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West Moors
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| ... 1923 GROUPING: ALL CHANGE - BUT NO CHANGE! During the Great War that ended in November 1918, the railways of this country were co-ordinated through a body called the Railway Executive Committee (REC). Formed in 1914 on the outbreak of war, it managed the 'strategic' affairs of over 100 privately-owned companies across Britain - leaving the individual concerns to sort out day-to-day operations. At the end of the war, it was thought that the advantages of such broad coordination should continue with outright nationalisation considered. However, the Liberal government of Lloyd-George pursued a policy of encouraging amalgamation of railway networks on a regional basis and in the Railways Act of 1921 (also known as the 'Grouping Act'), four concerns took over the majority of operations on 1st January 1923: the Great Western [GWR], London & North-Eastern [LNER], London, Midland & Scottish [LMSR] and Southern [SR] railways. |
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The London & South Western Railway
(LSWR) became part of (and some would argue the dominant constituent part of)
the latter concern. It is a moot point whether they actually reaped any benefit
by this move. The LSWR was a large concern, with railway operations covering a
great swathe of the prosperous & growing south-western suburbs of London,
together with much of central-southern and south-western England; they owned
hotels, they ran ferries, ports [ they wholly-owned Southampton Docks ], bus
services etc., and much like their main rival, the Great Western, they had
enough traffic & commercial activity to survive alone. They were very much
a 'forward-looking' concern, profitable (over 40% dividend returns to
shareholders until the Great War) and innovative. For example, they were
vigorous promoters of electric traction - they introduced the use of track
circuiting to monitor train positions - and were developing some fine
locomotives. In 1922, the LSWR opened the Feltham marshalling yard equipped
with electrically controlled switches and employing hump-shunting: well ahead
of its time. However, it is undoubtedly true that by bringing the LSWR, the South-Eastern & Chatham Railways (SE&CR; itself a combination of two concerns) and the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) into common ownership, important coordination around suburban London south of the Thames was achieved: also, though it could not have been foreseen at the time, the unified 'Southern' network was to prove invaluable during the Second World War. |
| For local staff at West Moors and surrounding stations I doubt that the move caused too much concern - for the very good reason that Waterloo was still 'HQ' and in this magnificent citadel of railway enterprise, the first General Manager of the Southern Railway was Sir Herbert Walker, who had held the same post with the LSWR since 1912, and indeed had also held the chairmanship of the REC during its final years from 1917: given that Sir Herbert would remain with the Southern until his retirement in 1937 (continuing as a director until 1947) - this represented an admirable continuity of management of around a quarter-of-a-century, something that might be copied today! |  |
| However, the fading of the "South Western" railway name and
organisation that had lasted for some 90 years (far longer than its successors,
the Southern Railway & British Railways) must have been accompanied with
some sadness by those long in its employ. An interesting aside here: modern-day modellers and those with nostalgia for 'old' railways fondly remember an era when 'SR', 'GWR', 'LNER' & 'LMS' were the railways of this country. Yet, apart from the Great Western (GWR), all the others were very short-lived affairs, and this was certainly the case as noted above in the case of the LSWR. |
| On a practical level, the first visible changes for staff, passengers
and other users of the Junction was the name on the timetables, tickets,
waybills, etc., though I suspect the old LSWR tickets lasted for a little while
given that they would have been printed (and accounted for) in large batches.
