Our brother-in-law Ron Salinger sent me an e-mail yesterday alerting me to a mention of our house in the New Milton Advertiser. We therefore bought a copy from Ferndene Farm Shop, and continued into the forest on a much brighter, more sun-sparkly morning than the miserable looking afternoon featured more recently along Christchurch Road below.
This set of pictures, gathered on a gleaming Braggers Lane, exemplifies the glittering foliage we enjoyed throughout the lanes we traversed, and demonstrates that summer has no intention of yielding to autumn just yet.
The seasonal conflict is most apparent in ferns and bracken, some of which remain stubbornly verdant and others curl in submission.
Grasses show signs of age and of youth.
Trees are not yet prepared to shed their leaves, although
pannage pigs would enjoy rooting among the varied mast dropped beneath them.
After lunch I applied myself to the newspaper article.
Forming part of Reflections: The A337 – story of a road well-travelled (part two) by Nick Saunders on https://www.advertiserandtimes.co.uk, the article suggests that the core of our much periodically updated house is older than we had thought.
Of the A337 from Christchurch Mr Saunders writes: ‘When the road crossed over the Danestream it also crossed the boundary into Hordle Parish. Here, too, the road has been realigned. The 1841 map shows a dog-leg junction at the crossroads with the Royal Oak Inn. The hostelry, recorded on the tithe map, was an important staging post for the horse-drawn transport of the 1800s. It was here that the mail could be collected along with goods and supplies brought to the area by wagon, and horses could be changed or given a rest and water.
The cottages on the entrance to Downton beside the car sales premises have an 1897 date stone and, therefore, would not have been something the traveller from 1841 would recognise. Opposite the inn was the blacksmith’s forge and house. In 1958 the junction was straightened out by demolishing a cottage and taking a large slice of the blacksmith’s garden.
Just a little to the east is the old post office, possibly built in the 1850s or later. (my italics). The tithe map shows the post office of 1841 on the road to Hordle village.’
We have https://derrickjknight.com/2015/07/23/an-historic-view/ of the house from probably earlier than the 1930s.
The changes undergone since the 1960s are detailed in https://derrickjknight.com/2014/07/30/friths-postcards/
This evening we dined on moist roast lamb, boiled new potatoes, crunchy carrots, firm cauliflower, tender green beans and meaty gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.