Tiptoe had just under 100 residents in 2007.[4] It has two churches, and a primary school with an associated pre-school.[5][6] The parish church is dedicated to Saint Andrew and is the daughter church of All Saints’ at Hordle.[7] The Tiptoe Stores and Post Office closed in 2008,[8] despite a campaign to save it.[9] Just outside the village lies the Plough Inn, the premises of which date from about 1630.[10]
History
The name of the village derives from a surname of French origin recorded in the 13th century as "Typetot".[11] A member of the "Tibetot" family is known to have held land in the Barton area in the early 14th century.[12]
Tiptoe achieved some notoriety in the 1880s when Mary Ann Girling and her religious sect of New Forest Shakers erected tents at a farm at Tiptoe in 1879, having been evicted from their previous residence at Forest Lodge, Hordle.[13] Girling believed the Second Coming of Christ would soon occur and that she would live forever. She died at the Tiptoe farm on 18 September 1886.[14]
Tiptoe Primary School
A school was built at Tiptoe at the beginning of the 20th century as a replacement for an earlier school in nearby Wootton which burned down in 1914.[15]
St Andrew's Hall on Sway Road, Tiptoe, is a corrugated iron building dating from around 1870.[16] It was initially a chapel at Netley Hospital.[16] It was brought to Tiptoe as a chapel of ease for Hordle Parish Church and is now used as a hall.[16]
^A. T. Lloyd, J. E. S. Brooks, (1996), The History of New Milton and its Surrounding Area, Centenary Edition, page 23
^A. T. Lloyd, J. E. S. Brooks, (1996), The History of New Milton and its Surrounding Area, Centenary Edition, page 40
^Frederic Boase (editor), (1892), Modern English biography: containing many thousand concise memoirs of Persons who have Died since the Years 1850, Volume 1
^A. T. Lloyd, J. E. S. Brooks, (1996), The History of New Milton and its Surrounding Area, Centenary Edition, pages 38 and 78
