Close to the town, just opposite the Anvil, Glebe gardens once belonged to the rectory, Chute House.
Many fine, old trees can be seen amongst the willow bordered banks of the River Loddon which crosses this idyllic spot.
The gardens are ideal for a picnic lunch and are at their best throughout Spring with a fine show of snowdrops, crocus, aconites and daffodils pictured right.
HISTORY
The grounds of Glebe Gardens originally formed the lawns and meadows attached to the rectory for St Michaels Church. In the early 1900s the main summer event of the year was the annual pageant, held on the rectory lawn and meadows, and the church garden party continued into the 1960s. In 1925 one of the events at the pageant was the re-enactment of Danes landing from a boat on the river.
Thomas Warton, (1728-1790), poet was born at the parsonage which preceded the rectory on 9 January 1728. He was the younger son of Thomas Warton (1688-1745), vicar of Basingstoke. Warton was educated at home by his father until 16 March 1744 when he entered Trinity College, Oxford, where, like his father, he became Professor of Poetry. Warton was made Poet Laureate in 1785. He wrote a sonnet “To the River Loddon” recalling his early years.
To the River Loddon
Ah! What a weary race my feet have run,
Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned,
And thought my way was all through fairy ground,
Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun:
Where first my Muse to lisp her notes begun!
While pensive Memory traces back the round
Which fills the varied interval between:
Much pleasure, more of sorrow marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and sun so pure
No more return to cheer my evening road;
Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure,
Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed,
From youth’s gay dawn to manhood’s prime mature;
Nor with the Muse’s laurel unbestowed.
by Thomas Warton 1777
The Georgian rectory which stands in the north eastern corner of the gardens dates from 1773 but has been altered and extended since. It is named Chute House after the Rev. Anthony Chute, vicar of St. Michael’s church from 1938 to 1947. In the 1960s it was decided to build a new rectory suited to modern life and this now stands close to St Michael’s Church. The gardens and the rectory were bought by the Borough Council in the early 1970s.
Although the River Loddon is now only a very small stream, in the past it had a considerable flow and its water was used in various industrial processes such as fulling cloth, milling and brewing. Records show that fullers were fined for polluting the river with their waste and in 1547 a vicar was ordered by a Basingstoke court to remove the privy he had erected over the common brook, "which is a great nuisance to all who wash there". A Mulberry tree remains in the gardens near the car park entrance, planted in connection with the silk mill which used to be in Brook Street.
In the 16th century, although there was a bridge across the Loddon at the bottom of Wote Street there was a causeway at the bottom of Church Street. A small footbridge in the grounds, which still remains, gave the vicar direct access to the church. During the construction of the new town centre in the 1960s the river was diverted underground and now re-emerges in Eastrop Park.
During the Second World War an early evening bombing raid was observed by Norah Holt, kitchen maid at the rectory. Many people were killed in Church Square and an unexploded bomb which landed in the grounds of the rectory had to be defused.
Aconite Crocus Snowdrop
NEW! POETRY
Basingstoke Gazette's Poem of the Week is a popular feature and in March 2008 it published a delightful poem by local resident Joan Howes about the crocuses in Glebe Gardens:
Crocus Cups
Glebe Gardens are wearing a Persian carpet of crocuses.
Tiny goblets of colour fused into tapestries
Of molten gold, purple and pearly white.
Each spring they pierce the grass with this glad spectacle.
Gold-stamened cups, undaunted by frosts or teasing winds.
A curving swathe of mingled shades,
Touching the passer-by with the delicate magic
Of spring's recurring miracle.
