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Hordle

Hordle maps

Historic maps of Hordle and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis.   View all Hordle maps

Hordle area books

Displaying 1 of 22 books about Hordle and the local area.   View all books for this area

Memories of Hordle

Hordle memories
Read and share Hordle memories

Displaying a selection of personal memories of Hordle.
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Wreck at Hordle Cliff

As a young boy of 9 or so, living in Barton on Sea, sometime around 1952, I remember a ship washing up in a storm on the beach at Hordle Cliff. During the time before it was re-floated, the local youth had the opportunity to clamber all over the wreck. I remember examining the engine room and was quite taken with all the pipework down there. I have not found any references to date about this wreck/grounding on the net. The year could be out by a couple of years.

Hampshire memories

First Love

The Royal Oak c1960
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Having lived at Downton from 1958, I grew up opposite Downton Holiday Camp.
My father owned the builders next to the pub and I bought my first car at the garage 2 doors to the right. Somewhen in the mid 1960s  I met the new landlady's daughter, Diane! Well, despite the age gap (I was about 7 and she was 15-ish) we fell madly in love. Seeing as there were only 3 kids living in the hamlet and only one other girl, this was hardly surprising.  

The hamlet was 1 pub, 1 garage, a Post Office/store and 2 camp sites in what had been gravel extraction yards. In years to come Shorefield Camp was added between Downton and Seabreeze, and we used to be able to drive through Blackbush to Milford-on-Sea, the next biggest village.

Our house was built about 1925 in Shorefield Road, and my mother of 89 still lives there. As I gaze at these photos all the memories of a brilliant childhood, living... Read more

My Whole Life

I have lived in Everton my whole life. I love the village. I am a respectable citizen of Everton and have lived for nearly 18 years in Frys Lane.
I hope other people enjoy the atmosphere as much as I do.
Makeala x

New Milton

My parents moved to the Bournemouth area at the end of WW2, and purchased the Clock Cafe property at 18 Whitefield Road. The Hants & Dorset buses used to treat the bus stop across the road as a terminus, and frequented the cafe for tea and sandwiches between runs. My parents ran the cafe for a while before leasing it to others. In the same building was the Humber Hire business and my mother resumed her hair styling business in the upstairs rooms. Over the years, the building was developed to the pavement building line with a two storey extension. The original building doors and windows were removed and replaced with steel girders so that the old house was hardly recognizable. My parents eventually sold the building in the late 1960's, but our teenage family spirits must still haunt the place.

New Milton Memories

I remembering exploring the back streets of New Milton, Ashley, Bashley and Barton on Sea on my bike as a 10 year old. Phelps supermarket was mum's main food shopping weekly destination. Burgess News Agency was where she would buy our weekly comic. My siblings would cherish their weekly read. I had 'Topper' while my brothers and sister had 'Beano', 'Victor' and 'Tammy'. I remember the excitement of unwrapping the Comic Annuals from our Christmas stocking each year. Our Hornby trainset would often see the dining room daylight but not as much as my brother's Britain's farm set! We all at some stage went to New Milton Junior School and 2 of us went to Gore Road Secondary School (now Arnewood) before emigrating to Australia in 1970. Ballard Lake was the place to trial my eldest brother's model motor boat. The ducks were as intrigued as we were. The local Rec would often be the place to vent our football enthusiasm. My brother and I used to challenge... Read more

Station Road Early 1950's

The Town Library was located across the road from Burgess' news agent/bookstore, the source of my Tiger and Eagle weekly comics - as a young library member I plowed my way along the Biggles Air Ace library shelves, and through the Enid Blighton's Adventure series which my brothers also shared with me - these books sparked our young imaginations and no doubt were the inspiration of many of our adventures - there was a WW2 bomb shelter in front of the library, a real eye-sore - as a kid I was dared, and went inside but it stank of things better not described, and was a repository of every broken bottle in town - then the shelter was sealed up and eventually broken up and removed.

Railway Station Yard

My parent's business on Whitefield Road backed onto the sidings of the rail station. The coal wagons were shunted onto a track alongside the public pathway. The Coal Merchants had their office shacks on the entrance way to the station. Every day the coal lorries would back up to the coal wagons, and the coal gangs would shovel coal into jute sacks and fill up their lorries with the days deliveries. The shoveling and delivery was dirty work, and these men were always covered in coal dust. I spent much time watching the work from the pathway, until they got fed up being watched and waved me away so they could continue their stories.

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