Hammer lies between Bramshott and Lynchmere near the Hampshire, Sussex and Surrey boundaries and it is on the outskirts of Haselmere, in times gone by it was known as Pophole and it is thought this came about through the Romans that had a camp here next to the stream that runs through the area, and as they busied themselve making their weapons and tool all the noise of hammering must have echoed around the surrounding hills and this gave rise to the name of the village.

Birch Brooms and brick making were two of the main trades around here in the 1700s as the natural materials for the brooms were plentiful and the Broom 'Dashers' as they were called produced an extremely high quality product. They were so popular that they were loaded on to cars and transport to London which was a four day return jouney that included a stop at Kingston to rest the horses.

John Grover who was a builder in Kent in 1898 went to visit his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at Hindhead and a chance remark that it was like a 'Little Switzerland'  because there was not much here except heather and pines, had the builders imagination running riot and he dreamed of developing the area as a health resor. He was lucky that he had acquired the brickworks at Hammer and while clearing away soil there he found a bed of blue and yellow clay. The yellow clay was used to make the bricks and the blue to make tiles.

Soon Hammer brickworks was in full swing and thousands of machine made  bricks were being manufactured here. The demand was tremendous and in East London the slums were being cleared and rebuilt and demanded more new bricks, this soon led to the belt of clay running    out and the works transferred to Hambledon.

The nearby post office had a sentry box, which was a replica of those outside of Buckingham Palace, standing beside it and it is said that the postman used to use it as shelter while waiting to start his round!

The village has changed over the decades and family names old times gone by can still be found here, the community spirit is high as the villagers look out for each other and the village shop is no more and more houses are being built in the village

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The three counties of Hampshire, 
Surrey and Sussex meet
in Hammer. Strictly speaking it's 
Hammer Vale that's in Hampshire. 

I'm standing in Sussex, my back to the sun, and Hampshire proclaims, on the left, it's begun - but see to the right, not quite out of sight, the county of Surrey's extreme south west bight. At Pophole by Hammer these three counties meet, and under the bridge runs the River Wey's sweet southern arm on its course, decked with green budding hems, by Tilford and Guildford to old father Thames.

The above photos and text are courtesy of John Owen-Smith