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Sopley is a village and civil parish situated in the New Forest National Park of Hampshire, England. It lies on the old main road from Christchurch to Ringwood, on the east bank of the River Avon. The Parish extends east as far as Thorny Hill and borders the parishes of Bransgore and Burton to the south and west respectively. It includes the hamlets of Shirley, Avon and Ripley. The area is mainly rural with less than 300 dwellings.〔 The village is situated on the fringes of the New Forest, just outside the New Forest National Park but within the perambulation boundary of the forest.〔(New Forest National Park map )〕 Most of the buildings date back to the 19th century but there are more modern houses to the north.〔 It is also home to Moorlands College, one of the largest evangelical theological seminaries in the country. The college was built on the site of the old manor house which was demolished in 1988.〔 ==History== There has been settlement in the area since the Bronze age and it has existed as a manor since before the Norman conquest. Sopley is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. Before 1066 it had been held by one Edric, but by 1086 it belonged to William son of Stur.〔 By that time 4 hides of the manor and all the woodland had been absorbed into the New Forest.〔 At the end of the 13th century, records are found of two distinct manors of Sopley. One of the manors was for two hundred years part of the lands of the Earls of Ormond.〔 The other manor was owned, first by the Le Moyne family, and then, like nearby Ibsley, by the Stourton Barons.〔 In the middle of the 16th century, both manors were sold to the Berkeley family, and the two manors became one again.〔 In 1575 Sir John Berkeley conveyed the manor to William Waller, and it eventually descended to the Tichborne Baronets, being owned by the 2nd and 3rd Baronet, until the 4th Baronet sold the manor to James Willis around 1725.〔 John Willis of Ringwood inherited the manor in 1753, and upon his death in 1779, it passed to his nephew John Compton, and it descended, like Minstead, with the Comptons.〔 The manor house was rebuilt in 1790 by the then owner James Compton. Compton was a sheep farmer who, along with the local vicar, the Reverend Willis; introduced a particular breed of Spanish sheep to the area. The Merino sheep is renowned for its soft, fine, fleece which is still much sought after. Sopley became for a while, an important specialist wool producing area.〔 A mill in Sopley is recorded in the Domesday book when an annual levy of 10 shillings and 875 eels was imposed.〔 It is disputed whether this is the current mill however, certainly parts of it are much younger; a third floor for flour storage was constructed in 1878 and the original undershot wheel was later superseded by a turbine.〔 The mill remained in service until 1946.〔 The Parish Church of St Michaels and All Angels stands on a high mound overlooking the mill and the river Avon. It has been variously proposed that this high mound may have been the site of an earlier Pagan temple or the base camp of Jute invaders who travelled up the Avon from nearby Christchurch. Parts of the church date from the 11th century but much of it was constructed in the 13th century from rubble ironstone dressed with Binstead stone.〔〔 In 1834 the manor house, then known as Sopley Park, was sold to wealthy London merchant and owner of the Schweppes company; John Kemp-Welch.〔 He in turn sold it in 1885. The house was used as nursing home and two independent schools at various times during in its post war history and was demolished in 1988 to make way for a bible college.〔 The house was notable for its three stained glass windows depicting the story of Walter Tirel; spelled locally as Tyrrell.〔 The lodges at either end of the park wall still exist however.〔 RAF Sopley was a Royal Air Force base near the village built in the early fifties as a domestic camp and used by the MOD until 1974. In the late 70s and early 80s it was used to accommodate refugees from Vietnam. The site is now known as Merryfield Park. Near to the village, bordering Ripley was the Ground Controlled Interception (GCI) radar station. Its purpose to detect, locate and track enemy aircraft and provide inland radar coverage for Britain. Initially a mobile station, by 1943 it was a permanent fixture with rotating ariel array, transmitter equipment stored in an underground bunker, operations block, emergency back up power supply and guard hut. In 1946 RAF Sopley was re-classified as a master GCI station and reserve Sector Operations Centre. As part of the UK's programme to update its air defences, Sopley underwent much modernisation during the 1950s including a new guardhouse providing access to a two storey underground operations centre. Sopley was also the location of RAF Winkton, an Advanced Landing Ground, which operated during 1944, and which returned to agricultural use in 1945.〔(Winkton Advanced Landing Ground )〕 A one-way system was introduced in 1938 to aid the flow of traffic along the narrow lanes in the village. A 1937 traffic census recorded that within a week, a mere 9,271 vehicles used the main Ringwood to Christchurch road. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sopley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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