The service for Remembrance Sunday in Chandler’s Ford was lead by the Rev’d Duncan Hollands. Flags represented the British Legion, Scouting and Guiding.
Debbie Pearce from Debbie Pearce Photography has kindly shared unique photographs of the Remembrance Service at the Chandler’s Ford War Memorial with the community. It was held at the St. Boniface Church. Thank you Debbie.
[Read more…] about Remembrance Sunday in Chandler’s Ford 10th November 2024
The service for Remembrance Sunday in Chandler’s Ford was lead by Rev Penny Thatcher. The Mayor’s representative was Counceller Bruce Tennent.
Debbie Pearce from Debbie Pearce Photography has kindly shared some photographs of the Remembrance Service at the Chandler’s Ford War Memorial with the community. She has captured pictures of the parade on Hursley Road and the service at St. Boniface Church. Thank you Debbie.
Credit: All photos Debbie Pearce Photography.
My name is Pawel Basisty and I’m member of Friends of Polish Veterans Association in Southampton. Our organisation is trying to make sure that our army veterans and important history dates are not forgotten but celebrated. Often we take part in the same events as British Legion.
This time we will celebrate the unveiling of the commemorative plaque for 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Hiltingbury Polish Dependants’ Hostel in Chandler’s Ford.
[Read more…] about Hiltingbury Polish Dependants’ Hostel in Chandler’s Ford
Local people in Chandler’s Ford have come together to honour those who served and to remember their sacrifice. Debbie Pearce from Debbie Pearce Photography has kindly shared some photographs of the Remembrance Service at the Chandler’s Ford War Memorial with the community. She has captured pictures of the parade on Hursley Road and the service at St. Boniface Church. Thank you Debbie.
[Read more…] about PHOTOS: Remembrance Sunday Tribute in Chandler’s Ford 2022
On Remembrance Sunday, many people gathered to remember those who have given their lives to protect our freedom.
Representatives from Scout groups across Chandler’s Ford, together with other local community groups, laid wreaths and attended a service of remembrance today at the parish church of Chandler’s Ford.
The service was held in conjunction with the Royal British Legion and the Borough of Eastleigh. It was led by the Rev Hayley Richens and the Rev Penny Thatcher.
[Read more…] about Remembrance Day Service at the Parish Church of Chandler’s Ford 2022
Today is Armistice Day. The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – a poignant moment in history.
This year’s events will be familiar and as moving as ever. I think this year they will seem more so I suspect to many of us given one familiar figure will no longer be laying a wreath at The Cenotaph.
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 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)
I wonder how many people know the history of these two significant and impressive memorials to those who fell in war.
Designed by Edwin Lutyens, the Cenotaph (meaning ‘empty tomb’) was first erected in 1919 as a temporary wood and plaster structure for a victory parade at the end of the First World War. It was to be temporary as it was thought that this parade would be a one-off. But the Cenotaph quickly captured the public imagination. Repatriation of the dead had been forbidden since the early days of the war, so the Cenotaph came to represent the absent dead and served as a substitute for a grave. Beginning almost immediately after the parade and continuing for days afterwards, members of the public began laying flowers and wreaths around the Cenotaph’s base: people needed to mourn their sons, fathers and brothers. So clear was this need for a visible monument, that in 1920 it was replaced by a permanent Portland stone structure, to the same Lutyens design, and designated the United Kingdom’s official national war memorial. [Read more…] about Memorials to our War Dead: the Cenotaph and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior
Lakewood Road decided to have a socially separated street party yesterday for VE75. I replied to the invitation and said I was at an original VE day party. Several people expressed an interest in the comments so I thought Chandler’s Ford Today might like to see them. As it turns out, I am not the only one who attended an original party.
[Read more…] about VE Day 75 in Chandler’s Ford – Memories of the Original VE Day
Many people in Chandler’s Ford marked Remembrance Sunday today by observing a two-minute silence at 11am.
Debbie Pearce from Debbie Pearce Photography captured some photographs of the parade on Hursley Road, and the service this morning at the Chandler’s Ford war memorial, at St. Boniface Church, and has kindly shared these with the Chandler’s Ford community.
[Read more…] about Remembrance Sunday in Chandler’s Ford 2019
At 11 in the morning of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 the guns fell silent on the fronts of the world at war. Turn your minds to that event and write a strict 500 words to catch the moment. [Read more…] about Armistice
I walked past Chandler’s Ford war memorial this morning and saw this wreath:
[Read more…] about Chandler’s Ford War Memorial – In Loving Memory of William Joseph Tosdevine
There was a rainbow in the morning and the rain stopped for the Remembrance parade and services.
At the Chandler’s Ford war memorial, a crowd of hundreds – from veterans to youth groups, families, and people of different ethnic groups – all gathered to pay their respects.
Hursley Road looked like this in 1918 (peace day celebration), and 1989. [Read more…] about Remembrance Sunday in Chandler’s Ford 2018
In the late spring of 2014 I read with interest of the national plans to commemorate the fallen of WW1. It was accepted that these commemorations would not in any way be an attempt to glorify war but were to be an acknowledgment of the great sacrifice made by so many.
It was also decided that these commemorations would continue until November 2018. It was suggested that researching the names on local war memorials could be an appropriate way of doing this. [Read more…] about Margatet Doores: Love’s Greatest Gift – Remembrance
If you have ever walked past the war memorial outside St Boniface Church in Hursley Road, you may have wondered about those named on it. Perhaps you wanted to know a bit more about them and how they died in the Great War. Or maybe a bit more about the Chandler’s Ford they left in 1914. [Read more…] about Book Review: Margaret Doores’ Love’s Greatest Gift – Remembrance
Have you ever walked past the war memorial outside St. Boniface Church and stopped and wondered about the lives that lie beneath the names? Where did they live? Were they born here in Chandler’s Ford?
What sort of work did they do before joining up or were they career soldiers? And who was Margaret Caswell? She’s the only woman who is remembered here.
Well, now’s your chance to find out. [Read more…] about Love’s Greatest Gift – Remembrance, by Margaret Doores
