So after Ethandune Guthrum
must be christened at Aller, and after the fight here on the Alre the
defeated heathen must be christened at the ford. Since New Alresford
has preserved for us a memory of this fundamental act we can easily
forgive her lack of material antiquity.
The little village thus founded, certainly still existed in the time of
the Conquest, and such it would always have remained but for Godfrey de
Lucy, Bishop of Winchester, who, among his many achievements, numbers
this chiefly that he made the Itchen navigable not only from
Southampton to Winchester but here also in its headwaters, and this by
means of the great reservoir, known as Alresford Pond, into which he
gathered the waters of many streams to supply his navigation. In
return, King John not only gave him the royalty of the river, but a
weekly market here for which he rebuilt the place and called it New
Market a name which was soon lost, the people preferring their old name
New Alresford. So the market town of New Alresford came into existence,
and, but for the unfortunate fires of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, would bear upon its face the marks it now lacks of
antiquity.
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