Titchfield is a village and former civil parish in the Fareham district, in southern Hampshire, England, by the River Meon.
Near to the village are the ruins of Titchfield Abbey, a place with strong associations with Shakespeare, through his patron, the Earl of Southampton.
To the east of Titchfield lies the town of Fareham, to the south are Stubbington, Hill Head and the Solent, to the west is Locks Heath, Warsash, the River Hamble and Southampton and to the north is Whiteley, Park Gate and Swanwick.
[2] Several miles to the south of the village, at the mouth of the River Meon and on the shores of the Solent, is Titchfield Haven National Nature Reserve, where there is a small harbour that dries out at low tide.
Inland is a Nature Reserve which is an important breeding and visiting ground for many species of birds and wildfowl (and is open to visitors at certain periods).
It lies close to Titchfield Haven, concealed by a bridge with the remains of a sea-lock at the south end.
The Earl of Southampton ordered the river to be sealed off from the sea by a wall which was an unpopular move with the villagers as it ultimately ended Titchfield's role as a port.
[7] Though only a few parts of the original structure survive, the church contains a mixture of building styles, since it was expanded and redeveloped to include additional space.
Within the church is the resplendent tomb of Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, who when Lord Chancellor, personally tortured Anne Askew.
A further variation in the spelling may be seen in a Mediaeval legal record, where it appears as "Thechefeld" ...where the defendant Thomas Lyon, husbandman, lives, as does John Baker, a fuller...[10]Titchfield has long been a centre for business, with the village once having a small port.
In 1970, with the market hall in a derelict state, it was bought by the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.
[13] Henry VIII dissolved the abbey in the 16th century, giving the property to a favoured politician, Thomas Wriothesley who turned it into "Place House" and took the title Earl of Southampton.
When this happened local people took stone from the abbey for their homes; evidence can be seen in walls and foundations of older houses in Titchfield village.