Catisfield Conservation Area Character Assessment

• Introduction
• Historic Development
• Settlement Maps
• Location Map
• Character Assessment - Settlement Pattern and Building Form
• Character Assessment - Architectural Details/Materials
• Character Asssessment - The Historic Buildings
• Character Assessment - Planting
• Areas for Improvement
• Main Features to Preserve and Enhance
• Planning Control in a Conservation Area
• Contacts

Introduction

Catisfield is located north of Titchfield village on the eastern edge of the Meon Valley. The village consists of a small core of historic buildings. Its special character has been recognised and was designated as a Conservation Area in 1994.

Historic Development

There is little documented history relating to Catisfield It was a small hamlet in the Parish of Fareham, sited on the crest of Titchfield Hill at a historically significant road junction overlooking the Meon Valley.

The village is first mentioned in a Pipe Roll of 1210. It was possibly a separate manor by the fourteenth century and certainly was by 1569.   The size of the manor can only be estimated but an award of 1807 describes the common as being of 109 acres and mentions gates at Frost Hole, Blackbrook Lane and 'Ranvels' Lane. By the 1841census there were 192 people living on the manor and 33 houses recorded. In the early nineteenth century wealthy naval officers started to buy copyholds and it was in this period that the larger houses were built. A Chapel of ease, St Columba's Church, was built on Catisfield Lane in the 1890's, known locally as the tin chapel. The village post box is mentioned in Kelly's directory in 1898.

Before the C19 Catisfield was at the junction of historic routes to Botley, Stubbington, Titchfield, Southampton, Fareham and Portsmouth. The route from Fareham to Southampton followed the present day Catisfield Road. It divided in the village, one road leading to Titchfield or Botley, via Fishers Hill and Stoney Bridge and the other to Stubbington along Ranvilles Lane. In 1811 a new Turnpike opened that linked the Avenue from the Heathfield Manor (now the Oast and Squire) with East Street in Titchfield across the River Meon via a new bridge at the bottom of Titchfield Hill, bypassing Catisfield to the South.   This created a more direct route from Portsmouth and Fareham to Southampton through Titchfield and via Park Gate that effectively isolated Catisfield from the main road network.

The original nucleus of the settlement was around the junction of Catisfield Road, Catisfield Lane and Fishers Hill. The age of the buildings included in the local and Statutory Lists of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest would suggest the origins of the village to be in the early 18th Century. However, houses grouped around the recognisable street pattern of Catisfield are marked on the Titchfield Estate map of 1610. The map shows Catisfield Road extending east and Ranvilles Lane leading south to Stubbington. Although Catisfield Lane turns north to start a descent into the valley, it does not appear at this time to have joined with Fishers Hill. Instead, Fishers Hill passes just north of the hamlet, to the rear of Anjou cottages, to join with what is now Highlands Road. This northern link is still marked on the OS edition of 1810 but by this date Catisfield Lane has clearly become a through route to Fishers Hill as it is today.   It is not clear when this later link became established but it is likely to have been much earlier than 1810. The northern route, possibly a drover's track which bypassed the village, had disappeared by the mid C19 and is not marked on subsequent maps.

In the 1960's the junction at the southern end of Catisfield Lane with the A27was blocked to through traffic to the A27 and a new link built east of the settlement from Highlands Road at the top of Titchfield Hill.

It is clear from the map evidence that Catisfield remained an isolated hamlet until surrounding land began to be developed in the C20 century. The start of this urbanisation can be seen on the OS edition of 1932. The hamlet is now bordered on two sides by modern development with its western and northern edge forming the end of the built up area and the start of the rural Meon Valley.

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