Farnborough memories
Here are memories of Farnborough and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Farnborough or a Farnborough photo.
The Farnborough Puddle
I used to love The Puddle, I used to go there every weekend during term time from when it opened at Easter every year, until in closed in October. I would try to go every day during the summer holidays, but I didn't always have the money to get in, I would plead with my mum to give me the money to go, I used to do odd jobs to earn some money to go. I remember one day I went and it was throwing it down with rain, and that didn't stop me from going, while I was swimming it started thundering and lighting and the owners made everyone get out the water, I did but reluctantly. The changing rooms there were very cold and after finishing swimming it was freezing to get dressed, I used to get dressed as quick as possible, probably didn't dry myself properly as I was so cold. Getting into the water was a challenge as well, as the water wasn't heated. The temperature used to... Read more
?Reading Road
If I'm right this is Reading Road: 'Aunty Jean' ran a pre-school playgroup and lived at the end of this road.
Lynchford Road
This picture shows what is now Lloyds Bank with the edge of the North Camp Methodist church on the left where I went to Sunday school and Brownies in the church hall.
School Events
Very vivid memories of our school nativity plays at the town hall (I played Mary twice!) and also playing the piano in front of a large audience after coming first in my age group at the Farnborough and Aldershot music festival
The Pond in King George V Park
Lovely memories of this park in all seasons - piles of leaves in the autumn and the pond frozen in the winter, the 'donkey derby', taking my puppy for walks and eventually it was the place I 'ran away' to when I was told we were moving away!
Roman Camp
My dad was a Sgt in the medical corp, I was about 12/13 at the time, and we lived on an upper story of a maisonette, I suppose they were called, in Jerome Square. I have memories of "the Jerome Square gang" doing raiding parties to the McCadam Square bonfire to take wood for our fire for Nov 5th. Playing in the air raid shelters in the center of the Squareand playing at Caesar's Camp where there was a tunnel which nobody had the nerve to enter. I used to go to the Ritz Cinema Saturday morning matinees, and sometimes going to the Odeon under cover as I was in "the Ritz gang". We got posted to Hanover for a short while, and came back to live in a bungalow with a large garden in Fleet, where I went to a old school, and then transferred to a new one that had just been built.
My Life at Aldershot
We moved to Aldershot in 1964, me and my 2 sisters went to school at East End infants then juniors school which is now all boarded up. I had a good mate who lived up the road from me, Stephen Watts, went to school at St.Michael's. I watched loads of Aldershot FC matches and I still follow the shots today. Dad once took me to the Cambridge military hospital to get my head stiched after a fall, afterwards he bought me a huge bar of chocolate from the off sales at The Heros pub for being brave. Whilst at East End school we went on TV, appearing on Songs of Praise, we rehearsed the songs with Mr Turnoff our music teacher. Other people in my class in the late 1960s were Steve Marshall, Steve Ormarod, Peter Mcmahon, his mum worked as a dinner lady, Keith Willis, Stuart Keenan, Tanya Godwin, Debbie Hales, Sandra Lynch who lived up my road, Sally Ann Freer who was my dancing partner.
Ramalies Park
Hi! Does anybody remember Ramalies Park in North Camp, early 70s and Army property?
Lynchford Rd.
As a young child, I remember feeling so scared as I walked passed the Elephant and Castle pub, as often there would stand an old man in a long black coat and a black hat, and he would very slowly shake his finger at me.Whether it was just me or any child, I never knew, but it used to frighten the life out of me!
Queen's Road
I was born on Queen's Road next to the off licence, past the Baptist Church. My
grandparents lived in Farnborough from 1920 to their deaths in 1970's. In those days the Allied troops were stationed nearby at Aldershot.
My Father's Home
Osborne Road is where my Father was brought up in the 1930s. This street was very close to the Royal Aircraft Establishment and this generated my Dad's great interest in aeroplanes and flight. He was later to join the RAF and served during the Second World War.
My Visit to my Grandfather
I would come with my father and brothers and sisters to see my grandfather who lived in a small house. There was a railway very near and the trains would run outside his house. His road was called Elm Grove Road, Farnborough. We always went into the house though the back of the house, it was a very small house. I do not remember my grandmother but I do remember my grandfather, his name was Henry Fisher but he used the name Fred, not Henry. My father was also Henry but I am not sure he was brought up there, and I am not sure about my father's brothers Ronald and George and sisters Dorothy and Olive but I do think my father's youngest brother was brought up in this house as he was born in 1943 in Aldershot, he is Robert. My grandmother was Hilda, she was born in Mytchett Frimley as were my father and his brother George and sister Dorothy, all were born in Coleford Farm. I... Read more
33 Elm Grove Road
My grandfather Henry Fisher (he was called Fred mostly, not Henry) and my grandmother Hilda may have had some of their older chidren living still with them there at Elm Grove Road, they were my dad Henry, George, Ronald, Dorothy and Olive, they were all born between 1922 and 1934. Their last child was Robert, born in 1943, and I know that he died there and my grandfather and grandmother spent many years there until their deaths. I do remember visiting them when I was small but sadly cannot remember much. Is there anyone that knows my family and can tell me more about them all?
Busk Crescent
I have been looking up the old photos of places I have visited and came across Busk Crescent, Cove, Farnborough. Somebody wrote about the crescent. I knew John Mcbryde and his family who lived at no 27 in the 6190s. I visited John for a weekend when the Farnborough Airshow was on. I met John when I was at Butlins with my friends, what happy days. I have never been back to Farnborough but we often pass it on our journeys up the motorway, and I should go back and explore the town.
Pinehurst Close
We lived in the flats called Pinehurst Close, wedged between the bottom of the RAE and the Queensmead shops. We moved (to Cove) just as Kingsmead Shopping Centre was being built (1966/7?). I went to St Patrick's School in Peabody Road, then to the juniors when it moved to The Avenue in 1966. I then went to Farnborough Hill. My nan lived in Alma Square off Cross Street round the corner from the Town Hall. My fondest memories are of the old Library on the corner of Alexandra Road, next to the Technical College and near the outdoor swimming baths. I used to borrow the maximum six books at a time, read them as quickly as I could, then cycle back to change them - no games stations in those days! What I wouldn't give for that collection of children's books now. I moved away from the area completely in 1972 and haven't been back since. From what I can tell, some parts of the old town look unchanged whilst... Read more
Bluebells
My godmother and her parents lived 'forever' at Gravel Road, just up from the small shop on the Park Avenue end.
With a marvellous garden of flowers, fruit and poultry; a walkway tunnel of Quince, a black & white tiled pathway to the brass shoedogs and whitestoned step it was my home on and off for many years. From birth really, as the family had befriended my young warbride mother prior to my arrival! The later arrival of twins, one of whom was small and unwell meant I lived for long periods at Gravel Road.
I have 1953 pix of myself and the twin siblings in the garden, all beautifully dressed in white ready for the Coronation Parade up near the Barracks or along Queens Road.
Auntie used to cycle everywhere on a royal blue "Raleigh". On Wednesday I would go with her to Brookwood Station and into Guildford on the train. The bluebells at Brookwood were legendary in cool greens and blues, thick and squashy underfoot as... Read more
Memories of Hampshire
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
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
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.
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
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