Funtley

Funtley
Funtley  Funtley shown within Hampshire
OS grid reference	SU562082
District	Fareham
Shire county	Hampshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Police	Hampshire
Fire	Hampshire
Ambulance	South Central
EU Parliament	South East England
List of places UK England Hampshire

Funtley – from the Anglo-Saxon, "Funtaleg", meaning "Springs", formerly known as Fontley – is a village located in the north of the borough of Fareham, Hampshire, England. The village originally grew from the development of a clay quarry, the clay used to make chimney pots and bricks—the famous Fareham Red. The bricks were widely used, most famously in the construction of the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Sometimes still known as 'Fontley' by locals, the village is longer a discrete settlement owing to the post-World War II expansion of Fareham, and is now effectively a suburb only separated from the main conurbation by the M27 motorway. The brickworks long closed, the clay quarry is now a fishing lake, and only the village pub, The Miners Arms, survives as a testament to Funtley's former industry.

Fontley Iron Mills

Fontley House, Iron Mill Lane was the residence of Samuel Jellicoe from about 1784 until his death in 1812. Samuel Jellicoe was the partner of Henry Cort of Fontley Iron Mills (next door to the house). Henry Cort was the inventor of the rolling mill and the puddling furnace which were of importance for the production of iron during the Napoleonic Wars. Some of Cort's inventions were tried out at these mills.

Cort's innovation was a new process for "fining" iron. This became essential, once blast furnaces were used to extract iron from its ore. The "pig" iron produced was too impure for forging (though it could be cast ): fining removed the impurities. The previous method of fining used a finery hearth fuelled with charcoal. By Cort's time wood for making charcoal had long become too scarce to enable the iron industry to expand: already many blast furnaces were using coke instead of charcoal. What Cort did was to burn coal in the furnace, and "puddle" his impure iron, i.e. stir it with a long rod, in the hot gas of the flames. The purified iron came out as spongy mass, and had to be consolidated (shingling. Another of Cort's innovations was to use grooved rolls in a rolling mill, rather than a hammer to draw the iron out into a bar. This enabled the iron to be rolled into bars with a variety of cross-sections (square, circular, etc.). These two brilliant innovations, were the most important ones for the iron industry in Industrial Revolution.^[1]

The Miners Arms

The Miners Arms is so called because the first landlord George Feast was also the contractor for the railway tunnel. He imported a gang of Welsh miners to dig it and one of the Welsh miners had the privilege of naming it. When the railway came it cut Funtley in half and the narrow humpback bridge is another George Feast construction. The pub was soon to become the hub of the village and was originally used as both a pub and a bottle shop for first the miners and then the local brickmakers. The pub was run by at least another three or four generations of the Feasts throughout the height of the brickmaking industry. After the decline of the brickmaking industry, many locals moved to Portsmouth in search of work.

History of "The Miner's Arms"

Henry Feast began selling beer in Funtley sometime in 1839, he was in the court, which was held in the "Red Lion", Fareham, charged with keeping a disorderly beer house on the 18 December 1839 - he was convicted and paid a Penalty and Cost totalling 40 shillings. Henry Feast brought the property that became known as "The Miner's Arms" from Robert James, a merchant of Fareham, by mortgage for £100 plus interest on the 5 March 1840. The first time the name "The Miner's Arms" appears is on the 1841 Census return, and Henry Feast is described as a labourer, he is probably working on the construction of the railway during the day, and leaving the beer house and shop to be run by his wife and children. The Register of Licensees for beer shops and public houses start from 1872, the records previous to that have been destroyed, it shows Henry Feast as the owner and licensee for the years 1872 and 1873. Henry Feast died 28 September 1874 aged 76 yrs - about a year before he died, on the 3 October 1873, he conveyed everything to his eldest son, George Feast, and he is recorded as the owner and licensee from the 28 September 1874. George Feast remained the owner and licensee until 29 February 1892 when he sold "The Miner's Arms" to Henry William Saunders, on a mortgage. James Feast, son of George Feast, became the licensee after the sale, and he remained the licensee until 1913, when George Robert James Oakes became the licensee on the 8 December 1913.

After Henry William Saunders died, his wife Annie Elizabeth Saunders, is described as the owner and mortgagee on the license until 8 February 1905 when it shows his two sons Herbert Henry and Richard John Saunders as owners, presumably the mortgage had been settled. In 1921 the wall separating the bar and refreshment room was taken down to give the licensee supervision over both places. Herbert Henry and Richard John Saunders, whose brewery was known as the Wallington Brewery had to sell everything off on the 31 March 1944, the reason for the sale is described in "Fareham Past and Present" a publication by the Local History Group. The buyer Charles Hamilton and Co.Ltd. had "The Miner's Arms" for 26 years, until it was sold off to Bass Charrringtonon the 1 July 1970. It then came into the possession of George Gale and Co.Ltd in July 1991, but has recently been sold off to Fullers Brewery. "The Miner's Arms", may have been so named after the men that dug the clay from the clay pit, which was an open cast mine.^[2]

Funtley Church

The Anglican Little Church of St Francis is the daughter church of St Peter & St Paul, Fareham, which is within the Diocese of Portsmouth. Listed as a small stuccoed T-shaped church with traceried windows, hoods and bargeboards, it was probably designed by the Irish architect Jacob Owen (1778- 1870). Simplicity is the dominant feature of the building, which was originally built as a school for the village children in 1836, and also acted as a Mission Church named Trinity Fontley Church. The painted window above the altar is reputed to have been made or designed by John Ruskin; it was originally in the Church of Duntisbourne Abbots, near Cirencester. The window depicts the Nativity and the Ascension of Christ.^[3][4]

Knowle Hospital

In 1852, Hampshire's first County Lunatic Asylum was built on Knowle Hill just north of the village.^[5] By 1856 the asylum had expanded to take 400 patients; growth continued throughout the century and by 1900 the asylum held over 1,000 patients.^[6] The hospital itself was renamed Knowle Mental Hospital c.1923 - 1948 and renamed again as simply 'Knowle Hospital' in 1948, closing in 1996.^[7] The hospital is survived by Ravenswood House, a medium security establishment caring for those afflicted by serious mental illnesses and / or personality disorders.

References

1. ↑ R. A. Mott (ed. P. Singer), Henry Cort: the great finer: creator of puddled iron (Metals Society, London 1983); Malcolm Low, Funtley Iron Mill - Henry Cort - copies available in reference sections of publication can be viewed in the Fareham Library and Westbury Museum, both at Fareham, Hampshire.
2. ↑ based on information collected from Westbury Manor Museum, Fareham and at Hampshire Record Office, Winchester.
3. ↑ Malcolm Low with Julie Graham, The stained glass window of The Little Church of St. Francis, Funtley, Hampshire: private publication: copies in reference sections of Fareham Library and the Westbury Museum, Fareham, Hampshire.
4. ↑ Malcolm Low, The History of the Little Church of St. Francis, Funtley, Hampshire: private publication: copies in reference sections of Fareham Library and the Westbury Museum, Fareham, Hampshire.
5. ↑ Hampshire County AsSylum at Knowle was opened under then provisions of the 1845 Assylums Act.
6. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampshire_County_Lunatic_Asylum
7. ↑ Hospital Records Database - a Joint Project of the Wellcome Library & the National Archives.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Funtley.

• and follow links for articles of local interest in Fareham by Malcolm Low