Exbury, about ten miles directly south of Southampton, must surely enjoy one of the most favoured situations in Hampshire, being on the edge of the New Forest, just one mile from the Solent coast and having its fields and woods overlooking the Beaulieu river. Its fortunes have been much tied up with the owners of Exbury House, a fine neo-Georgian mansion which stands in Exbury Gardens, now famous for their collection of azaleas and rhododendrons. In the 18th century Exbury House was owned by the Mitford family. The next owner was Lord Forster who, in 1919, sold the estate to Mr Lionel de Rothschild, whose son, Mr Edmund de Rothschild owns it today.

All the cottages in Exbury village were built for workers on the estate. The earlier ones are built of distinctive yellow bricks made at a brick kiln on the estate. Later when the gardens and greenhouses were being established, a large army of labourers and gardeners was recruited and houses were built for them in the 1920s in red brick. Mr de Rothschild also built an attractive bow-fronted shop and post office and a village club.

Exbury church was built in the early 19th century using some of the stones from a monastic chapel which had existed at Lower Exbury. Several members of the Mitford family are buried in the churchyard.

The most impressive monument is the Forster memorial bronze in the Memorial Chapel. It depicts Alfred Forster, son of Lord Forster who died of wounds sustained at the end of the First World War. A young sculptor, Cecil Thomas, was wounded at about the same time and for four months the two young men were in the same hospital and became great friends. After the war, Lord and Lady Forster commissioned Cecil Thomas to design a memorial to Alfred and his elder brother, John, who also died in the First World War. The bronze was so impressive that it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1924.

The village information above is taken from The Hampshire Village Book, written by members of Hampshire Federation of Women’s Institutes and published by Countryside Books.