one plentifully decorated with scarlet hips and haws and bryony berries. The unusual tint of the Spindle and the fact that it swings on a slender stalk at once mark it out from the rigid stalked hips and haws.

The hardness and toughness of Spindle wood has long been esteemed in the fashioning of small wares where these qualities are essential, and the common name is a survival of the days when spinning was the occupation of every woman. Then spindles were in demand for winding the spun thread upon, and no wood was more suitable than that of Euonymus for making them. The young shoots make a very fine charcoal for artists’ use.

The Spindle is indigenous throughout our islands but cannot be said to be generally common. It is now known to be the winter host of the eggs of the Bean aphis (Aphis Fabae) and rarely appears in modern hedges. It may be avoided or rooted out by farmers who understand its adverse effect on a bean crop. A self sown tree grows in the garden of Blundens House.