After Nick John’s post about the Hutments I made enquiries from a friend, Robbie Sprague, who was born and bred in Chandler’s Ford. He wrote to me as follows:
Chandler’s Ford Local History, by Robbie Sprague:
“I do vaguely remember the prefab community at the end of Hook Road but it was a long time ago! I vividly remember the Polish camps in Chestnut Avenue and Hiltingbury Road. The Nissen huts with their half cylindrical shape were very distinctive.”
“The Polish boys in Chestnut Avenue were always up for a scrap. I can’t really remember the German PoW camp opposite the Polish camp in Hiltingbury Road but my mother talked about it. She came from Lurgan in Co. Down, N. Ireland and a soldier who was a guard at the camp came from the same town. She knew him from college days. His name was Bobby Harrison. He told a story of a German prisoner who built a most amazing ship out of matchsticks, spent many months doing it, then, in a fit of extreme anger and frustration, smashed it to pieces with his fist. That story always stuck with me.”
“I found the cache of American toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and flannels in my garden along with a live hand grenade (Robbie lives in Lakewood Road.)”
G I Helper
“However, I don’t believe I told you the story related by my Grandfather who lived in Park Road. He was having a new fireplace fitted during the war years. He and the delivery driver were struggling to lift it inside from the lorry when along came a hefty black American soldier who said, “Allow me, gentlemen” and then proceeded to carry it single-handed into the house, much to my grandfather’s astonishment and gratitude.”
Dogfight
“The last story is of the Headmistress of Chandler’s Ford Primary School who was cycling home along the Baddesley Road while there was a dogfight going on above her. She was suddenly aware of a German plane ‘pursuing’ her along the road and she threw herself and her bicycle into the ditch and the plane crashed into a field nearby. The pilot, it is said, parachuted down into Cranbury Park. I could meander on further but I won’t………………!!”
One evening soon I hope to get Robbie to meander on some more over a glass or two.
My Garden
When I moved in to Lakewood Road in 1993, the bottom of the garden here was overgrown with rhododendron. I cleared most of it and began digging to re-plant.
Beneath the leaf mould there was something hard and big. It turned out to be concrete, probably the base of a hut. It extended across my boundary into a garden in Randall Road. Eventually it was removed from there also.
Chilworth
I used to ramble around Chilworth Manor woods and many of the trees there had initials carved into the bark with pierced hearts and the date – 1944. Most of these tress have been felled. Also carved there was the Morse code sign for V – victory, …-
This rhythm, de de de dah, heard in the opening bars of Beethoven’s 5th symphony, was transmitted on the ‘Light Programme’ before the cryptic messages meant for the resistance workers in France.
Retired, almost. Lived in Chandler's Ford for 20 years. Like sitting in the garden with a beer on sunny days. Also reading, writing and flying a glider. Interested in promoting science.
I work hard as a Grandfather and have a part time job in Kandy, Sri Lanka for the winter months. Married to a beautiful woman and between us we have two beautiful daughters and 3 handsome sons.
I have been able to find out a little more since the original listing. There is actually a section (for anyone interested) in the book called Ampfield through the Ages by Elizabeth Hallett and Anita Wood, which is held in several of the local libraries (Chandler’s Ford, Eastleigh & Romsey I think).
It’s an interesting piece of local history and apparently had quite an effect locally as it caused the population to swell unnaturally. Vickers Armstrong had several sites in the area as well as what is now the IBM site in Hursley park. I think that the Drapers Tools site was one of them.
I too was born in Chandler’s Ford a lot of years ago and remember the polish camp well and made some good mates there. We used to have a lot of fun at the sand quarry a bit further along the road about opposite Ashdown Road. I vaguely remember the Hutments. My father used to work at Vickers Armstrong in Hursley.
Thank you Ken for your contribution to the discussion. I’ve enjoyed reading about all your discoveries. Nick, Mike, Robbie and Ken – you’ve helped us see the changes of Chandler’s Ford. Your discoveries will inspire more people to reveal more, and help us connect to our local history. Many thanks. Please continue to share your stories.
