page_title: Alton, Hampshire
section_title: Modern period
hierarchical_section_title: Alton, Hampshire / History / Modern period
caption_attribution_description: English: Church of St Lawrence, Alton, from the north-west
context_page_description: Alton is a market town and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England, near the source of the River Wey. It has a population of 17,816 as of the 2011 census.
  Alton was recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086 as Aoltone. During the Saxon period Alton was known as Aweltun. The Battle of Alton occurred in the town during the English Civil War. It also has connections with Sweet Fanny Adams and Jane Austen.
context_section_description: Eggar's School was founded in 1640 by John Eggar of Moungomeries as the Free Grammar School. It later became known as Eggar's Grammar School. It occupied a site in Anstey Road until it moved to a new site in Holybourne in 1969.
  A battle was fought in Alton during the English Civil War. A small Royalist force was quartered in the town when on 13 December 1643 they were surprised by a Parliamentary army of around 5,000 men. The Royalist cavalry fled, leaving Sir Richard Bolle (or Boles) and his infantry to fight. Outnumbered, the Royalists were forced into the Church of St Lawrence, where Bolle was killed along with many of his men. Over 700 Royalist soldiers were captured and bullet holes from the battle are still visible in the church today.
  In 1665, Alton suffered an outbreak of bubonic plague, but soon recovered.
  On Saturday, 24 August 1867, an eight-year-old girl, Fanny Adams, was murdered in Alton. Her assailant, Frederick Baker, a local solicitor's clerk, was one of the last criminals to be executed in Winchester. Fanny Adams' grave can still be seen in Alton cemetery. The brutal murder, so the story goes, coincided with the introduction of tinned meat in the Royal Navy, and the sailors who did not like the new food said the tins contained the remains of "Sweet Fanny Adams" or "Sweet F A". The expression "sweet fanny adams" has an old-fashioned slang meaning of nothing.
caption: Church of St Lawrence. During the battle, many Parliamentary troops forced their way in through the west door (right), now walled up.
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