West End
Hatch Farm Development
The housing development has turned the beautiful, picturesque village of West End in to just another dormitory. It defeats me how those already living in the other smaller but more prestigious new estates thought they were benefiting by allowing Hatch Farm's development to go ahead, there is now nowhere for their lucky kids to go trail biking, kite, radio-controlled/glider aircraft or drone flying and nowhere for the green-wellies to walk their hounds either neither is there now any prospect for the previously pristine heathland to become an educational resource as a nature reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest. The thing is if one is (deliberately), never taught to value the works of nature one only (as Joni Mitchell sang), misses them once they are gone.
The crime has been compounded by the total disrespect shown to the legacy of West End Village born (international), arboriculturist and conservationist Richard St.Barbe Baker (also see; "Barrows, Hatch End (West End) and an SSSI (for St. Barbe Baker)": https://www.arafel.co.uk/2019/11/barrows-hatch-end-west-end-and-north.htmln
).
Interestingly if one examines the nature of the housing that characterises the development one is left with the feeling that the lives of the members of the "community" that now inhabits it may not (to paraphr. Professor J.Clarkson); "have worked out quite as well as they had planned", this would seem to be a function of the economic philosophy that drove the project; the younger apparatchiks must be rewarded and encouraged but care must be taken not to let too much "trickle down" that would affect the profit margins!
West End
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The picture above is of the now refurbished and reappointed Moorgreen Community Hospital (a former workhouse), in West End Village, go to: http://www.workhouses.org.uk/SouthStoneham/
Converted to residential use "without benefit of clergy" (as the saying goes and whilst eschewing any sectarian notions), and a shiny new sculpture "sealed" its fate!
Quote; "Health services, which include services for the elderly and adults
with learning disabilities and mental health needs, would move under one
new building on pasture land in the east called the Donkey Field.
The Countess Mountbatten Hospice, which gives palliative care, and listed buildings like the former workhouse would remain."..."Eastleigh Southern Parishes Health Action Group has said it was
“extremely alarmed”* by the proposals, particularly the lack of car
parking and the use of more NHS-purpose land than expected." Go to: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/12880761.eastleigh-borough-council-are-proposing-to-re-home-health-services-at-moorgreen-hospital-and-replace-them-with-hundreds-of-homes/
*Italics mine. I don't blame them either!
Quote; "Moorgreen Hospital History
Originally the South Stoneham Union Workhouse, the hospital was built in 1848 but the name was later changed to West End Institution. Spread over 20 acres" Read more: https://www.higgypop.com/urbex/moorgreen-hospital/?fb_comment. Read more at _id=1364431620344334_1853593604761464
There is considerable precedent for this type of "displacement activity" in and around Southampton, even the city's status as a spa town has been forgotten, quote; " Southampton became a spa town in 1740,[39] thanks to the discovery of a spring of chalybeate water.[39] The area was laid out as Spa gardens[39] and earned royal patronage.[39] That further encouraged fashionable society to Southampton[39] and aided its prosperity and development." Go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Southampton .
Both the Victoria Park Military Hospital (the largest military hospital in the world -ever-, built in 1863 and used during the Boer War, WW1 and WW2), and Tatchbury House (used for a hospital and recuperation centre for merchant mariners wounded during the Second World War), have been demolished, the former after a fire in the sixties, the latter during recent decades. Southampton and the surrounding area have been and are currently a major centre in the south for the treatment of mental health conditions.
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| Tatchbury House next to Tatchbury Mount |
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| Victoria Park Military Hospital |
"Tatchbury was a settlement in Domesday Book,
in the hundred of Redbridge and the county of Hampshire" Go to: https://opendomesday.org/place/SU3214/tatchbury/
"Tatchbury Mount House which was an early 19th century country house. Three villas and a temporary hospital were built in 1939" Go to: https://www.freshford.com/Richard%20%20mattingly.htm
Historic trail: Tatchbury Mount. Go to: https://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/things-to-do/walking/historic-routes/historic-trail-tatchbury-mount/
What has been discovered recently is that both (the area around), Totton (incl. Tatchbury Mount), and the Solent are both of major importance and have histories that date back to the Mesolithic era (documents I have read date the construction of Tatchbury Mount to the Iron Age but I believe that it is very possible that insufficient research/excavation has been done on the site and that future explorations may well find that the mount dates back to at least the Bronze Age -excavations and finds in the area would also seem to bear this out-, quote; "
England's oldest bridge
In 1998 another bridge was found nearby in Testwood Lake, which was the earliest complete bridge in England.
In 1998, two years after the excavation at Meadow Lake, more timbers were found, this time during work on a lagoon. The lagoon was a temporary structure excavated and then filled with water before its removal a year later as part of the construction of Testwood Lake.
Buried deep in the gravels of the lagoon, two parallel rows of timbers were found, similar to those found at Meadow Lake. There were two rows of upright stakes, set about 1.5 metres (almost five feet) apart, running for about 22 metres (72 feet).
The timbers crossed an old river course, showing that they were from a bridge. The bridge was about 26 metres (85 feet) long and between 1.5 metres and 2 metres wide (5 feet to 6.5 feet). It would have stood for about 100 years.
A radiocarbon test on the timbers dated them to around 1,500BC, the oldest definitely established bridge in England. (Slightly older timbers found jutting into the Thames at Vauxhall might have been a jetty).
There were 143 timbers driven into the river bed, the largest being a quarter of a metre in diameter (10 inches) and three metres tall (ten feet). None of the stakes were complete – the tops had been exposed and had weathered away. Also found were parts of 15 planks which formed the top of the bridge.
The wood used was mainly oak, with some alder and ash, and a little hazel and willow. People had used bronze tools to fashion the wood, using sophisticated carpentry techniques to create pegs, notches, bevels and mortice holes.