You couldn't just 'pulp' such tickets without making a real mess of the
accounts! The next changes were of course to the logo carried by the locomotives & their livery. The engines of the LSWR were out-shopped in various 'deep' green colours - the 'holly' green variant (for goods engines) indeed looked near-black! As they were rotated through the engineering shops after 1923 for routine maintenance, the colour for passenger locomotives was changed to a similar (though slightly lighter) variant: olive green. Freight engines continued with the LSWR style for some time. The schemes were finished off with black underframes and wheels with some white lining. The numbers on the engines weren't changed immediately - to avoid confusion with the same numbers elsewhere on the unified network, prefix letters ('A' for Ashford [SE&CR area], 'B' for Brighton [LBSCR] & 'E' for Eastleigh [LSWR]) were added before the original number. This came to an end in 1931 when the entire fleet was re-numbered. |
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This locomotive, an 'N' class [2-6-0, mixed traffic], was originally designed by Richard Maunsell for work on the South-Eastern & Chatham Railway, one of the constituents of the Southern. The type was first run in operational service around the end of the Great War and after grouping, the Southern produced more of this powerful type - there were 80 in all - and used them across the system. Bournemouth shed had an allocation, so these would certainly have been seen running through West Moors on mixed freight, GPO van runs, some passenger work etc; however this particular example, number 1407 (almost the last of the type) is here seen at Exmouth Junction shed, the principal LSWR / SR motive power depot for the south-west of England, just west of the City of Exeter. Note the style of lettering & numbering on the tender. |
| Most of the lines in Dorset and SW Hampshire came under the
supervision of the Southampton District, which was one of three such districts
in the 'Western' Section of SR (roughly corresponding to the LSWR constituent
company), the others being Exeter & London (West): elsewhere on the
Southern, the old LBSCR lines became the 'Central' Section and SECR network the
'Eastern' Section. Perhaps the most enduring change, one that lasted well into the era of British Railways, was the (slight) change to the pre-cast signage scattered around the railway. In the case of the L & SWR area this was straightforward and a few examples can be seen to this day: in the sequence ' L & S W R ', the letters L and W, and the ampersand were simply painted out - leaving the 'S' and 'R' to be highlighted in white. |
| ... RAILWAY TRAFFIC, OPERATIONS & COMPETITION: During the 1920s, road transport had been making slow but steady inroads into the goods and passenger traffic of Britain's railways - particularly the latter element. However, the intensity of competition between road and rail increased during the 1930s to such a level, particularly for freight operations, that senior railway management complained to government of the unfair advantages that small & medium sized hauliers had over the railway companies: the latter had to maintain all their own infrastructure - even in sparsely trafficked areas, whilst road users paid a fraction of the upkeep of the road network directly - though of course it had to be paid for more generally out of taxation. But it meant that road hauliers could significantly undercut rail prices and abstract traffic. This didn't affect 'volume' movements, such as coal, steel, minerals, bulk postal transfer etc., where the railways were the only viable method of movement: it would be well into the 1970s, with the vastly improved & extended motorway network & increased 'all-up' weight allowance of lorries, that such movements would leave the railway. It is instructive to look at the figures for car ownership and the numbers of buses registered during this period [ approximate numbers only ] |
| Year: | Cars registered: | Buses / Coaches licenced: |
| 1918 | ~77 000 | - |
| 1920 | ~ 187 000 | - |
| 1921 | - | ~ 700 |
| 1930 | ~ 1 056 000 | ~ 5000 |
| 1938 | - | ~ 55 000 |
| 1939 | ~ 2 034 000 | - |
| The introduction of motor cars for private use was slow initially,
gathering pace through the thirties, followed of course by an abrupt halt with
the outbreak of the Second World War; in the two years after 1918, the number
of private cars had more than doubled and by 1930 over a million cars were
registered across the United Kingdom. The number doubled again by 1939, a
dramatic increase as mass production and a measure of returning prosperity
(after the Great Depression) became effective. However, the majority of working folk could NOT afford a car, so it was the train, bus or bicycle for them. Bus numbers grew rapidly: the 1930s especially saw a dramatic rise in bus and coach provision, as well as much-needed tighter regulation; as the figures (above) show, by the last full year of peace in 1938, there were well over 50 000 licensed public service vehicles (PSV) on the roads of Britain - approximately a ninety-fold increase in the two-decade inter-war era. The increase in availability of cars and buses started the 'sprawl' of development away from town centres that we are familiar with today. |
| Services for passengers through West Moors Junction in these
'inter-war' years served what was still a small community reasonably well.
Indeed, in 1923 an additional service was added to the Salisbury line schedule;
the lines through the village (and the signalman) were very busy at this time.
