HIGHCLERE, a parish in the hundred of EVINGAR,
Kingsclere division of the county of SOUTHAMPTON, 85
miles (N. by W.) from Whitchurch, containing 457 inhabitants.
The living is a rectory, in the peculiar jurisdiction
of the incumbent,. rated in the king's books at
£7. 13, 9. The Earl of Carnarvon was patron in 1825.
The church, dedicated to St. Michael, was rebuilt in
the time of Charles II. by Sir Robert Sawyer, Attorney
General in that and the succeeding reign, who was
buried here. A National school has been established,
and is supported partly by subscription, and partly
from an annuity of about £4. 4., the moiety of certain
dividends, bequeathed by the Rev. Archibald Gardner.
Highclere is within the jurisdiction of the Cheyney
Court held at Winchester every Thursday, for the recovery
of debts to any amount. It was anciently part of
the bishoprick of Winchester, and is recorded as such
in Domesday-book. The bishops had a palace here, in
which they occasionally resided, until the bailiwick held
by them was, in the reign of Edward VI., dismembered
by Bishop Poynet, and vested in the crown. Upon the
site of the original edifice, which stood in a well-wooded
and beautiful park, upwards of thirteen miles in circumference,
is a fine mansion, erected by the Hon.
Robert Herbert, and greatly enlarged by the Earl of
Carnarvon, his descendant; and just without the park
gate is Beacon hill, on the level summit of which is
an ancient encampment. On a plain, about a mile from
this camp, are some tumuli, or barrows, of considerable
size, with three smaller ones. A mile and a half
eastward from Beacon hill, on an eminence called Ladle
Hill, is a circular intrenchment, enclosing an area of
about eight acres; southward from this are three barrows;
and at a short distance towards the northnorth-
east, on the declivity of the hill, is another small
circular work, pitched entirely with flint-stones. Dr.
Jeremiah Miller, a learned antiquary, was born here in
1713; he died in 1784.