West Meon, Hampshire

Hampshire Living Memories

A cyclist, carrying a bag, rides into the distance. The bicycle could be a Hercules Martin made in Birmingham or a Raleigh. A well-finished thatched cottage is accompanied by other slate roofed houses. Nearby is the church of St John Evangelist; in 1963 Guy Burgess, a secret agent for the USSR, who died in Russia, was to be buried in its churchyard.

Petersfield - A History & Celebration

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.

Petersfield - A History & Celebration

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.