Village Hotels is in the process of preparing a planning application for a latest generation Village Hotel Club at Bournemouth Road in Chandler’s Ford.
A planning application for the hotel is expected to be submitted to Eastleigh Borough Council before Christmas.
For more information, visit Village Hotel in Eastleigh. [Read more…] about Village Hotels are Consulting on New Proposals on Bournemouth Road
Hiltingbury Tennis Club had another year of great social tennis this spring and summer. With several new members signing up the £25 annual subscription is great value. Members played at various times of the week and some weekends to suit everyone.
James Airey masterminded a fun mixed doubles competition which was completed on November 13th. [Read more…] about Hiltingbury Tennis Club
On September 14th 1950 Gran is in Southampton:
I went to help florist friends to pack and deliver flowers to the [RMS] Pretoria Castle, due to sail to South Africa at four o’clock this afternoon. It is an experience I always enjoy, the flowers are beautiful and it is interesting to see the various types of travellers on the ship.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 35)
By Deacon Paul Owen
I was walking along Park Road in Chandler’s Ford earlier in November and overheard a conversation between a mother and her son she’d just picked up from school. The mother told the son that they would put up their Christmas tree that evening. It was another example for me – along with the constant Christmas TV adverts, the endless playing of Christmas music and the Christmas goods in the shops and the Christmas decorations that are pretty much everywhere – that the Christmas festivities seem to start earlier and earlier each year! [Read more…] about Christmas – What’s So Special?
There is much work to be done in the Park Road garden as the wet summer of 1950 progresses, and Gran picks Early River plums there on July 21st, the day before what she notes, is “an uneventful day for my forty-sixth birthday”. Nevertheless, she does receive at least one present on the day:
…it is now raining again. But I mean to enjoy a few moments with “Corduroy” by Adrian Bell, and I can look forward to more pleasure when I read his “By-road”, given me today by Jock.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 34)
There is more tennis played on June 10th 1950 and Gran’s comments about it give a thought-provoking insight to her current character. She notes with interest some nesting Greenfinches near the courts saying:
…but this was insufficient in itself to penetrate the social whirl in which I found myself, feeling utterly lonely and unhappy…I have been alone too long to settle again in the gay crowds…I felt like a fish out of water in spite of the fact that everyone was kind and pleased to have me in the team again.
She adds though, on a happier note: [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 33)
This house in Bournemouth Road, situated near the junction with Brickfield Lane in Chandler’s Ford, was called at the turn of the nineteenth century, “Prestonpans Villa”. In 1901 it was occupied by Mr Samuel Batley, Elizabeth, his wife and a domestic servant. [Read more…] about About the Prestonpans Villa: Story of Brickmaking in Chandler’s Ford
This morning, veterans and a few hundreds people commemorated those who lost their lives in the two World Wars and later conflicts, at the Chandler’s Ford war memorial.
Remembrance Sunday, which falls on 12 November in 2017, is a day to remember and honour those who have sacrificed themselves to secure and protect our freedom.
A two-minute silence was held across the country and wreaths were laid at memorials.
In Chandler’s Ford, people old and young were gathering at the war memorial, outside the St. Boniface Church on Hursley Road, including 93-year-old war veteran Frank Damerell, Night Fighter Navigator (the aircraft was “The Mosquito Night Fighter”) during the Second World War. [Read more…] about Remembrance Sunday in Chandler’s Ford 2017
On May 9th 1950 Gran is worried about “her” little colony of Small Wintergreen in the nearby woods. She writes:
I was pleased to find the Pyrola minor (Small Wintergreen) is just about to flower again in the wood bordering Oakwood Road but sorry to see that the woodman is burning the undergrowth on the opposite side of the road…It always seems to be the wrong time of year for burning, for, apart from the budding plants, many of the migrant birds build their nests on the ground or in low-lying bushes.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 32)
Once a year I go to the Joint Charities Annual Christmas Market in Chandler’s Ford to buy a few Christmas cards (I don’t have that many friends to send cards to) and use it as a chance to catch up with friends, and also have my coffee morning with friends at the Dovetail Centre Café. [Read more…] about Review: Chandler’s Ford Joint Charities 44th Christmas Market 2017
I had the great joy of going to see Murdered to Death by Peter Gordon as performed by The Chameleon Theatre Group on Saturday 28th October. What with the Book Fair in the morning, it was a busy day but a hugely enjoyable one and the show rounded things off beautifully.
How can you tell if something is a spoof? I always look for tautology in the title! It is done for exaggeration (a great comic technique). I can’t think of any other genre where the “To Death” bit would be added. It certainly wouldn’t be in crime fiction, where murder generally is taken very seriously! [Read more…] about Murdered To Death – The Chameleon Theatre Company – Review Part 2
This play Murdered to Death performed by Chameleon Theatre Company in October was an obvious parody of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, right down to one of the characters being called Miss Maple, after the Miss Marple character. Poirot was also referenced, from Miss Maple knowing a Belgian chap, to Pierre Marceau resembling Poirot physically.
