No. I.
THE CATHOLIC REGISTERS OF THE BRAMBRIDGE (AFTERWARDS HIGHBRIDGE ) MISSION , IN HAMPSHIRE, 1766-1869. * TRANSCRIBED AND EDITED BY RICHARD COVENTRY BAIGENT, F.R.HIST.S.
Among the centres in Hampshire where the Faith found a home in the troublous days was Brambridge, situated on the east bank of the river Itchen, in a direct line between Winchester and Southampton. is distant about five miles south of the former, and about seven miles It north of the latter. The names of the Wells and Smythe families, and that of Mrs. Fitzherbert , are always connected with the mansion, and the neighbourhood has many interesting associations , some of which are described below. Two miles north is the village of Twyford , so well known in connection with the Catholic school maintained there from 1696 to 1745the precursor of Old Hall and St. Edmunds. A school is reputed to have been founded in the reign of James at Silkstead , near Twyford , of which the Rev.Wm. Husband, alias Bernard, was the master in 1692. This is said to have been removed in 1696 to a house at Twyford known as Segar's Buildings, formerly belonging to Anthony Segar, and sold after his death in 1693. In 1696 the school was conducted by the Rev. John Banister, alias Taverner. A vague tradition says that was the it boys at Segar's School who cheered and pursued Charles on his way from near Southampton, walking to see how the building of his new palace at Winchester was progressing . mean that If so, this would Segar's School was in existence earlier than 1696.§ A Father William Lane , S.J. , who was Superior of the College of St. Thomas of Canterbury (the Hampshire District) , is stated by Brother Henry Foley, in his Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, v. 820, to have been serving here in 1700, and for some years . [In 1741 he is found at Padwell , on Bishop Challoner's visit to that mission .] He was here again in 1747; died at Winchester in 1752 , aged 80. In an anonymous pamphlet entitled The Present State of Religion in England, 1733, p. 19,
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The Registers of Brambridge and Highbridge were examined in the year 1857 by my uncle, the late Francis Joseph Baigent, of Winchester (18301918 ) , who made a number of extracts and relative notes in a quarto paper book. Some of these notes , and others from papers left by him, have been transcribed below, his initials being appended thereto. R.C.B. The name is sometimes found as Bambridge, even in this Register. A discussion of the two forms by the present writer, with historical examples, will be found in Notes and Queries, clii, 255-6 . Silkstead is now a hamlet , partly in Hursley parish and partly in that of Compton, containing only one small farmhouse and a few cottages. Probablyowing to confusion with Prior Silkestede'schapel in Winchester Cathedral, supposed that a priory formerly existed here, but there appears it isbesometimes to no evidence of such a foundation . The Story of Twyford School. By C. T. Wickham (Winchester : 1909) . See also The Twyfordian , xvii (April, 1911 ), pp. 6-9.
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