Southampton Lodge, Broadlands
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History
History of Romsey Extra
Back in history, there was one area known as Romsey. Then an abbey of nuns was built and the central area was made into their special domain. It stretched from the river Test to the Hundred bridge (by Boots the Chemist). This small central area was called Romsey infra or Romsey inside the bridge. The rest of Romsey was therefore called Romsey extra or Romsey outside the bridge. From the 1870s, there has been a series of boundary changes and now Romsey Extra is a ring around Romsey infra, made narrower when parts of Romsey Extra were transferred to North Baddesley and Nursling and Rownhams.
Modern Romsey Extra was entirely rural until very recently. Some of the farms, such as Oxlease are long established about which there was a dispute during the reign of Elizabeth I. Other areas such as Whitenap, Cupernham, and Luzborough, Ashfield and Lee have also been lived in by farmers since the middle ages and before.
In the middle ages, the Broadlands area belonged to Romsey abbey. Broadlands house was built after the abbey closed in the late 16th century. In the 18th century, it was bought by the first Lord Palmerston, and subsequently re-built. His great-grandson, the third Lord Palmerston inherited the house at the beginning of the 19th century and lived there until his death in 1865. He was a prominent politician who became Foreign Secretary and then Prime Minister. It was as a result of his intervention that his neighbour, Florence Nightingale, was able to go to the Crimea to carry out her nursing work.
In the mid-twentieth century, Broadlands again achieved fame as the home of Lord Louis Mountbatten, uncle of Prince Phillip, admiral of the fleet and sometime Viceroy of India, who was cruelly murdered by the IRA. It is now the home of his grandson, Lord Romsey, and open to the public in the summer.
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