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Photo kindly
contributed by Zed and Ilma Malunat, Tasmania |
Visiting the New Forest and not calling in at
Brockenhurst is sacrilege! This must be one of the prettiest and most
popular stopping places in the forest. The name came from Broceste and
the Domesday Survey shows four small Saxon mansions in the area,
Hinchelsea, Brochelie, Mapleham and Broceste.
Out of the four, Mapleham has long gone but
Hinchelsea, still exists and Brochelie has now become Brookley and
was once an important weekly market and a fair was held on an annual
basis, Rhinefield House was the main house there.
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THE BROCKENHURST WHEEL
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Mounted with this brickwork plinth
behind the wheel, is a cast iron tyre plate recovered from the site
of the village forge which stood at the junction of Brookley Road
and Lyndhurst
Road. The forge was demolished in 1915 when the island shop was
built and the tyre plate was found in 1988, about 8" below the
surface, when the area was being improved. It was on a lorry to be taken away for scrap when found by a resident,
rescued and then stored by the Parish Council until placed here.
The plate was used to hold the wooden wheel while a hot metal
tyre was fitted, usually by three men working with long handled
tongs, who eased the tyre on with levers and blows from a sledge
hammer, while applying water to prevent the wooden rim from
burning. The wheel was made and paid for by the
Friends of Brockenhurst and the plinth was designed and
constructed by New Forest District Council in 1994. |
A typical street scene in Brockenhurst are the ponies who
have right of way on the roads.
During the summer season the village can become
a bottle neck with holiday traffic building up, and getting stuck with
the railway crossing on the main road. But this is a beautiful area of
the forest and it well worth going and having a look at the thatched
cottages, Rhinefield House and the church which lies on a hill on the
outskirts of the village, a road leads to it from the Lymington side
of the railway crossing. And this little church has some rather
pleasant surprises in store, not only with the large oak in crutches
and the yew tree which is 17ft round and hollow and still not given up
life after a thousand years! Go round the back of the church and down
the path through the graveyard, and you will find the huge NZ memorial
there and the burial place of Brusher Mills the famous snake catcher.
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| The above is a view
of Watersgreen Brockenhurst, the left hand image is from a
postcard sent to New Zealand by Francis Martin who was a patient
at No1 NZ (Gen) Hospital to his family, while the other shows it
today. T he two detached houses on the left of the postcard has
now be turned into one building and is now a hotel, the house to
the far left is still in existence |
Inside the church is a plain chancel arch,
the foundation stone and the font are all from the Norman period
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| The Grave of
Brusher
Mills, who was a familiar figure in the New Forest, his name came
from the way he brushed the cricket ground between innings and
he earned his living by a rather peculiar way, catching snakes
and shipped them up to London Zoo as food for other animals. |
| The memorial whichs stands out more
is the New Zealand memorial that was erected to commemorate one
hundred New Zealand soldiers who died in Brockenhurst when the
village hosted No.1
NEW ZEALAND GENERAL HOSPITAL during the
First World War. A Meerut Indian
General Hospital was here before the Kiwis came and was at Balmer Lawn, and Lady Hardinge's hospital which had 500 beds for
Indians. Caste distinctions were respected and
there was a cremation ground for Hindus.
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ST. SAVIOURS CHURCH
 St. Saviour's
can be found not far from the "Watersplash".The oribinal idea of the donors, Lieut.-Commander and Mrs. E. L.
Walker-Munro, was to construct a private chapel for their
residence, Rhinefield House, after its completion in 1890. But the
Walker-Munro's were persuaded a much larger church would be more
beneficial to the village and work began in 1895. The expense seem to
escalate as the church was being built and in 1903 work was stopped and
a temporary wall constructed at its western end. The church was opened
for worship two years later and because of the generosity of the donors
grandsons work was restarted in 1960, and the present structure
completed a year later.
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On the approach to Brockenhurst from Lyndhurst
a large expanse of ground with a large house behind a cricket
pitch can be seen, this is Balmer Lawn Hotel, originally
constructed in the middle of the 19th century as a hunting lodge.
It was once a part of the No1 (Gen) NZ Hospital during WWI and
Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery took over the Balmer Lawn hotel
as their operations headquarters for the invasion of Europe in
1944. |
No.1
NEW ZEALAND GENERAL HOSPITAL
HISTORY
OF ST NICHOLAS'S CHURCH
HISTORY
OF RHINEFIELD HOUSE
HISTORY
OF ST SAVIOUR'S CHURCH
THE
STORY OF BRUSHER MILLS
IMAGES OF
BROCKENHURST
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The Ford in the High Street
Brockenhurst, note the ponies in the centre of
the road |
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Three views of Rhinefield House,
now a Hotel |
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| St
Nicholas church |
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The
New Zealand memorial |
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| Plaque
to New Zealand soldiers in St Nicholas's church |
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"In
this grave are buried 3 unknown Belgian civilians" |
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Look what we found in the
churchyard! Sadly we think it was dying as it did
not offer any resistance which is very unusual
for a grey squirrel, even when we put it down on
the ground it just played with our shoes. (Yep!
Folks! That's Chris! The one in the glasses that
is! Not the grey furry one!!) |
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