From Our Files: Archaeological investigation...rising drunkenness...lousy loos
50 YEARS AGO
As the A&T reported last week Highcliffe traders fear shops will close due to huge rent rises. As a result fomer Highcliffe Chamber of Trade president Mr R Pickering has been seen parading with placards in Lymington road to protest against the forthcoming increases
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CHRISTCHURCH council are to open negotiations with the owners of 36/38/38a High Street (the Staggs site) with a view to a full scale archaeological investigation being carried out there by experts over a six month period at a cost estimated at over more than £1,000 a month.
The council’s decision followed a report to them by Mr R. Dockerill Poole Borough Council’s Curator of Museums. It revealed that Christchurch could be built on Iron Age foundations.
At Sainsbury’s car park an excavation near the town’s defences had produced the first definitive and complete Saxon buildings to be found in the whole county of Dorset plus much Medieval evidence and some Roman.
The Dolphin site had produced evidence of dense occupation from Iron Age or early Roman period to the present day.
Mr Dockerill said: “The depth and range of history below ground that has been forthcoming is quite exceptional.”
“The archaeological and historical importance of Christchurch in national terms has now been proven.”
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A FURTHER increase in drunkenness in the Lymington area was reported to the town’s licensing meeting on Monday.
Chief Superintendent Alan Kemish, head of New Forest police, said offences rose from three in 1972 to 31 this year.
He said a disturbing factor was five of that number were juveniles. Twenty-one of the offences were accompanied by disorderly conduct and four people were also convicted of threatening behaviour.
The Chief Supt. said continued drinking by young people had been apparent during the year during which there were a number of reports of hooliganism at Barton-on-Sea.
But he said there had been a reduction in the number of convictions for criminal damage and hooliganism in that area in the latter part of the year which he said was due to a reduction in the number of discotheques in that district.
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WHEN holidaymakers visit Highcliffe in future summers will they find many shops shuttered and boarded up? Will people retire there and find themselves in a ghost town where they can buy nothing?
Some fear they could because of proposed increases in the traders rents could force them out of business. The increase has been described as “meteoric”.
“They are in a state of panic,” village chamber of trade secretary Mr WH Davis told the A&T this week. “They just don’t know what can be done.”
Mr Davis gave an example of a fashion shop where it is proposed the rent should go up from £800 to £2,000.
25 YEARS AGO
“THIS is the New Forest bench and we have to protect the Forest. We feel you abused the Forest,” Miss Pippa Jarman presiding at Lyndhurst Court told three young men involved in the running of a rave in September.
The men from Devizes and London admitted organising an unlicensed public musical event and to breaching Forestry Commission by-laws, and were fined £200 each.
The court heard that at around 4.30am, following a noise complaint from a resident of the Bolderwood area, police went to Highland Water where they found about 50 people, most of whom appeared to be under the influence of drugs or drink.
Yellow leaflets, said to have been handed out at the Manor Club the previous night, were discovered.
In defence, the men maintained the event was supposed to be a private party and held as far as possible from houses to avoid being a nuisance.
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MUDEFORD residents are being urged to lobby their councillors about the state of the toilets on Avon Beach.
“They are the most appalling and obnoxious toilets in the borough,” chairman Mike Duckworth told members of Stanpit and Mudeford Residents at a meeting.
He pointed out that the toilets, which had been built in the 1950s, could not be refurbished because they were set into a hillside, were poorly constructed and damp.
“The council complains about falling numbers but refuses to improve facilities at its premier beach. This is what visitors come for.
“If the councillors can recommend spending £160,000 for toilets inside Highcliffe Castle which had 20,000 visitors last year, how can it refuse £100,000 for an area which has that many visitors in a week?”
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TWO Lymington men who work for Wightlink Ferries have been awarded special commendation certificates by the RSPCA after they rescued a sea bird which had been trapped in a wire on a marker post in the Lymington River estuary.
Kenny Baker and Russell Woodford went to the aid of a cormorant in September last year. The distressed bird was struggling to free itself after becoming caught in wire on a basket fitted to the top of the post.
However, the tide was too low for the crew to reach over and try to release the bird. By the time the ferry had started its journey back from Yarmouth the tide had risen which allowed Mr Woodford to manoeuvre the ferry near the post and keep it steady while Mr Baker reached over and caught the bird.
