Meonstoke, Main Road c1955

Meonstoke and its surrounding farmland

There are many people better qualified than I to write about Meonstoke, but this photo evokes memories of the Cooke's, who ran the village shop with cheerful kindness and where we shopped for essentials - and particularly for sweets which we took back to school in a biscuit tin (I have written about it here http://lawfordherry.blogspot.com/2007/11/st-ronans.html/). Opposite were (and still are) the quintessential Meonstoke family, the Biggs's and their magnificent thatched barn, scene of Christmas carol parties for over forty years - and below the village shop were the Harders - Paul and Anna- who I think were Danish. Below them was a house lived in by the Lushingtons - Betsy, Jane and John. And below that, Miss Apps ran a small private school. The Manor House stoood opposite below the Biggs's barn, and was lived in for a time by my cousin Ruth and her husband John Howard.

Some of this is mentioned in my Archive where Stocks Farm (signed from the triangle at the top of Buck's Head hill) is the main feature http://lawfordherry.blogspot.com/2008/02/stocks-1950-1970.html

Main Rd - Hill House

These are not really memories although I do remember my father talking a lot about Meonstoke with affection.
I have 2 old postcards and 2 old photos. The photos are of the building (I understand it was a Post Office at some date) in the picture above but when it was a private house. According to family tradition it was called Hill House and was built by William Cooper one of my ancestors. I do not know if that was true.
I do know from research that in the 1840s one William Cooper lived at Church Cottage while in the 1860s Mary Cooper (widow of one of the 3 Williams) and some of her children were living in Church Rd. She was a cordwainer (boot/shoe maker) as was her husband.
The younger William, her son was living at Gavdiff/Cardiff House at this time but I don't know where that was.
In the 1870s this younger William was living in Hill House with his wife Henrietta, daughter and granddaughter.
Later it was occupied by my great grandmother Lucy Cooper (one of William's other daughters) before her death in 1926. This is how my father came to know Meonstoke as her visited Lucy there often.
There are many Cooper graves in the churchyard and I once managed a trip there and found it quite an emotional experience. I also have some Knight ancestors buried there and I laid some flowers on any of the graves I could find.
I would willingly email copies of my pictures to any interested viewers and would welcome any correspondence from people who know of the Coopers/Knights/Matthews in that area
Thanks for reading this
Best wishes
Jo

Exton Post Office

I lived in the village in the mid 1950s. I can remember that the owner of the Post office was a Mr Worthington. The granddaughter was called Celia.

Meonstoke and Droxford

Terrific memories by both Harriott and Skipwith families. Thank you! Mine centre first on Midlington Cottage (rented from the Horsmans, he a magnificent model-train builder, the house out of Droxford a bit on A32, where all the Army ordinance lumbered past, day after day, to the coast for the D-Day invasion, and from where our beloved cairn terrier Tim killed a couple of the farmer's wartime chickens, the farmer - quite rightly - subsequently threatening Tim with summary execution if he ever caught him at it again), then Mylor Cottage, up the hill, with a flourishing fig tree in the tiny back yard, then over, in 1946, to Meonstoke and Stoke Cottage for many years, with an interlude to Aberdeen for a few years in between. Altogether I remember them as a marvellous dappled time, beautifully captured by your reminiscences. To Meonstoke, of course, Droxford was the great metropolis: it had everything, Meonstoke boasting a single store. Therefore the bike was in constant use, splashing cartwheels of water across the Droxford ford. And for our parents, petrol at 3/6 a gallon! - what wouldn't one give for that now.