Did you go and see the Platinum Jubilee Flower Festival at St Martin in the Wood Church last week? I’m glad I did. I went there at the weekend and was amazed by the talent in our parish. Members from the parish church have taken such a lot of effort to create a memorable, beautiful week, and have spread joy in the community.
Roy Lancaster and his wife Sue officially opened the event on the 21st of June.
Update: The market on 02.04.2022 has been cancelled.
Chandler’s Ford Market is back – Saturday 19.03 at the Age Concern Hall, next to Fryern Arcade, (behind Co-Op), from 10am to 1pm. Well done for Steve Allen for organising the local market in the past few years.
Come and meet the local crafters of Chandler’s Ford and the local areas.
You’ll find all kinds of homemade crafts and produce made by local crafters.
Almost 7 years since my first parkrun (though parkrun was suspended for 70 weeks of that time), I have recently completed my 250th parkrun. That’s 250 Saturdays, plus a few Christmas Days and New Year’s Days, that I’ve got up early enough to run 5km at 09:00 am.
That’s some persistence – and a milestone. But a milestone that is easy to achieve. All you have to do is keep going back. [Read more…] about parkrun rewards for persistence
For those of you who celebrate Chinese New Year, I wish you good luck, happiness and health in the New Year.
In the past two weeks I had afternoon tea with gnome in his front garden.
[Read more…] about Year of the Tiger – Celebrating Friendship
Gucci has used real tigers in their recent adverts celebrating the Year of the Tiger. It seems the tigers have been trained or tamed to be used as props, accessories, and friendly pets. These adverts really have reminded me of the adorable tiger and his friendship with the little girl Sophie, in The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr.
In the commercial adverts, actual tigers roamed the scenes, and joined a group of friends for high tea, in various spaces of a luxurious, retro-style hotel. See this report. [Read more…] about Should Real Tigers be Used as Props?
As the Lunar New Year (Tuesday, 1 February 2022) is just around the corner, I thought I would share little stories about tiger as it’s going to the the Year of the Tiger.
In the west, the tigers I’m most familiar with are Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, and Hobbes, Calvin’s stuffed tiger and best friend. These are friendly tigers.
The tigers in the Chinese context seem to be mighty and ferocious. They are not there to ‘be kind’ or friendly.
Here is a widely known story between a fox and a tiger in the idiom 狐假虎威（hú jiǎ hǔ wēi): [Read more…] about A Story about Tiger
The 2022 Chinese New Year Celebration in Southampton will be on Sunday 30/1/2022 at Westquay Shopping Centre, from 11am to 3pm.
The Chinese Association of Southampton and the University of Southampton Confucius Institute once again bring the traditional Chinese New Year celebration to Southampton to welcome the Year of the Tiger 2022.
Chinese New Year 2022 falls on Tuesday, the 1st of February 2022. The celebrations culminate with the Lantern Festival on the 15th of February.
It won’t come as a surprise to any local gardener that brickmaking was a big industry round here 100-150 years ago. Our heavy clay soil, as well as the local chalk downland, made this area an obvious site for several brickfields over the centuries. In fact, in the late nineteenth century in Hampshire there were 100-150 works producing clay products such as bricks, tiles and pipes.
It was in around 1870 that it was discovered that our clay soil was particularly suitable for brickmaking. There were three brickfields in Chandler’s Ford. The biggest, which was also one of the largest in the country, was Bell’s, which occupied the land now taken by Chandler’s Ford industrial estate. The position of the railway no doubt helped its success as this was the main means of transporting the finished bricks. A short single-track branch line ran through the brickfield, joining the Eastleigh-Romsey line at the station near the signal box. The whole process of clay extraction, moulding to shape and firing was done on site. This last was not always popular with local residents due to the fumes emanating from the kilns. This brickfield had the honour of providing 35,000 bricks for the construction of the Royal Courts of Justice in the 1870s.
Chandler’s Ford Christmas Market day is tomorrow – Saturday the 4th of December, at the Age Concern Hall, next to Fryern Arcade, (behind Co-Op), from 10am to 1pm. Well done for Steve Allen for organising the local market in the past few years.
All the stallholders are ready and hand gel will be on the door. Face masks need to be worn.
Come and meet the local crafters of Chandler’s Ford and the local areas.
In the market in November, 135 people visited supporting our friendly stallholders.
In the market on Saturday, you’ll find many high quality items produced by the local people.
Chloe, a jewellery maker from Southamptom, makes gorgeous items. She will be at the market tomorrow as well.
