Summary of Historical Potential Lepe to Fawley history - Rosemary Devereux-Jones (July 2019)
Statement of Historical Potential for Lepe to Fawley
This trail paths to the east of the Dark Water River are shown on Thomas Milne’s map of 1791 and shown as rights of way, including the paths to the west in Exbury, on the OS map of 1810. The Cadland Estate is owned by R Drummonds Esq – large portions of this land is later sold to construction of Fawley Refinery. The trail covers areas extensively used during WW2 and for D-Day preparation and activity. An area on Badminston Common includes the holding tank area for PLUTO used during WW2 for fuel supplies. Near Mopley pond are the remains of the pump house used in the PLUTO operation. There are several remains of WW2 military installations throughout the trail area.
The trail includes areas of ancient woodland at Chale Wood on path 13 and Calshot National Nature Reserves and SSSi on path 4 which is nationally important for overwintering waders and wildfowl. Indicated on the ArcGIS map is an ironworks on path 503 on the River Dark Water. There is the site of a brickworks, brick kiln and claypits on Whitefield Rough, mentioned in the 1841 census, next to clay pits to the south of this footpath. The bricks are said to have been used around Exbury and Beaulieu.
Mills are indicated at Mopley and Stanswood on Taylor’s map 1759 (paths 12a and 10) although the Mills archive mentions only Stanswood watermill. There are stories of smuggling with the Mopley area being used for storage of contraband. It is suggested (“Waterside, a pictorial past”, Fred Murphy, pub. Ensign) that smuggling was rife in the area by 1820, Sprats Down between paths 5 and 7 being known as Lazy Town* as the residents slept all day due to smuggling at night. Summary of Historical Potential Lepe to Fawley history - Rosemary Devereux-Jones (July 2019)
Near Mopley on footpath 514 there is a hamlet known as Woodington shown on OSmaps of 1810 (not visible now). In 1843 a carrier operated between Woodington, Fawley and Calshot.
Badminston Common was used for common grazing land, shown on Milne’s map of 1791. The common and surrounding areas are dotted with old gravel pits.
Fawley is mentioned in the Domesday book. The present church (path 16a) was begun in 1170, to replace previous buildings which had been there since 971 at the latest. A late Saxon window can still be seen. Its original dedication is said to have been to St Nicholas, the patron saint of seafarers. Fawley church would have been the last Church to be seen as a sailors left Southampton water.
Work started on Fawley refinery 1921 and extended in 1951, on both occasions land being bought from the Cadland Estate. The branch railway from Totton arrived in 1925 and closed in 1967.
Path 4 passes the site of Calshot salterns, shown on Taylor’s map of 1759. There is a view across to Calshot Castle built by Henry VIII as part of the Solent defences.
Given the variety of activity in the area its likely that paths were used by for travelling to quarries, common grazing land, farming, smuggling routes, the brickworks at Whitefield, mills and to church.
*Comment form Edie Holtham.
Ref Sprat’s Down/Spratsdown/Sprattsdown and Lazy Town
Sprattsdown is not Lazy Town. Lazy Town was some half a mile to the south towards Nelson Place, there is no sign of it now but was renown in its time.
Sprattsdown arose to house the families of the workers (navvies) that were brought in to build the Naval Air Station (pre RAF) on Calshot Spit during the early 1900's, it was started in approx.1906 and it took 6 years to build the hangers etc. and was commissioned on 29 March 1913. Then in April 1915 The Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corp. were amalgamated to form the RAF, and it remained as a base till 1961. I do have a book on the Narrow Gauge Railway that ran from the Top Camp to the base at the Spit.
Going back to Sprattsdown, the houses built were no more than wooden shacks and totalled over 40, they even had a little shop that only closed in the late 1970's. One of the conditions imposed on them was that when the families moved out the house had to be demolished and the ground returned to farmland. There are only 6 houses left now that have survived and were able to be rebuilt, and I do not think the condition now applies.
A bit more information, just south of Footpath 503 there used to be a Water Mill, I'm not sure whether it was for the Brickworks or the Ironworks but it was demolished during the two world wars and the original stepping stones across the Darkwater were removed, but reinstated when I managed to reopen Footpath 503.