The Boat
Part of a boat dating again to the Middle Bronze Age, (c1,500BC) was found at Meadow Lake. The part found was a curved piece of wood called a cleat, which was used to help fasten crossbeams to the hull of the boat." Go to: https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/our-work/testwood-lakes
Quote; "Marine archaeologists have published stunning images of what they think is an 8000-year-old shipyard located just off the coast of England. They have just found a large number of timber boards that may have once been a platform on the seafloor. Researchers believe that the submerged structure may provide new insights into Stone Age technology and society.
The find was made by divers from the Maritime Archaeology Trust. They made the discovery at the “submerged Mesolithic landscape at Bouldnor Cliff, [which] lies on the edge of the drowned palaeo-valley and is now 11m underwater” according to the Maritime Archaeology Trust . This location is now located half a mile (1km) east of Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight." Go to: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/oldest-shipyard-0012465
Quote; "The discoveries, after analysing a mile-long stretch of seabed, are of "international importance" the trust says, because it sheds new light on how people lived in the Mesolithic period.
"One area they were doing boat building, nearby they were on riverbanks and sand bars collecting reeds or doing a bit of fishing or elsewhere they would be hunting game," said director Garry Momber.
"Effectively you have all these activities happening which have strong parallels with the modern high street, but they've all just been a bit consolidated."
"We have found a pit with burnt flints, and evidence they were working wood, using technology that was 2,000 years ahead of its time."
Work to get the seabed to give up its secrets though, has required the removal of sediment that has protected the settlement for thousands of years - and this removal has given the tides the opportunity to erode that evidence away." Go to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-17046338
Quote; "Remarkable new archaeological discoveries are likely to completely rewrite a key part of British prehistory.
Scientific tests suggest that a major aspect of the Neolithic agricultural revolution may have reached Britain 2000 years earlier than previously thought.
The discovery - just published in the academic journal, Science - is likely to be viewed with some degree of consternation by many archaeologists because it completely changes accepted views of what happened in Britain (and indeed most of western Europe) in pre-Neolithic times.
The species of domesticated wheat - an early form, known as einkorn - was identified by scientists from the University of Warwick, using DNA analysis. Although no einkorn seeds as such were found, a small discrete area of intense einkorn DNA was detected when geneticists tested samples of sediment, recovered by archaeologists from an underwater Mesolithic site in the Solent, just off the coast of the Isle of Wight." Go to: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/the-remarkable-archaeological-underwater-discovery-that-could-open-up-a-new-chapter-in-the-study-of-10073458.html
Quote; "Below the bridges at Meadow Lake archaeologists found a bronze rapier buried in mud. The rapier is 32 cm long (13 inches) long. No trace of its handle, which would have been made of wood, horn or bone, was identified.
This may have been because the rapier was accidentally dropped into the water, but it is more likely it was thrown into the water as part of a religious ritual. We know that people in the Bronze Age showed their veneration for water by putting important objects, often weapons, into it." Also see: https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/our-work/testwood-lakes ), and as I know from my own explorations of the ancient sites in the New Forest there are plenty of examples of Mesolithic and early Neolithic ritual and communal activity in the area.
Quote; "Police launched a manhunt for ‘mad scientist’ Daniel Rosenthal, 58, who was jailed for life after dismembering his mother’s body with a hacksaw in 1981.
He was accused of hacking his father to death in France and dumped his body near Paris before returning to the family home in Hampshire to kill his mother.
There was a full-scale alert after police revealed Rosenthal, who is a paranoid schizophrenic, fled from his hospital on the fringe of Hampshire’s New Forest.
He had been allowed to go for an ‘unsupervised walk’ around hospital grounds.
Police warned the public not to approach the ‘dangerous’ patient and to contact police immediately by dialling 999 if he was spotted. After 20 hours 30 minutes on the loose, Rosenthal was finally found around seven miles away in Southampton, Hants, at 11am today.
Rosenthal, who wears glasses and walks with a hunch, is a patient at Tatchbury Mount Hospital in Totton, Hants." Go to: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/daniel-rosenthal-how-one-britains-2153069
Holbury
The former home of the now defunct Waterside Sports and Social Club in Holbury was raised at a meeting of New Forest District Council when assurances were sought over its future.
The site includes a theatre and social club, plus football, cricket, tennis and bowls facilities. It is owned by ExxonMobil subsidiary Esso, which runs Fawley oil refinery on the other side of the A326 Long Lane.
Although the sports pitches are still used, the building itself (pictured) was closed after the club went bust in late 2016. Holbury Community Sports Association was formed to help keep activity alive in the area, under licence from Esso." Go to: https://www.advertiserandtimes.co.uk/waterside-club-building
My friend's father was a member of the WSSC whilst he was working for ESSO as a hazardous (mostly aviation), fuels tanker-driver, shortly after retiring he contracted cancer and died, consequently he never got to enjoy his pension (drivers of hazardous materials/fuels are supposedly adequately financially rewarded for the risks they take but one wonders how managed they really are), now his son lives directly under Fawley's stacks (not to mention those of the nearby Marchwood municipal waste incinerator -also see; "The False Philosophy that Underpins the Oil Industry" #Incineration, go to: https://twitter.com/i/events/937997845344473088 -).
New Forest
All the (large), pictures were taken with Olympus automatic film cameras (the most recent being purchased for 50p at a charity shop in West End Village). the smaller pictures (below), were all taken using a tiny digital camera (unfortunately now lost), I got as a free-gift with something else. I will perhaps purchase a better digital camera this year, however, at the moment I like the simplicity of using the Olympus preferring to only slowly orientate myself in the direction of mastering more "push-button" technology and its programming.
St.Mary's
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