Farnham is traditionally said to date from a charter granted by King Caedwalla in 688 for the building of a church, writes Roy Waight.

But the man who arguably shaped the Farnham we know today was Henry of Blois (c.1096–1171), the third Norman Bishop of Winchester.

Younger brother of King Stephen of Blois, he was a man of prodigious accomplishment as well as wealth and privilege. His father, Stephen II, Count of Blois, who died on the First Crusade in 1102, left an estate with no fewer than 350 castles.

Henry was educated at the great Benedictine Abbey of Cluny and absorbed the principles of the so-called Cluniac reforms, which included an emphasis on intellectual freedom and humanism, as well as a high standard of devotion and discipline.

A potted biography of Henry is impossible, but a list of his achievements indicates the breadth of his accomplishments.

Abbot of Glastonbury – a place he loved – Bishop of Winchester, talented military commander and, for periods during the anarchy, more powerful than the king and, as papal legate, senior to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry was possibly the wealthiest man in England after the King and his talents ranged widely.

Through his spiritual father at Cluny, Peter the Venerable, he was kept aware of most of the controversies on the continent, specifically the persecution of Peter Abelard and the translation of the Koran from Arabic to Latin, which Peter commissioned.

Henry was not just an intellectual. He engineered dozens of projects, including villages and canals, abbeys and churches.

He had a passion for architecture. He built significant additions to Winchester Cathedral and Wolvesey Castle in Winchester, including a tunnel beneath the cathedral to make it easier for pilgrims to view relics. He also began the construction of the Hospital of St Cross at Winchester.

In London he built Winchester Palace. In Rome he acquired an impressive number of ancient Roman sculptures. Perhaps tongue-in-cheek, he defended his purchases by saying he was preventing the Romans of his day from worshipping these “idols”.

Henry loved books and wrote or financed several. He sponsored the Winchester Bible, the largest illustrated Bible ever produced, standing nearly three feet high. It cost as much as a small castle. His Winchester Psalter, also known as the Blois Psalter, is a British national treasure. He was appointed to preside over the trial of Thomas à Becket and secretly supported Becket’s family before and after his assassination.

He was a skilled diplomat and an administrator of genius. St Bernard of Clairvaux, who disliked the Cluniacs, called him “that whore of Winchester”. Others were kinder. In the Antiquities, William of Malmesbury, who knew the bishop well, described him by saying: “Yet, in spite of his noble birth he blushes when praised.”

Henry of Blois is said to have built Farnham Castle in 1138 at the start of the terrible anarchy – the civil war between his brother Stephen and Empress Matilda. Probably there was already a motte-and-bailey castle there, and Henry may have added a stone tower. He apparently built no fewer than six such castles in that year.

Although the Cistercians hated the Cluniacs, Henry of Blois was magnanimous enough to grant lands to the Cistercian Abbey of Waverley. He was probably responsible for the new Norman town, laid out in burgage plots along Castle Street and surrounded by an enormous ditch. This is the Farnham we know and love today.

When Henry II became king, he ordered the slighting of all the castles thrown up during the anarchy. You did not mess with Henry II.

Farnham Castle was “slighted” and Henry of Blois fled into exile, taking his money with him, which he then used to put the finances of Cluny in good order. He eventually returned to England and was reconciled with the king. On his deathbed, he was visited by the king, whom he chided for having killed Thomas à Becket.

Farnham has seen many prominent men and women during its long history, but few were more significant to the town’s story, or more remarkable in their influence, than Bishop Henry of Blois.