New Alresford would seem only to have come into existence as a town in the end of the twelfth century, when it was re-established by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy (1189-1204).  The old road did not pass through it as the modern road does; for as Mr Belloc seems to have proved the Pilgrim’s Way, which descended to the river at Itchen A Bas as we have seen, crossed the ford at Itchen Stoke, Itchen Stakes that is, and proceeded east by south where the workhouse now stands, coming into the modern road again at Bishop Sutton.  But though the Pilgrim’s Way knew it not, New Alresford is of high antiquity.  Local tradition has it that it owes its existence, as distinct from Old Alresford, “to a defeat inflicted by the Saxons on a party of Danes near the village of West Tisted about five miles (south) east of Alresford.  The Saxons granted quarter to the defeated enemy on condition that they went to the ford over the River Alre [Footnote:  It is curious that Guthrum was baptised at Aller and then his Danes in the Alre] to be baptised.  In commemoration of the victory a statue of the Virgin was then erected in the churchyard of Old Alresford.” [Footnote:  V.C.H., Hampshire, vol. 3, p. 350.] Local tradition cannot, at any time, be put lightly aside, and when as here it preserves for us one of the great truths of the early history of modern Europe we should rejoice indeed.  For here we have the obvious reality of the eighth century when Europe, slowly recovering itself and beginning to realise itself as Christendom, was everywhere attacked by hordes of pagans.  The work of Charlemagne, of Offa and of Alfred was not merely the conquest of the barbarians, but really since they could not be wholly destroyed, their conversion, and thus alone could Christendom be certainly preserved.  So after Ethandune Guthrum must be christened at Aller, and after the fight here on the Alre the defeated heathen must be christened at the ford.  Since New Alresford has preserved for us a memory of this fundamental act we can easily forgive her lack of material antiquity.

The little village thus founded, certainly still existed in the time of the Conquest, and such it would always have remained but for Godfrey de Lucy, Bishop of Winchester, who, among his many achievements, numbers this chiefly that he made the Itchen navigable not only from Southampton to Winchester but here also in its headwaters, and this by means of the great reservoir, known as Alresford Pond, into which he gathered the waters of many streams to supply his navigation.  In return, King John not only gave him the royalty of the river, but a weekly market here for which he rebuilt the place and called it New Market a name which was soon lost, the people preferring their old name New Alresford.  So the market town of New Alresford came into existence, and, but for the unfortunate fires of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, would bear upon its face the marks it now lacks of antiquity.