The team
Ruth Harrison
Angela Hicken
Madelaine - the book thief
Penny- Rose Ratcliffe
Rachel the editor- Jane the Archivist
Cordelia Gray- Friday Next
- Jacky Percival
Other teams
The story of a house Find!
The village of Hinton Ampner Lies eight miles east of Winchester in an unspoilt sweep of chalk countryside. The village is tiny, just a cluster of houses a pub, a small but beautiful parish church and a manor house. Hinton Ampner house is now in the hands of the National Trust having been bequeathed by the last owner , Ralph Dutton, 8th & last Lord Sherborne.A number of years before he died in 1985 Ralph Dutton wrote an account of the house, garden and villlage that he so loved and this book A Hampshire Manor: Hinton Ampner has been published in a National Trust Classics edition.
Dutton tells the story of the house and its occupants in a way that almost makes you feel you are sitting in a room with him listening. In his introduction he states
Dutton is of course quite wrong when he says it cannot boast outstanding beauty. The sweep of Hampshire countryside is heart-lifting."It is not a place of any importance, one which has had famous inhabitants or can boast outstanding beauty of landscape or architecture, but it represents simply one of the little pieces of the jigsaw which go to make up the full picture of the English countryside."
He does go on to say,
" At the present time when the aspect of England is changing with such alarming speed, there may be some virtue in someone who knows one small area very intimately setting down on paper not only a description of the village as it now is but also some account of the principal house and its inhabitants during the past few centuries."
So the book is part family history, part personal reminiscence, part architectural description, part garden writing. The feeling of place is overwhelming, as is the love of the place that inspired Dutton in his recreation of the house and garden and also his writing.
6 September 2009 from Madelaine - the book thief
Finds
- A Daughter of Winchester
- And here is one we missed
- And, finally, one for Hallowe'en
- How did we miss this one?
- John Wyndham's Hampshire connection
- Reading the countryside
- New Milton's new Milton
- Heywood Sumner in South Gorley
- PG Wodehouse in Emsworth
- Walking In My Sleep
- Nicola Slade's Victorian Mysteries
- England's Lost Eden
- June Tate
- Bullington
- Speed The Plough: A Country Song
- A Hampshire scarecrow: Worzel Gummidge
- Queens Arms
- Haslar Hospital Memories
- Magical writing for children
- Inspired by the Tichborne Claimant
- Gypsy Girl Trilogy
- Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793) and The Natural History of Selborne
- Coffee with Date and Walnut Loaf
- The Play Room
- Kipling's dislikes
- Deadman's Plack
- Netley Abbey Ruins
- Portsea Sagas
- Lilian Harry's Family Connections
- Crossing the Bar
- John Betjeman and Bevis Hillier
- Growing up in Portsmouth
- More Edward Thomas
- Two blokes and a shed
- In the shadow of the Cathedral
- Hampshire Days
- Mr Hardy Writes a Poem
- "Steep" is apt
- Thackeray in Fareham
- Forgotten Favourite?
- Daniel Clay's 'Broken'
- Pell and Tess
- Edward Thomas and Froxfield
- Betjeman explores hidden corners of Hampshire
- Rebecca Smith
- Right of Access
- Hampshire songs, poems, and ditties
- In this house
- Words & Walks
- England, Their England
- An Ode to a Road
- The story of a house
- Crime Connections to the City
- John Keat's Ode to Autumn
- William Lisle Bowles, poet
- Future Princes of Winchester
- Spike Island by Philip Hoare
- The marriage of souls
- Rural Rides: William Cobbett
- Elinor Brent-Dyer remembered
- Dornford Yates' Hampshire connection
- The Marlows, their maker and stealing a corner of Dorset
- Saint Cross: England's Oldest Almshouse
- Winchester the whole day through
- HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON
- Otterbourne's Enid Blyton? Charlotte M. Yonge (1823-1901)
- Odo's Hanging is missing
- The Warden
- Charles Kingsley's Letters
- Owslebury Bottom
- See it My Way
- Introduction to Melesina Trench
- Some Hampshire road signs read Jane Austen Country
- Flora Thompson: published poet
Recent posts
- Postscrpt to a previous find
- The uses of a detective
- Reading Detectives film
- Virginia Smith remembered
- Mary Sumner
- A272: An Ode to a Road (by Andy)
- The hunt continues
- Winchester MP Mark Oaten to publish book
- Chalet School
- Bags of Books and Enthusiasm
- Chalet School author
- Poetry in the pub
- Wealth of words in Winchester
- Hampshire Gets Going
Help the team
Have you got something to contribute? You can contact us to report your clues and you can comment on our blog posts. It doesn't matter where in the world you are!