Crondall, United Kingdom

The Crondall Hoard of one hundred and one old French and Anglo-Saxon coins, two jewelled ornaments, and a chain was found in 1828. Some of these date to the fifth century and ninety seven of the coins are now in the possession of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The hoard was deposited after c. 630; of its 101 gold coins, 69 were Anglo-Saxon and 24 were Merovingian or Frankish.

The map of Hampshire in the 1722 edition of William Camden's Britannia or Geographical Description of Britain and Ireland shows symbols for major habitation in Farnborough, Cove, Ewshot, Aldershot and Crookham in the Crundhal (Crondall) hundred, a strategic collection of lands with a meeting place at which the wealthy and powerful would convene as needs require, and which came to hold Hundred Courts, a level above the Manorial courts.

The Hundred of Crondall was divided into 'Manors', Itchell, Ewshot, Crokeham/Crookham Well, Feldmead, Dippenhall, Farnborough and Aldershot. These Manors are all mentioned in the records of Winchester Cathedral. All the land within the Hundred was administered by a steward landowner at Crondall on behalf of "the monks of St Swithen" and later on behalf of the cathedral.

By the early 19th century the cathedral as manorial owner owned the pick of the surrounding five tithings, the last three of which came to be villages: Crondall, Swanthorpe, and portions of Dippenhall, Church Crookham and Ewshot. This contrasted with lesser agricultural fertility land, much of which was common land and which was no longer connected with the manor.

The Giffard/Gifford of Itchel(l) family acquired a coat of arms in the Middle Ages. Itchell Manor's gardens (house demolished 1954) were laid out by Capability Brown. A greenhouse, built 1840, is still in use and a Tudor Gateway remains.

John Gifford died seised of the manor in 1563, leaving a son George, then aged 10 years. A third part of the manor passed to his widow who married William Hodges of Weston Sub Edge. In 1579, shortly after George Giffard came of age, Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, desiring to add it to his neighbouring estate of Dogmersfield, purchased the estate. After 1628 the estate passed through several hands and in the 18th still had these closes/farmstead localities technically in its freehold: The Hyde, Little Potter's Fore, Earlins, Two Downs, Tanley, Green Park, Park Corner, Dean's Piddle, Old Hop Garden.

All Saints' Church in Crondall was a minor parliamentary outpost for much of the English Civil War, guarding the western approaches to Farnham.

A Tithe Map of The Hundred of Crondall, dated 1846, is housed at the Hampshire County Archive in Winchester.