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Petersfield - A History & CelebrationSelected extracts and photosReturn to Book | Search for another Book | View all photos for Special Subjects | Special Subjects homepage |
11 captions found: Showing captions 1 to 11 | |
 Petersfield, Shops in the High Street c1965 (ref. P48078x) | Petersfield now has both open-air and enclosed swimming pools, together with a sports centre which is named after the town's annual Taro Fair. The fair, which is of ancient origin and held annually on the weekday nearest to 6 October, brings revellers from many miles to enjoy the fun. It is a fact that there are very few things that you cannot do in Petersfield - it is a place with something for everyone. The only activity not provided for would appear to be Morris dancing. |  Add your own Memory Add to your Album |
 Petersfield, the Spain c1965 (ref. P48071) | The manner in which animals were slaughtered, and housed whilst at market, brought forward demands from the government for cleaner market surfaces and the limewashing of all carts coming into and out of the market. Much of the limewashing was carried out in The Spain, and carts coming in from the south- easterly direction would be taken through the shallow cart-wash in the Heath Pond, where the boardwalk is now situated. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Petersfield, the Maltings 2005 (ref. P48734k) | The Corn Exchange This was built to provide a covered building where corn (wheat, barley, and other cereals) could be bought and sold; its building must indicate an ever-burgeoning corn trade, and the conversion of fields from cattle to cultivation. The carts and wains can be imagined blocking the entrances to the town and creating havoc in the Market Square as they unloaded their sacks of corn. These would be judged, sold to the highest bidder, reloaded again, and taken away by the purchaser. This was very hard work; a sack of barley would weigh one and a half hundredweight. Latterly the Corn Exchange was used as a public hall, and even as a substitute church whilst St Peter's was being improved in 1874. In 1922 it housed the first performances of the Petersfield Operatic Society, and in 1928 the Corn Exchange was converted for retail use. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Petersfield, Police Station 2005 (ref. P48733k) | The Petersfield and Selsey gas-works were in Hylton Road; but all that is left on the site of the gas-works, now Tesco's car park, is a regulator valve in a compound next to the pathway into Hylton Road. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Petersfield, Lavant Street c1965 (ref. P48064) | On 4 January 1859 the railway arrived; it was to join Godalming and Havant stations, and as a consequence, it was possible to travel from London Waterloo to Portsmouth direct. Previously a journey from London to Portsmouth entailed one of two options: to go to Croydon and then to Brighton, with a change there onto the South Coast line to Chichester and Portsmouth, or to follow the line of the Admiralty telegraph through Basingstoke, Eastleigh and on to Gosport, from where it would be necessary to take a pinnace to the King's Stairs and into Portsmouth. The London Brighton & South Coast Railway had made an agreement for the London South-West Railway to use the rails between Havant and Portsmouth, but obviously the LB&SCR were not to be trusted. The first train to arrive at the Havant junction was manned by a useful number of gangers, all adept at handling themselves. The inevitable fight ensued, with lumps of coal being the major weapons. After a lot of bad language and a few cuts and bruises, the train withdrew to Godalming; meanwhile, a number of telegraph messages were exchanged and a clear understanding developed. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Petersfield, Path from Workhouse to Town 2005 (ref. P48732k) | The workhouse master would have been expected to command respect and to be sober, active and diligent. On his shoulders would be placed the responsibility of appointing an appropriate workhouse matron with similar attributes, and any other staff required. In 1835 Petersfield's workhouse provided places for 78 inmates and ten officers. The Union Overseers' Boxes are to this day preserved in Petersfield Museum in St Peter's Road. Every morning some of the inmates would wend their way into the town to work in the houses or the inns. Their path lay across the meadow which is now crossed by Tor Way, then alongside the Tilmore Brook, turning sharp right where there is still a footbridge, and finally down Folly Lane to the High Street and the inns and houses of the town. Others capable of harder work would go to work on the farms to earn their living. In 1900 the guardians agreed to the overseers building a chapel on land immediately to the northeast of the workhouse. This little-known lovely chapel is still in use to this day - the Petersfield Evangelical Church own it now. With good coaching links to London and other towns, Petersfield was a centre of road communications. With the construction of railways countrywide, it was a town waiting for an overdue miracle, and that is just what happened. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Petersfield, the Red Lion c1955 (ref. P48044) | Previously, under the provisions of the Highways Act 1535, every householder had to give four days labour per year, and every ploughland held by a farmer attracted a levy of four days a year for a cart and two men. Needless to say, this provision was not successful. This impractical arrangement came to an end, and the parishes then became responsible for the upkeep of roads within their boundaries. This arrangement worked quite well for minor roads or tracks, but major roads would be cut up by the narrow (Petersfield Museum) This is the earliest known photograph of Petersfield. