Titchfield

Titchfield is a charming little village dating back as far as the 6th century and once had a small port. The majority of the properties in the village are period homes and listed buildings, although development of the surrounding area has seen a variety of architecture over the years and more recently the addition of Titchfield common to the North West of the village adjacent to Locks Heath and Warsash.

Through the village runs the River Meon; this leads out to the Solent via the Titchfield Canal and in to Titchfield Haven which was used by the Allied Forces assembling for the D Day invasions and is now a nature reserve and adjacent to Hill Head sailing club.

It is believed that Titchfield has the second oldest man-made canal, the first being in Exeter. Records state that Henry V before Agincourt and Charles I before his imprisonment at Carisbrooke stayed in the village. Titchfield Abbey was built around 1222, however Henry VIII dissolved the abbey in the 16th Century and the building was donated to one of his politicians Thomas Wriothesley who became the Earl of Southampton and renamed the abbey ‘Place House’; he also built a wall cutting off the canal from the sea and therefore Titchfield was no longer known as a port. The building was then passed on to several owners before being abandoned in 1781. Rumor has it that William Shakespeare also spent a night in Titchfield and to this day Shakespearean plays are still performed most summers in the Abbey’s ruins by touring theatre companies.