Nine down (towards Wimborne, Dorchester & Bournemouth) trains came daily
(Monday - Saturday) off the Salisbury line, of which 7 were passenger and 2
goods; in the reverse direction, 6 passenger, 2 goods and one milk train. On the old 'main line' the main passenger traffic pattern was to operate a shuttle Brockenhurst - Ringwood - West Moors - Wimborne - Broadstone - Poole - Bournemouth (West or Central), and this would essentially remain the way of things for the rest of the line's 40-odd year life, though with shorter workings at the beginning and end of the day. One interesting train in these inter-war years reminded those who knew of the Southampton & Dorchester Railway of old: one direct Waterloo - Weymouth passenger train was routed this way (though not stopping at West Moors). |
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| This map shows the network of railway lines in these inter-war years; there were changes of course. In 1933, the line connecting Corfe Mullen Junction with Wimborne was taken out of service - its passenger trains had ceased in 1920 and only limited goods traffic had been using this link. It was at one time part of the principal (and earliest) railway links in this part of the county. And in 1935, another old stalwart of the system was shut down - the Ringwood to Christchurch link, long since bypassed by both the 'old road' into Bournemouth (West), via West Moors, and then in the 1880s by the 'direct' line via Sway and Hinton Admiral. |
| Other services, though not of direct benefit to the station, were the
use of the Salisbury line for peak-summer trains to/from Bristol and South
Wales - not just holiday traffic though: during the Depression years of the
early 1930s, (and to a certain extent up to the outbreak of war in 1939), there
was a significant movement of men who worked in the prosperous south coast
'holiday' industry, but who lived in Wales or the West of England, and
travelled to/from their homes Sundays, Fridays or Saturdays - with additional
revenue for the Southern. The 'Old Road' was also used to by-pass the line through Bournemouth in high-summer traffic patterns - something that carried on right to the end of the line's life in the 1960s. |
| With finances under pressure, railway management looked to alter
train operations to save money. The classic 'train', passenger or goods,
consisted of an engine at the front - the 'train' of wagons / carriages and for
freight working, a guards/brake van at the rear. There was little to be done
about loose-coupled goods working: the very nature of the 'beast' meant that
whilst the railway offered 'small-to-medium' volume freight movement (also
known as 'sundries'), wagons would need to be attached/detached at stations
along the way - a time intensive operation. The 'problem' would be solved quite
simply around the end of the 1960s: abolish the traffic and leave it to road
hauliers! Passenger trains though could be altered, and on the 'Old Road', to save money 'push-pull' operation was introduced in 1933. To avoid having to run the engine around the train at the end of each run (and turn it so the driver/fireman didn't have to work 'backwards' on half the journeys), the engine remains at the end of the two or three carriages (rarely any more), with the rear carriage specially adapted to contain a control cab at the opposite end of the train. When required to run 'driving cab' first, the driver controls the train using very basic controls, coupled to the engine via mechanical linkage (wires) or pneumatic action. In addition, there is usually a bell (or similar) signalling system so that the fireman can be told to operate controls on the engine that the driver does not have access to. If the train is heading in the direction in which the locomotive end of the train is facing, this is considered 'pulling'. If the train is heading in the opposite direction, this is considered 'pushing'. The introduction of push-pull operation on the Old Road meant that there was little if any 'through working' beyond Brockenhurst. If you wanted to go further, you needed to change at either Poole or Brockenhurst and join the Weymouth - Bournemouth (Central) - Southampton & Waterloo services. |
| Despite what was, by the standards of the time, a more
than adequate service on the railway, bus operation aggressively captured a
larger portion of the local travelling traffic. By the late 1920s, there was a
much increased frequency of service with broadly cheaper fares than the
equivalent rail journey and more convenient picking-up/setting-down points,
especially when comparing the major termini. The 1926 General Strike, though
only lasting nine days, was solidly observed by railwaymen but hardly at all by
local bus operators. As in later years (the 1950s especially) such national
strikes further eroded the travelling public's confidence & reliance on the
railway network. Despite all this, the resilience of the railways was remarkable - and as this diagram shows, during the latter half of the 1930s, railway passenger traffic actually rose after the dip during the Depression years - fuelled by a desire to get out and about as a renewed prosperity took hold. |
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| In 1928, Parliament passed legislation which allowed railway companies to buy into existing bus and coach operations and all four railway concerns did so: in the local area, Southern Railway took up a 50% share in both Hants and Dorset & Wilts and Dorset (at the time two separate companies). Although this helped soften the financial pressure of 'road vs. rail', it did nothing for coordination of services: each form of transport essentially lived a life apart from each other! |
