Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Sanderson, Isobel

1907 - 1987

Isabel Sanderson was born in 1907 to a Suffolk farming family. In 1914, the family with all the farm animals and gear were taken by train to Alresford station. Then a short journey took them to Abbotstone Farmhouse, part of the great Tudor mansion built by the Marquess of Winchester*. After Perin’s School Alresford, Isabel studied science at Reading University and was the first woman to gain a PhD there.

After a teaching career she retired to a cottage in Abbotstone and spent the last twenty years of her life studying local history. Her publications include a ten-part study on the dwellings in Alresford, a history of Itchen Stoke and numerous articles on the Abbotstone area published in the Hampshire Field Club’s Proceedings and Newsletters. Although the focus of her work was limited to a few square miles of Hampshire, its depth is illustrated by the abundance of her research papers deposited in the Hampshire Record Office.

*Dendro-dated to 1561/2. Roberts, E. 2006 'Abbotstone farmhouse near Alresford' HFC Newsletter 44, 13-15.

Sources

• Obituary: Hampshire Chronicle 16 July 1987

• HRO 84M94/3/5

Contribution to county’s history

Prolific writing on the Alresford area and also active in the Field Club  

Relevant published works

• Sanderson, I (1975) Itchen Stoke: A Small Parish in the Upper Itchen Valley, Hampshire, Laurence Oxley.
• Sanderson, I (1974-1984) Dwellings in Alresford 10 parts with an index of people, places and occupations, Laurence Oxley.

• Hampshire Field Club Proceedings:
  • Abbotstone: A Deserted Medieval Village, 1971, Proc HFC 28, pp 57-6,
    
    
• Hampshire Field Club, Archaeology and Local History Newsletters:
  • Georgian Barn at Abbotstone, near New Alresford Autumn 1970 vol 1 no 10, pp. 169- 170.
  • Duke of Bolton’s Gardens at Abbotstone, Near Alresford in Hampshire, Autumn 1971 vol 2 no. 2, pp. 1-4.
  • Duke of Bolton’s Gardens at Abbotstone , 1972 vol. 2 no. 3, p. 5.
  • Abbotstone Races,1973 vols 2 nos. 5 and 6 pp. 33-35.
  • Matilda Atte Crouch, 1974 Vol 2 nos. 7 and 8 pp. 71-3 .
  
  
• Hampshire Field Club Newsletters:
• The medieval church of St Martin’s Abbotstone, September 1975 no. 1 pp.1-2.
• Abbotstone Warren, January 1977 no. 5  pp 13-14.

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Contributor

Edward Roberts October 2021

Key Words

Local history, Abbotstone, Alresford, historic buildings,

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