I wonder how much you know about hospitals in Chandler’s Ford past? We know of the private Nuffield Hospital in Winchester Road. Many will remember Leigh House Hospital that is gone now, to make way for housing. But there was another, long gone …
In 1835 the Hursley Poor Law Union was officially formed to cover the parishes of Hursley, Compton, Farley Chamberlayne, North Baddesley and Otterbourne. Ampfield and Chandler’s Ford were added to the list in 1894. By 1867 the Hursley parish workhouse, built in 1828, was criticised for its inadequate building (disgusting water closets and a cesspool under the windows of the lying-in and infectious wards, which had been unemptied for twelve years!). [Read more…] about Past Hospitals in Chandler’s Ford
Chandler’s Ford had a population of just over 3,000 people in 1939 and, although only five miles north of Southampton which was badly bombed during the Blitz (57 nights in 1940-41), we escaped lightly. Here’s how …
Two ‘Doodle-bug’ V1 flying bombs fell on Hiltingbury: one landing harmlessly in a field, the other killing the residents of a bungalow in Pine Road (these bombs were presumably aimed at London but, as was the case with so many, they didn’t make it all the way). A couple of ‘breadbaskets’ fell (a Molotov breadbasket was attached to a parachute and so called because it contained both high explosive and incendiary bombs) and a stick of bombs fell in Hursley Road. One German aircraft came over from the north, machine-gunning as it went before flying off towards Eastleigh. As well as the few deaths, structural damage was caused to about half a dozen homes from the bombs. Much more structural damage was caused by the anti-aircraft guns around the area and large cracks in walls and ceilings from ack-ack guns were common.
During the Blitz on Southampton in 1940, the reflection of the fires could be seen in the night sky here in Chandler’s Ford. Searchlights, air raid sirens and anti-aircraft guns made the village very aware of what was happening locally. During the worst of the Blitz, many Southampton families would come to Chandler’s Ford to sleep the night, or for longer if they were bombed out. Several churches and halls were used as reception centres, providing food and blankets. Local residents often offered accommodation and some people made Chandler’s Ford their permanent home.
[Read more…] about World War II and afterwards in Chandler’s Ford
Remembrance Sunday falls on 14 November in 2021. The Chandler’s Ford community came together this morning to remember the service and sacrifice of those who have protected us and defended our freedoms.
Debbie Pearce from Debbie Pearce Photography kindly shares the photographs of the Remembrance Service at the Chandler’s Ford War Memorial with the Chandler’s Ford community. She captured the parade on Hursley Road and the service this morning at St. Boniface Church, Parish of Chandler’s Ford. Thank you Debbie.
[Read more…] about PHOTOS: Remembrance Sunday in Chandler’s Ford 2021
Today we remember and honour those who sacrificed for our freedom in Chandler’s Ford. Locally many people, young and old, observed a national two-minute silence at 11am. By 10.45am there was a large crowd at the Chandler’s Ford war memorial, at St. Boniface Church.
Representatives from local groups laid wreaths of poppies at the war memorial.
The Eastleigh Borough Council wreath was laid by John Caldwell, a previous mayor and an alderman.
You can see more photos from today’s service: PHOTOS: Remembrance Sunday in Chandler’s Ford 2021
[Read more…] about Remembrance Sunday in Chandler’s Ford 2021
Part Two: 1913
If we now time-travel twenty years or so to the eve of the First World War, let’s see what has changed on our route. Once again, we come up from Southampton to the Asda roundabout and up Bournemouth Road. Chandler’s Ford now has a police constable who lives at the police house at 5 York Villas, Bournemouth Road. We pass the home of one R. E. Burke, a lounge steward on HMS Titanic who sadly perished when the ship foundered last year. As we pass the Hut Hotel (see image below, forgiving the cars!), we may see Chandler’s Ford United FC training in a field behind, using the hotel as their changing room. The big brickfield on our left is still busy.
[Read more…] about The Main Road Through Chandler’s Ford: Historical Snapshots (Part 2)
Part One: 1895
You probably know that most of Chandler’s Ford has developed in the last hundred years or so and that prior to the twentieth century, there wasn’t a lot here, apart from a few cottages, the brickfields, farm land and woods. I’ve been looking at the history of one important feature of our town: the main road – Bournemouth Road and Winchester Road – stretching from Asda to the Nuffield Hospital. I wonder what you know of its history?
Let me take you back to 1895. Let’s say you want to travel from Southampton to Winchester and for some reason you don’t take the train, preferring to ride your horse / travel in your carriage or cart by road. The road that goes through our town was the most direct route, a turnpike with an improved surface since the early nineteenth century, unlike other local roads.