* via Verwood |
Example of a typical bus timetable for 1926:
the journey to / from Bournemouth was via Ferndown,
Longham, Kinson & Moordown. This
service was provided by Hants & Dorset Motor Services Ltd(+) and was
part of a run that terminated at Ringwood. The journey time
to/from Bournemouth is scheduled at 50 minutes, which is comparable to that of
modern timetables, but of course the vehicles in the 1920s (and for a few
decades after) were heavy and cumbersome and the roads not as perfectly
surfaced as we are used to. Allowing for these factors, the timing is really
very good! There was a later service departing Bournemouth but it ran down the
A31(T) towards Ringwood. [ (+): Hants and Dorset had started life, in 1916, as Bournemouth & District Motor Services, being renamed Hants & Dorset in 1920. This particular service was one of their original 'stage carriage' routes, having started life in 1919. The Hants and Dorset name lasted until the 1980s, when UK bus operations were privatised (again) and the erstwhile H & D service area is now served by, amongst others, YellowBus & Wilts and Dorset. ] |
| Although passenger traffic was under threat, goods traffic thrived - slightly at odds with what was happening elsewhere across the nation. Several local nurseries, small-holders, piggeries, poultry farms etc., used the station to have their wares taken to local customers as well as further afield. Stewart's plant nursery was a huge concern and still a good customer of the railway, exporting trees, shrubs & other plants to many points across the south of England. And of course inward 'small packet' services were also catered for: offloaded at the station and ferried to businesses and private homes by carrier or collected at the station. In 1924, freight traffic, dealt with by the daily 'pick-up' goods was actually noted as "thriving" & increasing, and there is no reason to doubt that this carried on for many years yet. |
| ... RAILWAY LIFE: Around 1938, the name of the station was formally changed to reflect the rapid growth of our near neighbour: on station signage, "West Moors for Ferndown" appeared, and on timetables, either the words 'for Ferndown' were squashed in underneath the 'West Moors', or the station name was annotated with a 'reference' letter informing passengers that this was the station 'for Ferndown'. Contemporary accounts confirm what was a common experience elsewhere across the nation: railway life was a family concern - this was pointed out in my previous sections, but here in the 1920s and 1930s, the same names crop up time and time again. One example that resonates through the whole of our history - since the 1840s in fact - is that of Jacobs. Plenty of that name around, but whilst 'Dad' Jacobs is working in East Anglia on the railway there, his wife is living with several children in the crossing lodge at Newman's Lane - and it is she who is the crossing keeper; I understand that this was not at all unusual! One of their sons would soon enter railway employment down the line at the Junction station as a porter. By the mid-1930s, more motor cars, lorries and buses were now using Station Road and the frequent opening and closing of the gates must have been a source of irritation. The gates needed to be closed for several minutes at a time - well before any train was due. Unlike today's automatic crossing barriers which are set to a fairly close tolerance of train passage, in a purely manned system, the gates would have to be closed as soon as trains were accepted from the block post adjacent, allowing for the speed of travel of the unit. Analysis of the timetables of the time indicate that there would have been at least 40 routine movements across the Station Road crossing in the day (first use around 5 a.m. right through to 9.30 p.m.), with some trains running close to each other; if one was late, the signalman would have to leave the gates closed to accommodate the railway traffic. Mind you, if it was irksome in peace-time, in the coming war, after February 1943, the gates would see even more 'active service'! More in the next section. |
| ... PASSENGER SERVICES JUST BEFORE SECOND WORLD WAR: The 1938 summer timetable (see below) demonstrates why rail travel was not everyone's first choice of mode of travel in this last full year before the War. Regularity and convenience are questionable facets of these train movements. For example, the times of departure of trains bound for Bournemouth on any Monday to Saturday were 0814, 0909, 1012, 1131, 1234 (but 1247 Saturdays), 1337, 1436 (but 1455 Saturdays), 1538, 1641 (but 1644 Saturdays), 1805, 1827, 1921, 2104 & 2128; hardly a memorable sequence. And if you wanted to have an evening out in Bournemouth, you could get there in reasonable fashion: the 1805 getting to Bournemouth (West) at 1847, a journey time of 42 minutes running via Wimborne, Broadstone & Poole. But you'd have to have a speedy 'turnaround' the town and run quickly back to West station to catch the last regular train to West Moors at 1943! There was a later train (departing West at 2055), but it only went as far as West Moors on Wednesdays and Saturdays - hardly the thing for a relaxed evening out. However, if your destination was London then you had two very good options: up to Salisbury and catch the fast 'West of England' expresses from Exeter, or run down to Brockenhurst and join the 'main line' trains out of Bournemouth (Central) on their way to Southampton, Winchester, Basingstoke, Woking and Waterloo. |
