You are here:
Cove
Cove maps
Historic maps of Cove and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Cove maps
Cove area books
Displaying 1 of 22 books about Cove and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Cove
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Cove.
There are 15 shared memories to read.
Add your memory of Cove
or of a photo of Cove.
The Good Old Days
I remember going to Our Lady of Lourdes church behind Cove Green with my older brother and younger sister, we were dropped off by our grandpop only to spend the collection money we were given by our parents at Charlie's sweet shop, returning back to wait outside the church until Grandpop picked us up again. I don't remember much about the church but I still suffer from bad teeth!
Super Photo.
I was not born for another 30 years, but I still recognise this picture. The road surface is interesting to me, it is hard packed earth. I used to play on the old water wagon at the depot in High View Road. This must have been used to wet the road, which was then rolled by a steam roller.
Happy Days
Oh the memories stored away!! Charlie's opposite Cove Green, going there for sweeties on a Sunday, Cove Green (not as good as Tower Hill swings though!), Mundays closing at 1pm on Sundays, Thorntons with its yellow facade, and wool etc, I always fancied their pink woollen gloves with little pearl beads, the Post Office, with toys in the window - I remember my dad buying me a farm set from there... The butchers next to Mundays, and was it Maces grocers the other side? Moving up (or down), the church hall and its jumble sales on a Saturday, the Tradesmans Arms and the Anchor, from which many happy holiday/trip coaches were met, the little hairdressers next to another butchers opposite the garage, then the "twin" shops I used to call them, one sold clothes for children, I think they were interlinked inside and I think the other sold baby apparel. Hancocks photographers, then another grocer, then "the" bread shop of Cove as far as I was concerned, as... Read more
46 Bridge Road, Cove
46 Bridge Road at Cove is very significant to me because I was born in Bridge Road, no 46, on 29th June 1943, in the photo of Bridge Road it is the second house on the left, opposite Cove Supply Stores, so I'm sure my mother would have gone in there. What I can remember is a wooden rocking horse which was behind the front door, my sister Kathleen and myself used to ride the hell out of it, also in the back shed was a flat table and I can remember banging nails in it, my mum and dad said there was no space on it for anything else after I had finished. Also I can remember the strawberrieys in the back garden, my mum always said if I was missing, look out of the back and there would be a small bottom sticking up out of the strawberry patch. The only neighbour I can remember is a Mrs Ellis. My father was in the army then (1939-45), 7th Armoured... Read more
Fond Memories
I now live in Adelaide, South Australia, but lived in Holly Road in the 1950s and I too have fond memories of Christopher's sweet shop. My brother and I played on Cove green a lot and I broke my foot there atthe age of 6. I took a trip back down memory lane in 1984 on a very foggy day, Tower Hill School was very different from the little village school I remember.
Re Cove, Bridge Road (c172009)
The photograph of Bridge Road clearly shows The Cove Supply Stores building on the right. My parents ran that shop from about 1936 to 1945. The Bridge Road end of the shop in the photo was the Off-Licence. Opposite the shop on Cove Road was the Ivy Leaf Club. I have such memories of Cove... I attended the Hawley Road Elementary School, and remember one teacher well, a Mr Harold Crapper, who was a devil with the cane! Later I attended the Farnborough Grammar School.
I wonder whether anyone can remember Mr Thornton's menswear shop? (Opposite Mr Munday's.) He used to place an advert in the local paper, always with a little poem referring to "'hornton's Bib-and-Brace'. Mr Munday's Newsagency was always popular with boys and girls because of the comics he sold. If I remember rightly, there was a battery charging and bicycle shop on the corner of Hazel Avenue run by a Mr Young.
Being 12 years old when we moved to Cove, I cycled... Read more
Busk Crescent
Late in 1945 my parents moved to 25 Busk Crescent, in Cove. The house was on top of a hill and overlooked the Farnborough airfield. From the front bedroom you could see aircraft landing on the runway. The house was one of a string of brand-new red-brick semi’s, built on the crescent and down Fowler Road, bordering an estate which had been constructed in the 1914-18 war. We were one of the earliest tenants on the street and the plaster wasn’t even dry. They said we were not to distemper the walls for at least six months. For some time there were no paths or fences, just mud and a few planks to walk on. Eventually a concrete path was laid to the street. At the back about ten feet of wooden privacy fence was attached to the house wall, and then a series of concrete posts supported three strands of galvanized wire to divide the gardens. Each house was provided with a really solidly built, flat-roofed, shed a few... Read more
The Village
Going ‘down the village’ pretty much referred to the stretch of Cove Road, between Hazel Avenue and Marrowbrooke Lane, where most of the shops were. Once upon a time Cove must have been the typical English village: two houses, three pubs and a church. The ‘Tradesman’s Arms’, the ‘Anchor’ and the ‘Alma’ were all together, right beside the vicarage and St Christopher’s church. The two houses must have fallen down in the interval because the pubs and the vicarage looked older that anything else around. The church was odd because it looked very recent and I always wondered if there had once been an older building on the site.
Along one side of the Tradesmans Arms there was a narrow ally that always smelled strongly of pee. It was very convenient for the drinkers when they lurched out of the bar at closing time. On the other side of the pub, in a grubby little building beside the Methodist Church, was the chip shop, the Elite Fish Café.... Read more