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Petersfield, the Grange 2005 (ref. P48725k) | To aggrandize the entrance to the family home as it was approached from St Peter's Road (New Way), William Jolliffe provided £500 in his will, together with any further sums considered necessary, for the erection of a lead statue of William III. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Petersfield, the Pond c1955 (ref. P48034) | And now to the greatest mystery: who were the people who raised the tumuli or burial mounds on Petersfield Heath during the Bronze Age some 1,000 years after the Stone Age? Today, Petersfield is home to one of the most numerous collections of Bronze Age burial mounds in England. Unfortunately, the planting of conifers on the mounds in Victorian times and the mixed tree growth of the last 50 years has successfully camouflaged the outline of the tumuli and largely hidden them from the casual view (see page 11). To create mounds like this would have required the labour of many people, and they appear to have been built over many years, if not centuries. So where did these people live? Why have they left us no clues to tell us where they came from? Did they come from miles around to bury the ashes of their dead princes here? Were they nomads carrying the remains from a fair distance to a sacred spot or a clearing in the forest? Or is it possible that someone may yet find their habitation site here within the town itself? In all probability we shall never ever know the answer, and the mystery will remain for all time. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Petersfield, High Street, Clare Cross 1898 (ref. 41319v) | The cenotaph in the High Street commemorates those who died in battle but whose remains lie elsewhere. It is of unusual and classic appearance; it was designed by the architect Harry Inigo Triggs, who had travelled and studied in Italy. The detailing is borrowed from the eight blank panels in the Medici chapel in Florence; on these panels are carved the names of the town's dead of the First World War. (Plaques were added after the Second World War commemorating the 54 young men who died on duty away from home during that conflict). After much deliberation over an appropriate location for the town's memorial, it was erected by the mason Andrew Perryman of Dragon Street in its present position early in 1922 - a position in the Square was discounted. In the wake of the war, under the auspices of the Housing Act of 1919, the country set about building 'homes fit for heroes'. The first of these were built in Noreuil Road, which was named after a little village of some 100 inhabitants near Arras in France. Petersfield had adopted the village to help with its reconstruction, and a letter thanking the town for gifts of parcels of clothing and coloured wall maps to brighten the schoolroom was signed by J Nicholai, the schoolmistress at Noreuil. The Electricity Supply Act of 1919 gave rise to an application by Dr R J Cross, Mr T A Crawter and Mr C W Seaward, who wanted to form a company to supply electric light to Petersfield. The plan was for a generator on land located to the rear of the Volunteer Arms (now Meon Close), with a frontage on Frenchmans Road. (Note that the company was only to supply electric light, not power). With houses having only 40-watt lamps, it is unlikely that a supply greater than 20 kilowatts would be required. Tom Crawter's house, Clare Cross, was the first house in Petersfield to be lighted by electricity. Nevertheless, there was enough power to supply the Electric Theatre with the town's first film shows. The first cinema stood at the corner between Chapel Street and Swan Street - in fact, the demolition of the Swan public house made way for the Electric Theatre. That first cinema was replaced by the Savoy Cinema in 1935, and is now a nightclub. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Sheet, the Old Cooper-built Door 2004 (ref. S107701k) | The roads were kept in a good state of repair, enabling high speeds to be maintained by the best of coaches. Indeed, the coaching record from Liphook to Petersfield, albeit set in the 1800s, was 23 minutes, and the Regulator coach held the London to Portsmouth unbeaten record of nine hours. The arrival of the railway in 1859 signalled the end of stagecoaches, which until then still had to provide a connection between the rail terminus at Godalming and Portsmouth. It also brought Sheet turnpike to its financial knees - it was wound up in 1871. By 1877 the responsibility for all highway maintenance passed to a local highways board. The Sheet tollhouse became the village's post office before its demolition in the 1930s, but in 2005 its hemispherical two-part door can still be seen in good condition, not a mile away from its original position, gracing the front of an old cottage. But why have a turnpike from Sheet Bridge to the bridge to Portsmouth in the first place? The answer was quite simple: a coach or cart would have difficulty finding a way round the toll bars without a costly and roundabout route. Over the years the town challenged the results of a good number of parliamentary elections on the grounds of the qualifications for franchise. In essence many of the townspeople wanted to run the town for the town, and not at the behest of the lord of the manor, but the election of members to parliament was the tip of the iceberg. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
