| Shirley (Southampton) |
| Shirley is an extremely busy and popular suburb of
Southampton and lies to the west of the city centre. It has its own
Police station, post office and is an excellent shopping centre where
you can buy just about anything from a new car down to a tin tack! Most
of the residents work either in the area itself or in the city centre
and other areas around the city, there are plenty of commercial and
industrial businesses in Shirley to offer employment, the largest must
be the local Health Authority as the Southampton General Hospital which
is a teaching hospital is on the edge of Shirley, another big employer
is the Ordnance Survey at Maybush corner. The parish church is St James which is just off of Winchester Road with its tall spire. A well known figure in Shirley was Robert Ashby who was born in 1887 it was he who helped to form the Shirley branch of the Church Lads Brigade and he retired from being active in it in 1949 but nearly two thousand boys came to join him and he was awarded the CBE in 1937. Ashby died in 1962 but he will always be remembered for his sterling work with the young lads of the area. There used to be mill once on the junction of Romsey Road and Winchester Road which got its power from three ponds the mill stream then ran into the River Test. This was during the early part of the 19th century when the village centre was a little further west. There was also an iron works that was made into a brewery in 1880 and it was taken ovr by the Royal Mail Line in 1907 and became a laundry to service the ships of the line. There is still one pond here though Shirley Pond, which is on the right at the bottom of Winchester Road and next to a cycle speedway track behind a car sales. Next door is the Old Thatch public house which seems a little out of place as it is the only thatched building for miles, and suffered a serious fire in the 1990s,the Blacksmiths Arms stands on the opposite corner. A new shopping precinct was build a few years ago and this has recently been modernised with a new supermarket being added and new street furniture (the furniture has been replaced right up past the police station in recent years) and here can be seen a drinking fountain which in 1837 was originally in the High Street. A few years ago I worked as a barman in the Ice House in Warren Avenue which is where the ice from the ponds mentioned above was stored during the winter. On leaving Shirley on the western side you come into Millbrook and Maybush, where there is a huge housing estate that stretches down to Millbrook Road.
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