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| ... WEST MOORS VILLAGE: 1920s AND 1930s: West Moors between the two world wars was, I should imagine, a relatively 'comfortable' village to live in. There had been an influx of reasonably prosperous folk - often recently retired and the shops and other services would have been more than adequate for their wants: from just one doctor in 1927 [Dr. Henry Hadden/Woodside Road] to two in separate (though apparently adjacent) houses by 1939 in the area of Station Road on/near the corner with Glenwood Road. The village also had a resident District Nurse by this date - Miss Dodd, in Braeside Road. West Moors was also a pleasant place to live: cars there were, but hardly the continuous stream we have today - and lorries were a novelty and much smaller than we are used to today; children could play in roads with little fear of being mown down! The nearby moorland was largely open country - long walks across to Holt or Woolsbridge were a Sunday afternoon activity - and general access to land was very relaxed: as long as you didn't interfere with livestock etc., local farmers were quite willing to see youngsters tramp down to the nearby streams for a hot summer's day dip. In terms of population and dwellings, the village grew at a steady, but unspectacular rate in the twenties and thirties. A 'best estimate' of numbers living within the 'modern' parish boundary by the end of the thirties would be around 1200 souls. Whilst this is a small number when compared with modern-times (circa 7500 by 2010), it was large enough to support the shops, banks (2), several coal merchants, hairdressers and other traders here; the local farms (e.g. Hatchard's and West Moors) provided dairy produce via door-to-door delivery. In fact, according to Deryck Wiseman in 'West Moors for Ferndown', in the early 1930s there were two such milk-rounds (Hatchard & Cape) serving the district, until both were bought out around 1936 by Mr. Davis Briginshaw. [A milk round survives to this day - though much reduced of course & serviced from Ringwood]. On the 3rd March, 1922, the process of giving West Moors its own identity was advanced: after being part of the ecclesiastical parish of Verwood, Three Legged Cross & West Moors since 1910 (and earlier of course subsumed as the northern part of West Parley parish), the Reverend Charles Cox, who had been 'Priest-in-Charge' since 1917 took the full title of 'Vicar of West Moors'. [It would be another 34 years before the 'temporal' authorities caught up with these moves and granted West Moors 'independent' civil parish status.] |
| The focus of residential development lay well to the
south and southeast of the railway along Station Road (villas, some cottages
& bungalows), along Pinehurst Road (mainly larger villas) and offshoots and
across what was known as Priory Common. Further shops were built (and existing
ones re-vamped) along Station Road - though by 1939, only the Post
Office/Stores is available at the 'Ringwood Road' end of the village. There are builders & allied trades available in the village throughout this period; often a builder would buy several plots of land, build a house for himself and develop the remaining plots for re-sale. In this way growth was steady but not excessive. Also at this time, the character of new builds was changing; although larger houses were constructed, the first of the (then) new bungalows appeared - more suited to the smaller households of retired people. |
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| This illuminating report is contained in an issue of 'The Railway Magazine' of 1924 (quoted by Robert Adley in his book ... "Out of Steam"): " The higher portions of the village on the south-eastern side have been strongly recommended by medical men to invalids requiring a bracing and invigorating atmosphere, and it is on these open spaces on the Bournemouth side of the railway that the village must eventually grow. The uninterrupted view of several miles from this point is very beautiful, especially in the early summer and autumn when the heather is in full bloom on the open moors, with the background of the fine verdure of the New Forest in the distance. " This map is dated around the time of this article .... |
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This 'higher portion ... on the southeastern side" must relate to tracts of land then either moorland or open farmland along Pinehurst Road. It was most illuminating studying maps of the period up to the early 1930s in respect of Pinehurst Road: whereas scattered dwellings of some substance appear as early as the 1901/02 maps on the western 'leg' of the Road (i.e. near the village centre), there is a notable division by 1910, perpetuated a decade later, around the modern-day junction with Heathfield Road. East of this line, no dwellings of any description are shown (though we know that gypsy folk used the area now occupied by the cemetery as temporary encampments). The sharp change may have something to do with ownership of the land; there are references in later years to the Shaftesbury estate at this end of West Moors, whereas further west, the Fryers, the Greatheads / Oldfields (Uddens estate) & the Salisburys are the main landowners. |
