Page 8 - Edition Summer 22 News and Views revised 31.05.pub (Read-Only)

A local history conundrum, with some observations about how we lived with
a war and a collapse of the economy in the past. Len Wigg

I expect many Friends in this area recognise the church illustrated. Now it is the Longham United
Reformed Church, but formerly it was an Independent and then a Congregational church. It was
‘planted’ by members of Poole’s Skinner Street church, which has had the same sequence of
titles. The date 1841 is prominent on the south side of the spire. However the first church was
opened in December 1819 in the small hall adjoining the north side.

Why am I telling you about
this? I suspect that
George Fox may have
prepared the ground, and
that is the conundrum! His
first visit here was in 1655,
probably in the autumn,
with returns in February
1657, March 1660 and
May 1663, according to
his Journal. Each time he
came south from
Ringwood, across mainly
heath and scrub country
until reaching Longham, in
the river valley. At the
cross roads with the Wimborne to Christchurch road there was – and is – a pub, The White Hart.
Doubtless he stopped for refreshment and conversations with the locals. That is the way he
spread the message.

About ten years ago conversations began about resurrecting a Meeting at Fordingbridge. The
earliest mention of a Quaker there is in 1659 when a warming pan worth 7/6, was confiscated
from William Lumbar to pay a tithe charge of 1/- and John Hunt lost a goat worth 8/- to pay 9d for
repairing the ‘steeple-house’. No wonder among the earliest records which Quakers kept were
th
lists of ‘Sufferings’. It was among the first 6 Hampshire Meetings, on Tuesday October 8 1688,
to be granted Meeting House Certificates at Winchester. In 1693 William Lumber (as above!)
entered into an agreement for the purchase of a house and plot of land at Roundhill.

In order for this to become a legal Meeting House the ownership had to be vested in trustees
th
who were appointed on April 28 1694. Among these men were Martin Bence of Ringwood,
James Bence junior of Longham, both ‘wosted combers’ ( i.e. worsted, a compact yarn spun
from long wool fibres) and John Barry, of Hampreston, a scarf maker (i.e. a carpenter using a
scarf joint to secure lengths of timber together maintaining the same width, especially useful in
building houses). Surely these men, or at least the two older ones must have met George Fox in
person on at least one of his 4 journeys from Ringwood to Poole.

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