Coombehurst

Some Notes on Coombehurst
- the Basingstoke home of Rev Alexander Titley Hall

by Allan Palmer

All Saints’ Church on Southern Road in Basingstoke was built in 1915-17 at a cost of almost £18,000 donated entirely by Rev Alecander Titley Hall (ATH).  When he retired from his post as parish priest in Appleby, Lincolnshire, ATH moved to Basingstoke in 1913 taking up residence at Coombehurst, a house set in its own grounds at the southern end of Cliddesden Road, near the Golden Lion public house.

In 1871, Coonbehurst was the home of Artur Wallis, one of the founders of Wallis & Stevens, a Basingstoke-based company that manufactured agricultural machinery, steam engines and traction engines. That company remained in business until 1981. Arthur and his wife, Charlotte, lived at Coombehurst House with their 8 children and 5 servants. After Arthur died in 1900, Charlotte continued to live there until her death in 1912. Archive newspaper reports tell of the grounds of Coombehurst being used for “…a very successful united Temperance Demonstration and Fete” in 1906 and for a Demonstration and Fete by the Basingstoke Liberal & Radical Working Men’s Club the following year, amongst other events (possibly reflecting the Wallis family’s Quaker beliefs).

Between Mrs Wallis’ death early in 1912 and the sale of the property in September of that year, Coombehurst was in the newspapers again following the sale of household furniture and effects in May. “Frederick Gibbins and William Oliver were charged with the larceny, by bailee, of a deal table and a horsehair cushion…” The trial and sentencing are reported in more than a column’s length of the Hampshire Observer and Basingstoke News broadsheet under the headline of “SEQUEL TO A SALE AT BASINGSTOKE – Furniture Stolen By Porters – Prisoners Arrested At Winchester”. 

It is not clear if Rev Alexander Titley Hall only purchased Coombehurst and its grounds or if he also purchased the other 2 lots (the accommodation land and the farm and its cottages) listed on the 1912 auction sale notice.

The ‘What We Hear’ section of the Hampshire Observer for June 7, 1913, contained the following notice: “The Rev Alexander Hall will shortly take up his residence at Coombehurst, where he has had extensive alterations and improvements carried out”. ATH moved into the house in 1913 and lived there until his death in 1929. Early in his period of residence he met with Canon Boustead (the Basingstoke Parish Priest) and offered to donate money for building a permanent church to replace the temporary “Iron Church” in Southern Road.

During his time in Basingstoke, ATH appears to have carried on the Wallis family’s tradition of hosting public events in the grounds of Coombehurst; the Reading Mercury reported in August 1917: “At Coombehurst… a large crowd witnessed on Bank Holiday a baseball match played by Canadian soldiers from the military hospital at Park Prewett.”

In the 1921 Census, the main house at Coombehurst was the residence of ATH and 4 domestic servants (two of whom he had employed at the vicarage in Appleby Lincolnshire). ATH’s steward/chauffeur, Horace Stacey, and his wife lived in the Chauffeur’s Cottage on the estate. The Stable at Coombehurst was the home of gardener Albert Pitcher and his wife; with another gardener, John Hepworth, and his wife living in Coombehurst Lodge (at the entry to the estate on Cliddesden Road). Another gardener employed by ATH, John H Burrows, was a boarder in one of the cottages on Jays Farm.

It is unclear how the property was used during the 15 years or so after the clergyman’s death. In 1947 the Basingstoke Preparatory School (founded in Winchester Road in 1876) took over the site and remained there until its closure in 1969 when the land was sold for housing development which saw the building of Ferguson Close Shepherd Road, Merriat Close and houses along Coombehurst Drive (once the main entry from Cliddesden Road leading up to the house).