Your mention of the sand quarry stirred a memory for me Ian. I remember being taken by my older brother Chris to see a tipper lorry upside down in the quarry. I think it was the summer of 1959 and the quarry (where the recreation ground is now) was being filled in. Apparently the edge of the quarry’s bank crumbled sending the vehicle and the unfortunate driver into the pit. The driver was extricated by the fire brigade. The lorry was painted grey and might have belonged to the local haulage firm Coe’s.
My British aunt and uncle lived in a Nissan hut in Chandler’s Ford. They weren’t Polish. Did the county council re-home returning British soldiers there too?
The Army had a transit camp situated along Hiltingbury Road where British Families were placed arriving from overseas, in our case from Singapore.
The camp was known as Number 17 Military Families Hostel where we lived with my father who was a member of staff between January 1955 and 1957. The Nissen Huts were actually quite cosy.
From my memory I think the camp was in two halves and I remember a wall collapsing on a young lad aged 5-8 during the demolition period. Check the newspapers for further information. The hostel had its own school with my teacher being Miss Wingate until we moved to the new school by the tractor sales company on the Eastleigh side of Chandler’s Ford.
Just scrolling through my iPad and came across this site about 17 Families camp Chandlers Ford. My family were there in 1954/1956 arriving from Germany. Miss Wingate was my teacher too.
I remember the Polish camp and we made friends with a boy called Jan. He gave me a Christmas tree ornament and I still have it.
There was a army cookhouse/dining area but my Mum didn’t like going there so my brother and I had to go down there with dishes and a big bag and carry the food back to our “hut”.
Our surname was Hennah. We came to Oxfordshire in 1956 and have been here ever since.
I have noticed a couple of references to Miss Wingate (Jean) at the camp school, but does anyone remember Miss Wilmott (Diane, who later became Mrs Clews), assistant teacher to Jean Wingate ? … The camp school, as it was known, was run by the Education Department and was under the jurisdiction of Mr Mann at King’s Road School, who later became headmaster of Merdon School when it was built, Jean Wingate also transferring there a bit later … The camp school took children from both the Army Families Camp, as well as children from the Polish Dependents Hostel on the other side of Hiltingbury Road.
Diane used to tell me of one small, very likeable, Polish boy, ‘Taduk’ (Taduish I think was his real name) who wore ‘Big’ boots, and, needless to say you knew when he was around because of the ‘clomping’ of his boots on the wooden floors of the school.
I remember working with Jean Wingate at Merdon Avenue School in the early 1960s. It was my first teaching post and I remember been almost terrified of Harold Mann, the headteacher. Miss Wingate was a much more encouraging colleague and colleague John Hobbs and his wife Muriel became very good friends who gave me colossal support when my father died in 1964 during my first year at the school, support that I shall never forget.
John Murphysays
I remember working with Jean Wingate at Merdon Avenue School in the early 1960s. It was my first teaching post and I remember been almost terrified of Harold Mann, the headteacher. Miss Wingate was a much more encouraging colleague and colleague John Hobbs and his wife Muriel became very good friends who gave me colossal support when my father died in 1964 during my first year at the school, support that I shall never forget.
Jacki Jackson (Knight)says
Yes, my dad came home from the war and I was born in 1946, and shortly after my birth we were given a Nissan hut. When I was three we were moved out into Nightingale Avenue, which was a new house, and the Polish refugees moved into the Nissan huts
I have since found out that my mother worked at the Spitfire Factory at Eastleigh as a “Char Lady”. Most of my memories revolve around fishing and sliding on the Lake and watching the Cycle Cross Country racing!
Yes, we were housed in the Camp in 1948, after we came from India, My mother, two brothers and a young sister and myself (M) arrives in Liverpool in 1948, sent to Dumbarton and finally to the Camp. My father, would visit is om some weekends and we remained there until 1951, when another sister joined are family and we were sent to Hannover, with my father.
As far as I can recollect, the camp next door was vacant and the Families camp was partially empty. My brothers and I wandered in the nearby woods and visited the Sand Pit, where we tried using the troughs as boats on the flooded pit. In additions we worked our way through the Barbed wire separating our camp from the empty neighbouring one to search in the “Marble Mine” for glass ball bearings to use as marbles.