The funniest character was Inspector Pratt, who is the most incompetent detective ever. [Read more…] about Review: Murdered to Death by Chameleon Theatre Company
On April 25th 1950, after returning from Eastleigh, Gran took her “small nephew and godchild, David, up into Cranbury Park to look for tadpoles”, in the big lake there. This was David, the son of Gran’s brother, Uncle Norris, who shared his birthday with Dad and also with his Grandfather:
Here in this lake we found what we were seeking and, to my relief, I was able to bring David home again without his having fallen head-first into the water. He is a real chip off the Adamson family block, and extremely interested and asking sensible questions upon the subject of nature which he already finds absorbing, though he is not yet seven years old.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 31)
New residents of Chandler’s Ford may be surprised to hear that 120 years ago this leafy suburb of Eastleigh was the centre of a thriving brick making industry. Around 1895 there were four distinct areas of activity. These were sited near the following modern day roads.
1) Guildford Drive, Velmore Road.
2) Common Road, Common Close, Carne Close.
3) Julius Close.
4) On the site of the Chandler’s Ford Industrial Estate in School Lane. [Read more…] about Could You Help? Researching the History of the Brick Making Industry in Chandler’s Ford
March 21st 1950 – the first day of Spring – sees Barry and Jock in the New Forest where, in the low-lying areas close to Beaulieu Road Station, they estimate four or five pairs of nesting Curlews, the birds displaying in flight with bubbling songs and long glides on raised wings. Many years later, in 2004, this by coincidence, was one of the areas I surveyed for the same species, on a Summer’s contract with the RSPB, in order to update work on the Forest’s breeding waders carried out by the well-known Forest naturalists, Colin and Jenni Tubbs in 1994. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 30)
Last month we shared a video Welcome to Hiltingbury, Chandler’s Ford. The video was created by Jack Smark, a 13 year old Year 9 pupil from the Toynbee School.
Today I found Jack’s new video, named South Millers Dale. Jack is the founder and creator of Tondore Productions. He is an aspiring cinematographer and would love to film movies and film documentaries. [Read more…] about New Video: South Millers Dale
On January 14th 1950, Barry birded in the Hythe area, seeing many typical birds of the range of habitats there but his visit was primarily in order to witness a movement of Pied Wagtails going to roost, first noted several weeks earlier. Gran describes it:
The Wagtail movement commenced again at 4.27 [in the afternoon], with four birds, and in various sized parties, some of as many as one hundred and twenty birds. About 700 in all must have passed. The main, Southerly movement was in the direction of Calshot. Barry left the area at 4.50 to catch the boat for home.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 29)
October 28th 1949:
I have always had a particular fondness for Bluetits [sic] and have smiled indulgently when they have picked the tops off milk bottles and drunk the cream, but the sight that met my eyes when I entered my bedroom…made me wonder if perhaps they were not such lovable little birds after all! I had noticed five of them on the ground beneath my window when I first came into the house but little did I know what mischief had been going on in my absence. The bedroom window was open about two inches. On the table in the middle of the room stands a very precious picture of wild flowers which Adrian painted. It has glass on both sides, with passe-partout over the top and down the sides until the frame is reached. The tit or tits had pecked this and strewn the paper in little bits all over the table and floor. It was almost completely stripped!
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 28)
August 16th 1949:
During the morning a strange little procession arrived at my door. It consisted of my grocer, with a jam-jar in his hand, followed by his own and three other small boys all aged about five years, one behind the other like so many ducklings following the drake! The grocer said he had some strange creature with an awful stinger! When I looked at it, it was an innocent Pine Hawk caterpillar, the “awful stinger” being its harmless horn. I told them that if they liked to come in, Barry would show them a Pine Hawk moth, whereupon they all trooped in to see the Hawk moths, afterwards letting the caterpillar go again. We really do have some unusual callers and they seem to think we can tell them all they want to know about wild creatures – they bring the oddest things to us sometimes.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 27)
It is July 2nd 1949, and Gran is elated after receiving some post:
Today I received a wonderful gift from my American friend Elizabeth Jones. In a parcel containing all manner of good and useful things, there was a copy of Kenneth Graham’s “The Wind in the Willows” illustrated by that king of whimsy, Arthur Rackham. This is a special treasure, for it is published only in America at present and is an enchanting legacy from both author and artist who, unhappily, have passed to higher service. It was Graham’s greatest wish that Rackham should illustrate his book, but he died before this could be accomplished, and some time before the last war American publishers again reminded Rackham of this desire of Graham’s. Although a sick man, and allowed to work only one hour daily, Rackham devoted this time to the illustrations for “The Wind in the Willows”, and handed these pictures to the American publisher just as war was declared. Before they had crossed the Atlantic, Arthur Rackham, alas, had died, but he left behind him what is surely some of his best and most inspired work and a heritage of supreme beauty for the coming generations. Would that I could leave such a memorial when I pass on! And now it is an American who has given this treasure to me, one of Arthur Rackham’s most ardent admirers.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 26)