| In 1924, land covering a large slice of St. Leonard's Common was sold
by the Salisbury estate to Harry and Job Brewer for further development - and
it is from this time and into the 1930s that housing is constructed deeper into
the ex-moorland, such as Firs Glen Road, Braeside Road (connecting Moorlands
and Glenwood roads - built by Mr. Manners) and some at the top of Oakhurst
Road. There was also continued building of individual villas & cottages
along Pinehurst Road. Another sign of the growth of the village was that in 1927, St. Mary's parish church was extended & by this time, if not earlier, a village constable is in residence in Ashurst Road. In 1924, to provide a place of worship for the Roman Catholic community, a wooden church was built on the site of the modern-day RC church on Pinehurst Road - this was always intended to be a temporary measure, and in 1928, a somewhat sturdier structure was built - with the name 'St. Anthony of Padua'. [ This church in turn was replaced by the current building in 1976.] And Pinehurst Road gained another church in 1925: a wooden church, which had been in use at Mannington Heath was re-located to the spot which is now just opposite to the 'southern' turning for Woolslope Road. It was apparently an attempt to encourage the near-by gypsy community to attend church but in general was used by villagers in Pinehurst Road and its offshoots. This wooden structure was pulled down in 2000 & the site is now occupied by a bungalow. [ I'm not sure why it was thought that the travelling community should have used this Anglican facility; all that I have read suggests that they followed the 'old' religion more akin to that of Roman Catholicism.] The Memorial Hall (in memory of those who died in the Great War, 1914-1918) was finally opened in 1929, replacing an old army hut that had occupied the site since 1920 as a temporary feature and allowing the 'Iron Room' to be 'relegated' for use as an extension for church activities and an overflow room for the school - often known as the 'Church room'. When it was first proposed to build such a village hall, this site would have been reasonably close to the centre of the village: now of course, it is decidedly 'out of place'! On the subject of the school, numbers attending had dropped to around 75 by 1925, probably the result of three private schools being available in the village - itself a sign of greater wealth coming to the community. However, by 1929, numbers of children attending had picked up to 90, with the old 'Iron Room' being pressed into use repeatedly. By 1935, Ferndown, a rapidly growing community, gained a secondary school for all children aged 11 upwards, and West Moors children would have attended the 'senior' school in Ferndown under the then current 'two-tier' system. In 1932, the cemetery in Priory Road was opened - taking over from the small churchyard in the village. This was land, as already noted, vacated by gypsy folk who settled in the Oakhurst & Elmhurst road area. The former graveyard off the Avenue was always going to be too small - and with residential development hemming the churchyard in, room for expansion was limited. Incidentally, the current graveyard has now expanded into adjacent land. |
| ... UTILITY SERVICES FOR A GROWING VILLAGE: Mains drainage was still not available for the steadily growing village - and this would not arrive until the 1960s. Some of the older cottages had 'soakaways' to cope with household effluent - or the waste was 'dug in' to the garden: this applied to the station, the school, the parsonage etc; at the station, there were three toilets - one each for the mens and womens facilities & one for the Station Master's part of the building. These were emptied for many years by one of the plate-laying gang daily - into a trench dug in the station garden. The garden was lush ... and well dug! Around this time, pressure on the ganger's time and from the unions saw a large cesspit placed in the goods yard, though this was less than satisfactory as the site chosen apparently filled with water and the walls were prone to cave in .. it's possible that it was positioned too close to a minor tributary of the (now long culverted) stream that flows under Moorlands Road. Eventually, a large metal tank was installed (similar to the solution for large villa-style houses around the village until the 1960s), and this was emptied once a week. In the case of the school, waste had to be carried in buckets to be deposited on the other side of Station Road which at this time was clear of dwellings! The majority of the newer properties relied on routine clearing of cess pits (as above for the station) to maintain hygienic conditions. Electricity also wasn't universal by end of the 1930s; it was during this period that Britain was developing its national electricity supply infrastructure but even with overhead supply available to West Moors (from 1931), not all could afford to take it up: however, electric lighting was installed in the school in 1934, and some electric heaters there (to aid drying sodden clothes) in 1938. For many though, oil lamps, candles and the like were in common use when the first evacuees arrived in the village in September 1939. The following are national figures of percentages of homes connected to mains electricity in the years given:- 1919 = 6%; 1929 = 30%; 1939 = 70%: these look quite reasonable at first sight, but the figures for farms were: 3% in 1929 and still only 14% by 1939. In general, by the start of