We also hunted in the Woods, with cleft sticks for Adders and collected frog spawn from the stream in the woods!
We lived in one and one-half Nissan huts with a combustion stove in each to provide heating
My mother, still alive at age 99, was one of the first occupants of the Hook Road Hutments and remembers them very well. She married my father, a planning engineer at Supermarines, in 1939 and lived in Southampton until the final air raid on the Woolston factory on 26th September 1940. All the design and technical support teams swiftly moved to Hursley Park and their families were offered the wooden hutments. She remembers them as well-built and clean with running water. It was difficult to keep them warm in winter as they were expressly forbidden by Sir George Cooper’s Estate to take any wood from the forest to burn! She walked down to the butchers in Chandler’s Ford with her ration book but he was a miserable man so used to go to Hursley for supplies. She well remembers the clapped-out Jones’s bus that ferried people about. She wasn’t there long as my father followed the dispersed Spitfire production to the Trowbridge area in January 1941 with accommodation in another hutment village.
Going back to the German pilot parachuting into Cranbury Park, my granddad was one of the first on the scene. I can remember being told when a little girl about him making his way from Allbrook (where we lived and I was born) to Cranbury Park after watching the dog-fight and seeing the pilot bale out. My granddad was a Sergeant in the Army and was home at the time, when he got to Cranbury Park the pilot was apparently hanging by his parachute from a tree, and lots of the local lads were having great fun prodding him with sticks. He was said to have been shouting “Oh mein Fub” (“of my foot”). I also remember being told that the pilot was taken to Winchester Hospital, where it is alleged that he broke one of the nurses arms. I am also given to believe that he was approximately 17 years of age and had been awarded, and was wearing, the Iron Cross when captured.
Following on from my comments earlier I also remember an egg marketing board farm which packed graded and packed eggs and placed Lion stamp on each egg.
My father Sgnt Eric Arnott was still missing in action in Malaya in 1947 my mother Barbra Arnott nee Sweeny an Anglo Indian had arrived in England with my brother and two sisters. We lived in the huts for a year and a half because the army didn’t know what to do with us. I was only three or four years old now 70 plus but still somehow remember being there and going on a very old green bus. I fell out of a tree on my head and an army orderly took care of me, don’t ask me how I know this but his name was Victor Paradine. My Father finally returned and we were moved to a big army base that I think was called Borden my B/Cert says Sgnt R E M E ??? All of this from dreams as we were orphaned soon after and I was sent to the U S A.
Can anyone help me sort out the location of the pow camp(s) at Chandler’s Ford?
English Heritage issued a list of pow camps. Details from one of the entries:
OS Reference SU 4289 1887 / Camp 675 / Hiltingury [sic] Road, Chandler’s Ford, Eastleigh Hampshire – Now an Industrial area.
My problem is that the grid reference given is NOT for Hiltingbury Road, but a location down by Chestnut Avenue where the displaced persons/Polish camp was.
I have seen details on this site about huts at Hiltingbury Road and Chestnut Avenue. So was the POW camp at one, or both of these sites?
Being born in 1939 at the top of Leigh Rd Chandlers Ford, I remember some things through my childhood years that ‘might’ be useful for your search. The camps changed from POWs to refugees as I remember., but in between, American troops lived at the camp between Leigh Rd and Chestnut Avenue. I remember this as my farther who used to socialize at the Hut Hotel agreed to mend their little radios, and three lorry loads turned-up. The camp had German POW Cheffs then and twice Birthday cakes were made for my sister and I. Being a harum scarum kid, when the military refugees came in I used to tease them to catch me and ran into a copse there where I laid silly booby traps for them. They caught me and I found they were good friends, so now my new pastime became their learning English from me. Later I had a good Polish friend from the Hiltingbury camp whom I met a student at Winchester School of Arts and Crafts. His Father had been chased across Russia and got away from there living in the rough. I remember his tail of being followed by a female wolf for three days and nights and, finally he caught it with his knife as it crept up on him at night when
he felt it’s breath on his face. Tad married another Student and went to Portsmouth as a sculpture. The Hiltingbury camp most probably housed many American troops before the refugees came as the woods of the western end of Hiltingbury Road were full of camouflaged American military lorries and slit trenches for training. Lor Field marshal Montgomery visited there, that I know. Castle lane was also full of military vehicles covered in camouflaged nets. For about a week or so, before they moved off to France, a lot of lorries parked along Leigh Rd so we had Little tables about our front lawn so they could play cards.