Edwin John Holtham
New Forest National Park Authority Lymington Town Hall Avenue Road Lymington SO41 9ZG
Tel: 01590 646600 Fax: 01590 646666
Date: Oct 2019
© Crown copyright and database rights 2019 Ordnance Survey 100014703
Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database rights 2019 Draft Trail - Tott and Eling & Netley Marsh - Tatchbury Mount You are not permitted to copy, sub-license, Draft Trail - Ford & Hyde - distribute or sell any of this data to third parties in any form. Stuckton Iron Works V2
Historic Routes and Past Pathways Project
Draft Trail - Marchwood - Carters Lane Draft Trail - Ell-Harb-Ibs - Rockford Com - Circular Location Map Showing
Final Five Trails: Oct 2019
Legend Draft Trail - Exb and Lepe & Fawley - Lepe to Fawley V2 New Forest National Park Rights of Way - Type BOAT Byway Restricted Byway Bridleway Footpath Summary of Historical Potential Lepe to Fawley history - Rosemary Devereux-Jones (July 2019)
Amount of Historical Material
There is further research to do and these sources to check for more detail: New Forest Knowledge website Significant amount of information relating to WW2 and D-Day in numerous books relating to WW2 history, websites, oral histories. Cadland Estate, landowner covering Mopley and Calshot. ExxonMobil archives - Fawley Refinery Anglo Gulf West Indies Archive – Fawley Refinery Waterside Heritage Southampton City Archives National Archives Hampshire Archives
References
Nfknowledge.org – WW2/D-Day http://www.combinedops.com/PLUTO_resurrected2.htm - Salvage of PLUTO
http://www.combinedops.com/PLUTO%20IN%20FAWLEY.htm – map of piperun
Lepe Country Park – WW2
National Archives – WW2
www.watercolourworld – Calshot saltworks
“Waterside, a pictorial past”, Clare and Fred Murphy, pub. Ensign
“Fawley and the Southern Waterside, Clare Murley and Graham Parkes, pub. Waterside Heritage
Wikipedia
https://www.hants.gov.uk/thingstodo/countryside/finder/calshotmarshes
http://www.calm.hants.gov.uk/Overview.aspx?s=Calshot
www.geog.port.ac.uk
www.maps.nls.uk
https://fawleychurch.org.uk/allsaintschurch/
Historic Route and Past Pathways Project
Nov 2019
Dear Parish liaison / Parish Clerk
I thought I would get in touch to give you a brief progress report.
Project summary The NFNPA will work with partner organisations, local communities and volunteers to investigate existing rights of way and identify those with significant historical importance within the New Forest National Park.
From the existing rights of way network five new trails or self-guided walks will be established. These trails will be formed of existing rights of way; where possible with significant history, high connectivity, easy access and with a local story to tell.
Through innovative, imaginative and appropriate interpretation the aims are to promote a greater understanding of the heritage and importance of these rights of way to local communities and users along with their continued benefit as sustainable travel links and green corridors of the future.
Communities will be encouraged to become engaged with the heritage of their local rights of way supporting people to feel a greater connection with the past.
Project update The Steering Group have now made their selection of the five new trail locations. These are: 1. Ell-Harb-Ibs - Rockford Common 2. Exb and Lepe & Fawley - Lepe to Fawley V2 3. Fordingbridge & Hyde - Stuckton Iron Works V2 4. Marchwood - Carters Lane 5. Totton and Eling & Netley Marsh - Tatchbury Mount
• 95% of the selected rights of way have been surveyed • Initial Summaries of Historical Potential drafted
Local history groups Project information has been sent to local history groups with a request for help and an invite to get involved. So far only the one, the Waterside Heritage Group, has got in touch.
It would be a huge shame and oversight not to gain their involvement during the final research phase and production of the trail’s interpretation. If you have any contact with or for your local group/s could you possibly contact them to see if they would like to get involved? Please do pass on my contact details.
Landowners I am still trying to contact all landowners for consultations. A small number of landowners have got in touch following the last update, a huge thank you for passing on details.
There are however several landowners that still need to be contacted and initial discussions had. If you can please do pass on project info along with my contact details. Thank you.
Local involvement I’m keen to discover if there are any parishioners (‘locals’) that may have memories (first, second, third hand etc.) of these old routes being used e.g. drove ways (moving livestock), smuggler routes, old ‘roads’ that are now footpaths, military manoeuvres during WWII etc.
Also, good local folk stories, tales and myths as well as local songs… please pass on my contact details and encourage anyone with a story to tell to get in touch.
Next phase of work I’m now pulling together all the survey data to produce ‘job sheets’ for each trail. These will identify areas that we, in conjunction with Hampshire Access Team, would like to look at for possible works and/or improvement. This includes things like surface improvements, stile repair and/or replacement, RoW signage repair and/or replacement as well as areas that may benefit from improved signage (or some signage at all). I’m also looking at stiles that could be changed over to gates - subject to landowner approval.
I’m now looking for volunteers interested in: • digging much deeper into the trail’s past (History research team) • exploring the flora and fauna of the trails (Flora and Fauna team) • able to pull varied histories and facts together to tell a good tale while on a good walk (Guided walk leaders) • joining a team to produce engaging written content for website and walking guides (Interpretation team) • recording audio material to produce audio content such as Oral Histories, Podcasts and other audio programming (Sound team) • still keen to be in the good old outdoors doing practical tasks on the trail routes (Works team).
If you have any questions, would like to know more, can offer input or get involved please do get in touch.
Yours
Gareth
Gareth Owen ACIfA New Forest National Park Authority Historic Routes and Past Pathways Project Officer Direct Line: 01590 646652 Mobile: 07880 383988 Email: [email protected]
Our Past, Our Future A Landscape Partnership Scheme funded by the HLF http://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/LandscapePartnership
Follow the archaeology team on Twitter: https://twitter.com/newforestarch
New Forest Remembers WWI & WWII Projects Visit the project’s online archive: www.newforestheritage.org