St Austins

Old house built by Captain Josias Rogers on the site of Battramsley Farm (which was on the site of a grange of Christchurch Priory). It became the property of John Granville Beaumont Pulteney of Northerwood in 1834 and was occupied in the 1850s-'60s by the Misses Heathcote; by various people from then until the 1890s and for the first four decades of the twentieth century by Keppel Pulteney (1869-1944). Pinnell, Country house history, p. 14: 'in 1890 when Keppel Pulteney inherited 2000 acres... it was devoid of working capital'; ibid., p. 15: John Howlett (who purchased St Austins in 19440 owned Wellworthy, a company manufacturing piston rings at Lymington and later also purchased Newtown House; conversation with resident of one of the houses subsequently built on the site, Summer 2011. [NB in a previous incarnation as a Software Developer at IBM Hursley, the author visited Wellworthy in about 1986, returning with the quotable quote: ‘we aren’t interested in how the software works; we are just interested in making PISTON RINGS!’]