I don’t know if this thread is still “alive” but Henry Sprague of Lakewood Road was manager of the National Assistance Board in Northlands Road, Southampton where I worked in the early 1960s. I also lived in Chandlers Ford from 1965 – 1985 first in Malcolm Close then Kingsway. I remember the far end of Hiltingbury Road when it was unmade as I had a friend who lived in the bungalow next to the bakery in 1961-1962
[…] the pit, where the school stands, between Pine Road (Then totally un-made) and Hiltingbury, was the Polish Camp. The families living here in Nissan Huts had escaped from their country when Hitler’s armies […]
[…] own home, in Meadow Grove, from the Ack-Ack guns off Bournemouth Road at what was Velmore Camp, the Nissen Huts becoming temporary housing for Eastleigh Borough Council House applicants after the […]
[…] participants, Finian Black and Brenda Sedgwick met at Chandler’s Ford Today, accompanied by Robbie Sprague. There were 25 of us in all. Robbie, formerly a headteacher at Halterworth, has gained a reputation […]
Thanks Mike S 🙂
I have been able to find out a little more since the original listing. There is actually a section (for anyone interested) in the book called Ampfield through the Ages by Elizabeth Hallett and Anita Wood, which is held in several of the local libraries (Chandler’s Ford, Eastleigh & Romsey I think).
It’s an interesting piece of local history and apparently had quite an effect locally as it caused the population to swell unnaturally. Vickers Armstrong had several sites in the area as well as what is now the IBM site in Hursley park. I think that the Drapers Tools site was one of them.
I think the Drapers Tools site was originally the Royal Navy Victualling Depot.
I too was born in Chandler’s Ford a lot of years ago and remember the polish camp well and made some good mates there. We used to have a lot of fun at the sand quarry a bit further along the road about opposite Ashdown Road. I vaguely remember the Hutments. My father used to work at Vickers Armstrong in Hursley.
Thank you Ken for your contribution to the discussion. I’ve enjoyed reading about all your discoveries. Nick, Mike, Robbie and Ken – you’ve helped us see the changes of Chandler’s Ford. Your discoveries will inspire more people to reveal more, and help us connect to our local history. Many thanks. Please continue to share your stories.
Hi Ken,
Very late (8 years!!) I just noticed your post and reference to your reference to your father working at Hursley for Supermarine. I’m trying to record the names of all those who worked there and tell their stories.
There’s a bit more on what I am trying to do here http://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/history-of-vickers-armstrongs-supermarine-hursley-park-can-you-help-by-dave-key/
and on the website https://supermariners.wordpress.com/
So if you get this reply I’d love to hear from you!
Regards
Dave
Your mention of the sand quarry stirred a memory for me Ian. I remember being taken by my older brother Chris to see a tipper lorry upside down in the quarry. I think it was the summer of 1959 and the quarry (where the recreation ground is now) was being filled in. Apparently the edge of the quarry’s bank crumbled sending the vehicle and the unfortunate driver into the pit. The driver was extricated by the fire brigade. The lorry was painted grey and might have belonged to the local haulage firm Coe’s.
Sorry, I should have said Ken, not Ian!! My apologies!!
What an interesting post and comments – our local oral history is precious, so keep them coming!
My British aunt and uncle lived in a Nissan hut in Chandler’s Ford. They weren’t Polish. Did the county council re-home returning British soldiers there too?
The Army had a transit camp situated along Hiltingbury Road where British Families were placed arriving from overseas, in our case from Singapore.
The camp was known as Number 17 Military Families Hostel where we lived with my father who was a member of staff between January 1955 and 1957. The Nissen Huts were actually quite cosy.
From my memory I think the camp was in two halves and I remember a wall collapsing on a young lad aged 5-8 during the demolition period. Check the newspapers for further information. The hostel had its own school with my teacher being Miss Wingate until we moved to the new school by the tractor sales company on the Eastleigh side of Chandler’s Ford.
