Boldre

The Domesday Book contains a substantial entry on the Hundred of Boldre, where it is recorded as "Bouvre". This is probably a Norman corruption of "Bol Re" (a plank over a river). The church replaced an earlier one from the 13th century and a huge iron key which was used by the monks from Beaulieu Abbey is still used to unlock the doors.

Former residents include William Gilpin, who was the village parson and lived at Vicars Hill. He was famed for his wealth of knowledge about the New Forest, and its flora and fauna. He is buried in the churchyard of St John the Baptist beside an old maple tree. He died in 1804 at the age of 80 and it is inscribed:

In a quiet mansion beneath this stone, secured from the afflictions and still more dangerous enjoyments of life, lie the remains of William Gilpin, sometime vicar of this parish, together with the remains of Margaret his wife....who "await patiently the joy of waking in a much happier place"...Here it will be a new joy to meet several of their good neighbours who now lie scattered in these sacred precincts around them.

St. John the Baptist Church, Boldre

Later, the Rev. Thomas Vialls, was quite absent, but made one of his rare appearances in the parish to conduct the wedding of his curate Henry Comyn and Philadelphia Heylyn in 1815. Comyn, brother of Lord Nelson's chaplain Stephen George Comyn, carried out a comprehensive census and register of the parish and in 1817 (which then included Sway and compiled the notebooks of Boldre. He sought to track the growth of religious dissent of parishioners, especially in a region of considerable conversion to Baptism, reflected in careful recording of Dissenters in his notebooks. The Baptist church at Beaulieu Rails (East Boldre) was founded in 1810 and at Sway in the west of the parish in 1816. He probably saw the Independents and Methodists as wayward Christians but less attractive. The records have been of use to genealogy and socio-religious history.[2]

He also published a book entitled Substance of part of the lectures delivered in the United parishes of Boldre and Brockenhurst, which was printed and published by Galpine of Lymington. The British Library copy contains many amendments in Comyn's own hand and there is also a copy in the University of Southampton Library, Cope Collection.

Another who linked the village with literature was Caroline Bowles, who in 1839 married Robert Southey.

The Church commemorates HMS Hood because Hood's final Admiral Lancelot Holland was a regular worshipper at the church before World War II. The Hood Association attended and promoted an Annual Boldre Service, no longer widely promulgated, but the largest public service of remembrance for the Hood, generally the week before their reunion dinner and service of remembrance always on the Saturday nearest to 24 May.

After World War II notable vicar John Hayter served the parish, who had spent much of the war as a padre in the ill-treated, malnourished Changi Prison during the Japanese occupation of Singapore. He wrote of his experiences.[3]