This year the AGM was delayed until Tuesday, 4th December, a day suitable for our speaker Harry Willis Fleming. He is a social historian, but the reason for coming to speak to us was because his family owned the North Stoneham Estate and in particular, the land on which our houses are built. The estate of North Stoneham was purchased by Sir Thomas Fleming in 1599. He was one of the judges that tried Guy Fawkes and became Lord Chief Justice. Of course the Fleming Arms is named after him. In the eighteenth century, the male line died out and inheritance passed through a female. Her great grandson Thomas Willis adopted the surname Willis Fleming. The Willis family were descended from the seventeenth century Oxford physician Dr Thomas Willis who wrote a treatise on the brain and who gives his name to the arteries called the circle of Willis.
The first house on the estate was built by Sir Thomas Fleming and in the eighteenth century, Capability Brown designed parkland. This will be obliterated, if Eastleigh’s plans for 1300 new dwellings comes to fruition. The mansion we see in old photos was a new one begun in 1818 and demolished in 1939/40. The original manor house was built near the church. It would be fascinating to explore what historical features can still be seen.
During the First World War, part of the estate became a remount depot for sending horses to the front. The South Camp was built on fields of Underwood’s Farm and Swaythling Farm, each side of Bassett Green Road. Much of this land was purchased by Herbert Collins’s father in 1925.
South Camp looking east