Alverstoke Alms Houses


Jane Holmes, by her will dated 1711, gave an annuity of 40 shillings, to arise out of a house with a garden, situated at Alverstoke, usually occupied as two tenements,  to be let to ‘sober, orderly people‘, the yearly rent to be distributed among the poor widows of the parish. The rent was to be distributed on Christmas day at the vestry of Alverstoke Church, amongst poor widows  in sums of 1 shilling or 1 shilling and six pence to each.

Two little cottages at the west end of the house were given to the church wardens and overseers for the use of poor widows of the parish,  to be inhabited rent free by two poor widows placed there by the church wardens as vacancies occurred.

The will of Jane Holmes, which is now in the County Record Office, was proved in 1712 in the ‘peculiar’ jurisdiction of the Rector of Alverstoke; he was one of the few parochial clergy entitled to prove the wills of his parishioners. The cottages were maintained by the church.

By 1849 the two almshouses were again described as one cottage; they were then rebuilt in their present form for two widows by the church wardens, with the aid of two thank-offerings and other gifts. The tithe map of 1840 had shown the former building as not coming so far forward on the north side as the 1849 one does. To enable the 1849 building to be of sufficient size, the church made an informal exchange with the owner of the adjoining property: they acquired a strip of frontage land 15 ft. by 4 ft. and incidentally the site of the detached privy and a right of way to the latter; they gave up the almshouses garden, 15 ft. by 18 ft. which is now the left-hand part of the site the adjoining building.

In 1849 the Hampshire Advertiser newspaper reported that:
‘The almshouses in the centre of the village of Alverstoke, which have for some time past been unoccupied, and in a very dilapidated state, have just been thoroughly repaired, and prepared for the reception of two widows. An inscription over the front states that Holmes Almshouses were repaired by the churchwardens, assisted by two Thank offerings during the rectorship of the Rev. Walpole 1849.’

In 1855 the adjoining property was to be sold, and the above exchange was put on a formal basis and approved by the Charity Commission.
The almshouses are practically at the centre of old Alverstoke which has altered considerably since the 1850’s, yet the almshouses themselves are little changed.