the Second World War, the majority of rural areas were still found to be dependent on oil lamps, candles or similar and I suspect this applied to many of the outlying properties here in West Moors as well as some of the older cottages in the village proper. Around 1933, the first private telephone lines arrived in West Moors (the Station / Signal Box had their own 'closed' system of course). The lines were originally terminated onto the Hampreston Exchange, but by 1939, telephone numbers are listed as 'Ferndown XXX', so the Exchange on Wimborne Road (opposite the old Post Office) was to service the community for many decades to come. It was of course a manual exchange - no 'dialling' the number for connection until at least the 1950s. Already mentioned in the previous section, West Moors now benefitted from the provision of regular bus services running to Bournemouth via Ferndown, Ringwood etc. By the latter 1920s/early 1930s, the frequency of service & competitive fares (with respect to the railway) were such that passengers increasingly used them in preference to the railway. |
| In the 1920s and 1930s, there was a large gypsy encampment in the
Elmhurst Road area - both traditional caravans & temporary structures. In
the late 1920s, they purchased parcels of open moorland straddling the Elmhurst
& Oakhurst districts from the Shaftesbury estate and this area was used to
settle the travelling folk who wished to do so, thus vacating the area of
Priory Road where the cemetery is now. The gypsy population apparently grew in
these inter-war years hereabouts - presumably for social reasons in that it was
difficult for them to travel about given the pace of life on the roads and they
were looking for 'quieter' resting places: here they pursued traditional
activities of small-trade in the local area. The area of the common they
occupied was almost a 'self-governing' parish within a parish; contemporary
accounts speak of the 'King of the Gypsies' owning the large house (with
meeting house adjoining) at the 'top' end of Oakhurst Road; this would have
been next to the moorland of course as the Plantation hadn't yet been
planted-up by the Forestry Commission. The house is still there to this day
(2012). And even more momentous developments were taking place 'down the end' of Pinehurst Road as the 1930s progressed. What was for decades merely a well-used cart track skirting the south of St. Leonard's Common now became an important route linking the original village and the much improved A31 Ringwood-Wimborne road. Some dwellings, mainly substantial houses were built on Pinehurst Road (and turned the corner into Abbey Road) towards the main road - and Priory Road, Abbey Road & part of Uplands Road were laid out - with a few 1930s-style bungalows built, though as I understand it, the expected development of this area was arrested by the outbreak of the Second World War. |
| This became known as the 'Priory Road estate' & to
service this area, and also the (then) sparsely populated area around
Trickett's Cross, a Post Office / Stores was built on the corner of Priory Road
/ Ringwood Road - the post office closed in 2000, but the building survives in
altered form - see photograph. And a garage too, run by the Dear brothers, where the modern-day filling-station now stands: this garage with its service facility and petrol pumps was ideally placed to garner the trade of passing cars and lorries on the Trunk road - breakdowns were a frequent occurrence and the AA was in its infancy! |
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This schematic map is an attempt to portray the phases of development at the 'lower' end of Pinehurst Road in the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Apart from St. Leonard's Farm, there was nothing in this area before the mid-1930s south-east of the scattered villa-style houses near the turn for Elmhurst Road (though not really known by that name). The area around Trickett's Cross was developing slowly, due to the proximity of Stewart's Nursery and there were a couple of very old cottages here: the modern-day Smugglers Rest stands on the site of one of them, and Smugglers Cottage on Wimborne Road is reputed to have a history extending back over 400 years. It lies on an ancient trackway heading north towards St. Leonard's Common and beyond. This track can be seen today. |
| ... COMMERCE & AGRICULTURE: |
| One further piece of the jigsaw in the development of the new 'centre' of West Moors fell into place in the latter part of the 1920s: two brothers, Charlie and Joe Baker bought land on the western side of Station Road (south of the corner & shops that the Brewers had built earlier) and built a garage and parade of seven shops. Apparently there was at this time a fishmonger, sweet shop, haberdashery ( Fennel ), hairdresser/barber and a newsagency. This photograph depicts that area of Station Road - note the overhead electricity pylons so this much be after 1931, which also ties in with the style of the motor cars. |  |
| And the Baker brothers weren't the only engineering
concern in the village. The various directories & accounts of the time
show, for a small community, a surprisingly large number of such enterprises
listed (3 motor engineers/dealers & 2 cycle-repair providers) - the former
probably a legacy of experience gained in the Great War coupled with the
demands of the often fickle internal combustion engine & the latter of
