Memories of Emery Down

Emery Down & Swan Green

I have just read about a memory relating to Emery Down Church and it has made me think about my childhood again. My grandparents lived in Northerwood Avenue, Swan Green in Lyndhurst and we regulary stayed there as children. When we stayed with my grandparents we used to have to walk up the hill and visit my great grandmother who lived in Silver Street in Emery Down. We used to stop half way up and sit on an old bench. Opposite my great grandmothers house (Ship Cottage) was an old well that was boarded over and my sister and I would always wonder what it would have been like having to get your water from a well. We always used to pop along to the local post office stores in Silver Street and buy our tea. Usually we had fish fingers and always a block of neapolitan icecream which was in a cardboard box. We used to go off for forest walks near to the church in Emery Down and often went to watch the cricket played at the green. We always used to cut across the fields when going into the village centre with our gran and loved going down the steps by the Crown Hotel. We used to go to parties that the RBL had arranged when we were kids and my grandfather shouted the commands on Remembrance Day up at Boltons Bench. Lyndhurst, Swan Green and Emery Down - beautiful places where such happy memories were made. Unfortunately our family have since moved from the area but are still regular visitors and often wish grandparents were still alive to share such happy memories.

Emery down church

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 I was evacuated to Emery Down from Portsmouth.
I was billeted with a very nice couple who lived in a cottage quite close to the church. The church was the centre of the village community with a thriving congregation and I was soon invited to join the choir, together with the other evacuees.
It is a beautiful little church situated at the edge of the forest adjacent to the village green, my abiding memories will always be the simple sanctity of the services and the pervading perfume of the honeysuckle that surrounded the churchyard.
                                  

The New Forest Inn

The New Forest Inn is rather curiously decorated with wood on the front. This is said to be part of a caravan from which an old woman sold alcoholic drinks before the pub was built.