in 1956. The Romans built a road between the Roman town of Silchester to the north of Old Basing, and the Roman settlement of Vindomis, just east of the present-day town of Alton, which measured 15 Roman miles. A Bronze Age cremation urn was found in 1955 just north of Nancole Copse, approximately from St Mary's Church. The urn is now displayed in the Curtis Museum in Alton, together with a bronze Roman coin of Valentinian I that was found in a garden about south of St Mary's near Tinker's Lane. Belgic pottery and animal bones were found in 1954 at Holt End, a hamlet south of Bentworth. Pottery, bone objects, spindle-whorls (stone discs with a hole in the middle used in spinning thread) and fragments of Roman roofing tiles were unearthed at Wivelrod Manor. Medieval Bentworth was not mentioned separately in the 1086 Domesday Survey, although the entry for the surrounding Hundred of Odiham mentions that it had a number of outlying parishes that included Bentworth. Soon after Domesday, Bentworth became an independent manor. Between 1111 and 1116 it was granted by Henry I to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. The earliest mention of Bentworth village was in the charter of 1111–1116 from Henry I to the Archdiocese of Rouen of "the manor of Bynteworda and the berewica (outlying farm) of Bercham (present day Burkham)". St Mary's Church was not included in this charter but in 1165 King Henry II granted it to Roturn, then the Archdiocese of Rouen. When King John began losing his possessions in Normandy he took back the ownership of several manors, including Bentworth. He then ceded Bentworth manor to Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, in 1207–8. The manor was returned to Rouen, who held the property until 1316, when Edward II appointed Peter de Galicien as its custodian. Some time after 1280 a new stone hall house was built at Bentworth, a typical medieval hall house and has been variously called Bentworth Hall (until 1832) and Bentworth Manor House. Since 1832 it has been known as Hall Place. In 1333 the property owner was granted the right for a private chapel on the premises. Maud de Aula was given permission to hold services at Bentworth Hall chapel from 1333 to 1345; the remains of this building can be seen today immediately to the southwest of Hall Place. In February 1336 to manor was