Hampshire

Hampshire is in the south of England with Wiltshire and Dorset forming the border to the west, Berkshire to the north and West Sussex and Surrey to the east. To the south is the Solent, the water separating mainland England and the Isle of Wight and part of the English Channel.

The county town is Winchester once the capital of England and known to the Romans as Venta Belgarum.

The county is the home to New Forest National Park. It also has two major ports: Southampton, the primary cruise liner docks as well as a major freight container dock and Portsmouth a Royal Navy base and home the historic dockyard housing HMS Victory.

This is where our maternal ancestors of PAYNE and Clements lived, mainly to the north of the county on the Oxfordshire / Berkshire borders and to the north east Berkshire / Surrey borders.