course because 'bicycling' was very common in these halcyon days. By 1939, the families employed in harvesting the fruits of the land had grown to perhaps the largest number in our history - somewhat contrary to the experience of the nation as a whole. During the Great War, Britain's farmers had been supported but this government aid declined sharply with the arrival of peace, and an agricultural depression set in during the 1920s. During the next decade though, gentle encouragement revived rural activity, with various schemes initiated such as the formation of the Milk Marketing Board, a restriction on imports, greater subsidies etc. However, agricultural employment dropped by about half between 1914 (pre-Great War) and 1939 (immediate pre-Second World War): with the outbreak of the latter war, there was a frantic rush to bring people back to the land. In West Moors and surrounding areas, these changes had been masked somewhat. By 1939, 17 names in the 'Kellys' for that year have 'farmer', 'smallholder', 'nurseryman' or similar against their name. Specifically, 8 small-holdings or similar-sized enterprises can be picked out, with no fewer than 6 along Pinehurst Road - 4 poultry/pig farmers & 2 small-holders. Another poultry farm is listed as being situated along Station Road and of course Mark Vine still has his holding at the top of Moorlands Road, alongside the railway line. This area of Dorset (and SW Hampshire - Bournemouth & Christchurch being in the latter county at this time) had a high proportion of people in 'comfortable' circumstances, who wanted fresh produce and could pay for same. This encouraged the growth of small-to-medium scale horticultural, dairy, pig & poultry farmers in particular, as well as the more traditional beef cattle - though these latter were never a major part of the agricultural 'scene' hereabouts as the small, fragmented farm & field systems did not lend themselves to efficient production. The pig and poultry farming however, making use of the poor moorland wastes, was particularly a boon to the local economy: as already noted in the previous part of this history, ex-servicemen had set up a fairly large piggery and poultry concern on the Common - and they developed the enterprise such that they produced their own cooked meats, sausages etc., which were 'exported' via the station. By 1939, we've lost many of the 'old' east Dorset families such as the Dolmans, Hatchards - but one name has survived, that of Lockyer, which family had been farming in the area since at least the 1860s. Although not strictly within the 'parish bounds' of West Moors, Stewart's Nursery had grown by this date to cover a vast site & gave employment to village folk; in the 1920s and 1930s, the Stewart family concern was the largest producer of nursery stock in the country: as well as shrubs, water plants (especially lilies - grown in the marshy water-beds of the Uddens), more 'practical' plants were cultivated such as seed potatoes: Stewart's didn't just grow plants but planned, planted-up and maintained major projects such as the Ferndown Golf Course (originally formed in 1912 but this early venture failed in 1920, and a new relationship was forged from 1922 onwards) & many of larger estates across Wessex. And of course, until just after the Second World War, they made frequent use of the railway station to send their wares all over southern Britain and beyond. The balance between classical rural activity and domestic properties was probably at its most 'even' in these years on the eve of the Second World War. As an aside, although the internal combustion engine was making its presence felt on farms around the country, a surprisingly large number of horses would have been seen pulling the plough or harrow on our local farms. In the 25 years from 1914, the numbers of farm horses used on farms in England and Wales dropped by nearly 40%, but they still heavily outnumbered tractors in 1939 by 20 to 1 (though tractors were obviously more versatile). It would be another 10 years or so before tractors outnumbered horses! |
| From the 1939 Kelly's Directory, the following is a rough breakdown
of trades/professions attributed to West Moors:- Banks: (2) Basketmaker: (1) Boot/Shoemaker: (1) Builders/merchants/decorators: (4) Butchers/Fishmonger: (3) Chemist: (1) Coal merchants: (3, one joint with other category) Cycle repairer: (2, one joint with other category) Doctors/Surgeon/District Nurse: (3) Drapers/Dressmakers/Women's underwear/Mens outfitter: (4) Farmers/Market Gardeners/Nurserymen/Smallholders/Poultry Farmers/Dairymen: (17) Grocers/Bakers/Gen.Dealers etc: (3) Hairdressers: (1) Motor engineers/dealers: (3) School/Private: (2) [ and of course there was also St. Mary's School ] Stationers/Fancy Goods/Wool/Tobacconist/Confectionery etc: (3) The overwhelming 'day-to-day wants' of the population of West Moors were readily available in this relatively small, but thriving, village. |
| Older folk in the village probably read the newspapers and listened
to the wireless with increasing mis-giving in the latter 1930s - as once again
belligerence on the Continent & elsewhere threatened what was for many in
Dorset a gentle, increasingly prosperous peace. The coming of another 'Great
War' so soon after the first would bring major change to the local area, to the
social structure of the nation - and for the railways of Britain, perhaps their
finest hour ... and for West Moors Junction, a last, triumphant
"Hurrah". More on all this in the next section ...... |
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