Timsbury, Hampshire

Timsbury is a village located in Hampshire, England, near the town of Romsey. It lies mainly along the A3057 road running north from Romsey towards Stockbridge. It has a population of around 300. Timsbury has grown from a traditional village centred on the Manor House (now split into many dwellings) and the Saxon Church of St Andrews. Its name is derived from the Old English timber + byrig (dative of burh), meaning 'timber fort or manor'Mills, A.D: A Dictionary of English Place-Names, page 330. Oxford University Press, 1991..

Historically, it was to Timsbury that Edmund Sharp and his wife Alice moved from the county ofBerkshire towards the end of the seventeenth century and a direct descendant of Edmund's was Richard Sharp , once hailed as possibly being the most popular man in Georgian London. see Clayden, P. W.. : The Early Life of Samuel Rogers Smith, Elder & Co. 1887. An interesting anecdote has survived concerning one of Edmund's sons, Richard, who, born in 1665 gained a reputation as an accomplished wrestler and ‘cudgeller’in the area. Even in those days cudgelling was a very old custom and especially popular in the West of England where great pride was attached to skills which were often handed from father to son. It wasa fast and furious activity conducted brutally using a short club and the expression ‘to break a head’ was associated with the cudgeller’s sport since the victor was he who first drew blood...
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