Ringwood, Hampshire
Ringwood is a market town in south-west Hampshire, England, on the River Avon close to the New Forest, northeast of Bournemouth and southwest of Southampton. It was founded by the Anglo-Saxons, and has held a weekly market since the Middle Ages. History Ringwood is recorded in a charter of 961, in which King Edgar gave 22 hides of land in Rimecuda to Abingdon Abbey. The name is also recorded in the 10th century as Runcwuda and Rimucwuda. The second element wuda means a 'wood'; rimuc may be derived from rima meaning 'border' or 'rim', hence "border wood". The name may refer to Ringwood's position on the fringe of Ringwood Forest, or on the border of Hampshire. William Camden in 1607 gave a much more fanciful derivation, claiming that the original name was Regne-wood, the Regni being an ancient people of Britain. In the Domesday Book of 1086, Ringwood (Rincvede) had been appropriated by the Crown and all but six hides taken into the New Forest. Prior to 1066 Ringwood had been held by Earl Tostig. During the 12th and early 13th centuries Ringwood, like other manors of which John and Henry III had the immediate overlordship, frequently changed hands. Thus it was held by Roland de Dinan, a Breton lord, in 1167; Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester before 1204; Theodoric the Teuton, a servant of King John, after 1204; William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, in 1217, and intermittently by the third and fourth Earls up to 1237; Simon de Steyland, the King's clerk, around 1237; John son of Geoffrey, described as "of the lands of the Bretons", from 1240; Nicholas of Ely, Bishop of Winchester, from about 1272; and then by three successive queens: Queen Eleanor, Queen Margaret, and Queen Isabella, from 1280 until 1331. In January 1331, Ringwood and other manors which Isabella had previously surrendered were granted to William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury, whose descendants with some intermission held it for more than two centuries, until the death of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury in 1541. It was held by Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset until his execution in 1552, and then briefly by John Gates who was executed in 1553. Queen Mary granted the lands to Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon, but by the middle of the 17th century the manor had passed to the Arundells of Wardour, and in 1728 was in the hands of Henry Arundell, 6th Baron Arundell of Wardour. His grandson, the eighth Baron, sold it in 1794 to John Morant of Brockenhurst, and the Morant family held the manor throughout the 19th century. In 1108, it was recorded that the tenants of the "manor of Ringwood and Harbridge" had common rights in the New Forest, among the knights and esquires, for their farm beasts and plough beasts between "Teg att Brokelisford" and "Ostaven" and in the vill of Beaulieu for all their livestock except goats and geese: for this they paid the King an annual agistment.