Just scrolling through my iPad and came across this site about 17 Families camp Chandlers Ford. My family were there in 1954/1956 arriving from Germany. Miss Wingate was my teacher too.
I remember the Polish camp and we made friends with a boy called Jan. He gave me a Christmas tree ornament and I still have it.
There was a army cookhouse/dining area but my Mum didn’t like going there so my brother and I had to go down there with dishes and a big bag and carry the food back to our “hut”.
Our surname was Hennah. We came to Oxfordshire in 1956 and have been here ever since.
Lots of happy memories.
I have noticed a couple of references to Miss Wingate (Jean) at the camp school, but does anyone remember Miss Wilmott (Diane, who later became Mrs Clews), assistant teacher to Jean Wingate ? … The camp school, as it was known, was run by the Education Department and was under the jurisdiction of Mr Mann at King’s Road School, who later became headmaster of Merdon School when it was built, Jean Wingate also transferring there a bit later … The camp school took children from both the Army Families Camp, as well as children from the Polish Dependents Hostel on the other side of Hiltingbury Road.
Diane used to tell me of one small, very likeable, Polish boy, ‘Taduk’ (Taduish I think was his real name) who wore ‘Big’ boots, and, needless to say you knew when he was around because of the ‘clomping’ of his boots on the wooden floors of the school.
I remember working with Jean Wingate at Merdon Avenue School in the early 1960s. It was my first teaching post and I remember been almost terrified of Harold Mann, the headteacher. Miss Wingate was a much more encouraging colleague and colleague John Hobbs and his wife Muriel became very good friends who gave me colossal support when my father died in 1964 during my first year at the school, support that I shall never forget.
I remember working with Jean Wingate at Merdon Avenue School in the early 1960s. It was my first teaching post and I remember been almost terrified of Harold Mann, the headteacher. Miss Wingate was a much more encouraging colleague and colleague John Hobbs and his wife Muriel became very good friends who gave me colossal support when my father died in 1964 during my first year at the school, support that I shall never forget.
Yes, my dad came home from the war and I was born in 1946, and shortly after my birth we were given a Nissan hut. When I was three we were moved out into Nightingale Avenue, which was a new house, and the Polish refugees moved into the Nissan huts
I have since found out that my mother worked at the Spitfire Factory at Eastleigh as a “Char Lady”. Most of my memories revolve around fishing and sliding on the Lake and watching the Cycle Cross Country racing!
Thank you Jacki. My aunt and uncle were moved to Bishopstoke.
best wishes Jackie Baker Wheeler
Yes, we were housed in the Camp in 1948, after we came from India, My mother, two brothers and a young sister and myself (M) arrives in Liverpool in 1948, sent to Dumbarton and finally to the Camp. My father, would visit is om some weekends and we remained there until 1951, when another sister joined are family and we were sent to Hannover, with my father.
As far as I can recollect, the camp next door was vacant and the Families camp was partially empty. My brothers and I wandered in the nearby woods and visited the Sand Pit, where we tried using the troughs as boats on the flooded pit. In additions we worked our way through the Barbed wire separating our camp from the empty neighbouring one to search in the “Marble Mine” for glass ball bearings to use as marbles.
We also hunted in the Woods, with cleft sticks for Adders and collected frog spawn from the stream in the woods!
We lived in one and one-half Nissan huts with a combustion stove in each to provide heating
My mother, still alive at age 99, was one of the first occupants of the Hook Road Hutments and remembers them very well. She married my father, a planning engineer at Supermarines, in 1939 and lived in Southampton until the final air raid on the Woolston factory on 26th September 1940. All the design and technical support teams swiftly moved to Hursley Park and their families were offered the wooden hutments. She remembers them as well-built and clean with running water. It was difficult to keep them warm in winter as they were expressly forbidden by Sir George Cooper’s Estate to take any wood from the forest to burn! She walked down to the butchers in Chandler’s Ford with her ration book but he was a miserable man so used to go to Hursley for supplies. She well remembers the clapped-out Jones’s bus that ferried people about. She wasn’t there long as my father followed the dispersed Spitfire production to the Trowbridge area in January 1941 with accommodation in another hutment village.
