New Forest memories

Andrew Robin Cameron recalls happy days at Wilverley Park Cottages, near Lyndhurst

(If you have New Forest Memories that you wish to share, please email the details to andrew.walmsley@newforestexplorersguide.co.uk).

My Grandad 'Edward Harvell' and my Nan 'Mary Harvell' moved to Wilverley Park Cottages from Shillingstone in Dorset in the 1920's.  Grandad (who was related to Thomas Hardy) had fought in the Trenches in WW1, whereas my Nan had nursed in a military hospital during the same war.  Grandad was a plasterer by trade, but took a job at Wilverley Park House doing gardening/general maintenance, Wilverley Park Cottages was the tied cottage and came with the job.  They had five children (all brought up at Wilverley), Reg (now deceased), Ted (who was killed in an accident when young), Doris (who remembers your contributor 'Alan Oakenfull' from school in Lyndhurst), Keith and Eileen (my Mother).  I was born Andrew Robin Harvell (as my Mother and Father 'David Maurice Maidment' did not continue there relationship when she became pregnant) and was also brought up at Wilverley. 

When I was six/seven, or thereabouts, my Grandad had a large vegetable and flower garden around the cottage. One night a meteor hit the garden with a hell of a thud and left a hole in the middle of the cabbage patch.  Grandad made a few calls and next day some interested parties arrived and removed it.

My Mother married 'Thomas James Cameron' when I was eight and we moved to Reading, Berks when I was eleven, but my Grandad and Nan remained at Wilverley (they moved to a senior citizens bungalow in Pilley eventually) until I was eighteen and we often returned there for holidays.

My Mother worked at Foxlease House (also at International Stores in Lyndhurst) when I was young, I often went to work with her, I remember Lady Betty at Foxlease (Queen's Cousin apparently?) and occasional visits by Princess Margaret (Girl Guide Patron), she used to hold my hand and walk me around the gardens.  We didn't have electric, hot running water or plumbed in toilet at Wilverley until I was nine, but I had a charmed childhood (Wilverley Park House was in ruins by then), I view them as wonderful times and I'm incredibly romantic about that particular period of my life.

I also remember Mr & Mrs Stone well from when I was a kid, they lived across the fields at the Farm Cottage adjoining Pinkney Lane.  They were just like something out of Wallace & Gromit, Mr Stone used to have thick rimmed glasses, always wore black suits, with baggy jumpers full of holes, cap, workmen's boots, etc.  I only had to take one look at him and I couldn't stop laughing, even when I conjure up a picture of him in my mind inside I'm laughing out loud.  The farm cottage had well-worn shiny stone floors and Mr Stone had a moped that he worked on in the kitchen, he used to start it up in the house as well, place used to be full of smoke.