Before the railway came in 1847, this road would have been heavily used by the stage coaches that plied between Southampton and London. The horses were changed every six miles and being this distance from both Southampton and Winchester, Chandler’s Ford was the obvious place for the changeover. The coaching stage in our town was where the Fryern Arcade is now, but by 1895 the stables had been redeveloped as a house. [Read more…] about The Main Road Through Chandler’s Ford: Historical Snapshots (Part 1)
By Sheila Hardiman, Chandlers Ford Good Neighbours
Do you have some time to spare? Volunteer with Good Neighbours.
When I retired in 2010, I went on a couple of exciting and interesting holidays, had the house decorated, spent time in the garden and joined Monks Brook U3A. I was feeling I had time on my hands by Christmas! Luckily, I heard about Chandlers Ford Good Neighbours from a lady I took to a U3A interest group.
I contacted them and within a couple of weeks, I was signed up and driving for them. Not long afterwards, I became one of their coordinators as well. I enjoy meeting and chatting to many different clients; hearing about their families, comparing notes when they had worked where I did or have similar interests.
[Read more…] about Do you have some time to spare? Volunteer with Good Neighbours.
Hello again, thank you for all the lovely compliments I received for my first Chapter.
This is not Chapter 2 as promised but more Part 1: Andy’s Story – Part 1: Early Years, Hiltonbury Farm, and… My Old Morris as I have just returned from a visit to Devon where my older sisters Jennifer and Janet live and in conversations with them I have more to add to part 1.
My Father’s Mother died quite young. Jennifer thinks she died in the Sanatorium, a TB hospital in Chandler’s Ford just off Cuckoo Bushes Lane. It has been knocked down and the area is all houses now.
My Father’s Father was the gardener at Hiltonbury and my Father’s mother married him and it was terrible to marry beneath her. It seems that all the family except her Brother George Beattie disowned her but Uncle George was very kind to her.
Uncle George was the Farmer at Hiltonbury, who took my Father in after both my Father’s parents died and brought him up as his own son, sending him to Peter Symonds School in Winchester.
Father used to ride there every day on his bike all the way from Chandler’s Ford to school, and that’s about seven and a half miles. I agreed there was no traffic in those days but all the same fifteen miles a day and the roads were not up to much either.
I presume he would cycle up Hursley Road to The Pound, go right through Hursley, past his Cousin’s Norman Coopers place – North End Farm, and along through Standon to Winchester, then Chilbolton Avenue to Bereweeke Road and so to College.
What an achievement, rain and shine, hot and cold, along, not roads as we know them today but probably tracks some of the way. Amazing. You would not get the youth of today doing that. It’s even a long way to go in a car, probably take as long today with all the traffic as well!
Now back to Cantley in Wokingham where I was born, there are a couple of fuzzy photographs of me in a pram and sitting on the lawn having something to eat, also a photograph of Mr Watson who was the owner of the farm where my Father was the bailiff / manager.
[Read more…] about Andy’s Story – Part 2 – Stories from Beechcroft
Having been asked to write some articles for Chandler’s Ford Today I thought for ages where to start and what to tell.
My Mother and Father had got married in around 1938 and my sister Jennifer was born on the 6th of Feb 1939, followed in 1941 by Janet, then the son that they craved (or so I was informed) dutifully arrived on 6th April 1943. I am told there were air raids while in the nursing home and I was shoved under the bed in a basket a number of times it seems.
Not that I am into the stars but it reports that people who are born on the 6th of April in 1943 have an astrological sign of Aries ♈. Aries’ life pursuit is the thrill of the moment and a secret desire to lead the way for others. People of this zodiac sign like taking on leadership roles, physical challenges, individual sports and dislike inactivity, delays, and work that does not use one’s talents. The strengths of this sign are: courageous, determined, confident, enthusiastic, optimistic, honest, passionate. OK on most of that but not so sure about the physical challenges bit!! [Read more…] about Andy’s Story – Part 1: Early Years, Hiltonbury Farm, and… My Old Morris
Updated 11.12.2021
The Dovetail Café at the Chandler’s Ford Methodist Church is now open 9.30 to 12noon Tuesday to Friday and from 10-12noon on Saturdays.
I was there last Saturday and really felt life has started to feel a bit ‘normal’.
Did you remember or celebrate St. George’s Day on the 23rd of April?
This is a video with some footage in 2017 showing the St. George’s Day parade, by the magnificent 14th Eastleigh Scout and Guide Band “The Spitfires” Band.
This video features the band’s second and third parades of the day in Winchester and Chandler’s Ford.
[Read more…] about Previous St. George’s Day Parades in Chandler’s Ford – Video and Photos