Going back to the German pilot parachuting into Cranbury Park, my granddad was one of the first on the scene. I can remember being told when a little girl about him making his way from Allbrook (where we lived and I was born) to Cranbury Park after watching the dog-fight and seeing the pilot bale out. My granddad was a Sergeant in the Army and was home at the time, when he got to Cranbury Park the pilot was apparently hanging by his parachute from a tree, and lots of the local lads were having great fun prodding him with sticks. He was said to have been shouting “Oh mein Fub” (“of my foot”). I also remember being told that the pilot was taken to Winchester Hospital, where it is alleged that he broke one of the nurses arms. I am also given to believe that he was approximately 17 years of age and had been awarded, and was wearing, the Iron Cross when captured.
Following on from my comments earlier I also remember an egg marketing board farm which packed graded and packed eggs and placed Lion stamp on each egg.
My father Sgnt Eric Arnott was still missing in action in Malaya in 1947 my mother Barbra Arnott nee Sweeny an Anglo Indian had arrived in England with my brother and two sisters. We lived in the huts for a year and a half because the army didn’t know what to do with us. I was only three or four years old now 70 plus but still somehow remember being there and going on a very old green bus. I fell out of a tree on my head and an army orderly took care of me, don’t ask me how I know this but his name was Victor Paradine. My Father finally returned and we were moved to a big army base that I think was called Borden my B/Cert says Sgnt R E M E ??? All of this from dreams as we were orphaned soon after and I was sent to the U S A.
Don’t miss this wonderful series: Hook Road Hutments and My Family by Peter Russell: https://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/hook-road-hutments-and-my-family-by-peter-russell-part-1/
Can anyone help me sort out the location of the pow camp(s) at Chandler’s Ford?
English Heritage issued a list of pow camps. Details from one of the entries:
OS Reference SU 4289 1887 / Camp 675 / Hiltingury [sic] Road, Chandler’s Ford, Eastleigh Hampshire – Now an Industrial area.
My problem is that the grid reference given is NOT for Hiltingbury Road, but a location down by Chestnut Avenue where the displaced persons/Polish camp was.
I have seen details on this site about huts at Hiltingbury Road and Chestnut Avenue. So was the POW camp at one, or both of these sites?
Any help would be gladly received. Thank you.
Being born in 1939 at the top of Leigh Rd Chandlers Ford, I remember some things through my childhood years that ‘might’ be useful for your search. The camps changed from POWs to refugees as I remember., but in between, American troops lived at the camp between Leigh Rd and Chestnut Avenue. I remember this as my farther who used to socialize at the Hut Hotel agreed to mend their little radios, and three lorry loads turned-up. The camp had German POW Cheffs then and twice Birthday cakes were made for my sister and I. Being a harum scarum kid, when the military refugees came in I used to tease them to catch me and ran into a copse there where I laid silly booby traps for them. They caught me and I found they were good friends, so now my new pastime became their learning English from me. Later I had a good Polish friend from the Hiltingbury camp whom I met a student at Winchester School of Arts and Crafts. His Father had been chased across Russia and got away from there living in the rough. I remember his tail of being followed by a female wolf for three days and nights and, finally he caught it with his knife as it crept up on him at night when
he felt it’s breath on his face. Tad married another Student and went to Portsmouth as a sculpture. The Hiltingbury camp most probably housed many American troops before the refugees came as the woods of the western end of Hiltingbury Road were full of camouflaged American military lorries and slit trenches for training. Lor Field marshal Montgomery visited there, that I know. Castle lane was also full of military vehicles covered in camouflaged nets. For about a week or so, before they moved off to France, a lot of lorries parked along Leigh Rd so we had Little tables about our front lawn so they could play cards.
I don’t know if this thread is still “alive” but Henry Sprague of Lakewood Road was manager of the National Assistance Board in Northlands Road, Southampton where I worked in the early 1960s. I also lived in Chandlers Ford from 1965 – 1985 first in Malcolm Close then Kingsway. I remember the far end of Hiltingbury Road when it was unmade as I had a friend who lived in the bungalow next to the bakery in 1961-1962