Baughurst Road – South of the War Memorial

Introduction

In 2013 Stan Terrett (a long serving councillor of Baughurst Parish Council) published his book “Baughurst..a history” which provided some fascinating insights into Baughurst and the people who lived here up until around the1940s. We wanted to pay tribute to this fine work and the earlier “Memories of Baughurst” – a collection of reminiscences – by extracting stories about places and people of Baughurst for you. These and many other histories are amplified on the Baughurst Society’s web site.

Baughurst Road – South of the War memorial

One such story concerns the triangular area of land roughly from the War Memorial and Bishopswood Lane down to the lane opposite Buller’s Farm included land belonging to Henry Flower, a large landowner in the area, who died in 1833. The land was inherited by his sister who died in 1835 and left the land to William Flower of Kingsclere, her nephew. The tenants of this 12-acre site were the Hedges family. In 1877 they bought the area with a mortgage, but in 1906 it was auctioned in 13 lots at the New Inn.

James Cox bought the northernmost plot (on which he gave a part for the War Memorial) and Robert Carter, a local builder, bought the next one on which he built ‘Hawthorns’, for himself, and the two ‘Highfields’. Later Carter bought the remainder of Cox’s plot which was used as a local recreation ground. The last inhabitant of ‘Hawthorns’ was Frances Carter in the 1980s and when she died the site was sold and ‘The Hawthorns’ estate built in 1993.

A garage was built in 1913 by Sid Knight, which developed into Smith’s Garage in 1937. Two houses were built around 1920 to the south of the garage, ‘The Garage House’ and ‘The Laurels’. The Garage House was demolished in 2007 as part of the new estate. To the south of The Laurels was the Baughurst cricket ground, now the site of houses built in the 1970/1980s. The garage of Kent’s Coaches and their house built in 1912 (now Kent’s Cottage) were the last buildings on this triangular plot until ‘Old Kent’s Coach House’ was built at the turn of the century. The next house is Elm Cottage which was also occupied by the Hedges family after moving from the top of the road.