New Forest Notes: Stoney Cross – from wartime airfield to tourist hotspot

I was born the same year as construction was completed, although my first acquaintance with the aerodrome was still a couple of years away.

I have occasionally mentioned in these Notes aspects of the aerodrome and its use, while many learned authors have written about the important military operations which took place from there. Understandably, their interest did not extend beyond the aerodrome’s contribution to a great national war effort. To them the fate of Fritham village was of no interest.

Fortunately, this shortcoming was partially made good by my late father and his co-author, Marie Heinst, in their 1995 book “Forest Reflections”, but even that leaves many tantalising questions unanswered.

Prior to the Second World War, my grandmother possessed a little, barely modernised, cottage (the White House) on the south edge of the village, but she moved to Lyndhurst before there was any risk of the projected aerodrome being bombed.

In fact, Lyndhurst proved to be the greater victim of such action, but that could not have been anticipated. The White House was within about 300 yards of the aerodrome’s fuel depot as eventually established. Probably nearby houses would not have survived that close to the depot in the event of a successful attack.

For most villagers it was a question of struggling on as best they could. In those days Fritham was almost entirely agricultural. There were no tourists, car parks, holiday homes and camp sites. Public utilities (other than telephone) were non-existent, as neither electricity nor water came to the village until long after the war.

Everyone depended on the Forest for grazing and other essentials such as fuel wood. Because this part of the Forest was so valuable, the annual compensation to the Verderers was a massive four shillings per acre and this was double the rate payable for Holmsley Aerodrome. Small sums were also paid direct to the commoners.

Among the principal victims of the aerodrome were the Hickman Brothers who operated their mixed farming operations from New Farm next door to the White House. The farm abutted the aerodrome in part, and several of the fields could only be accessed through the prohibited area with special passes from the authorities.

One evening Headly Hickman and his wife were walking to the fields past Janesmoor House and, for ‘Forest Reflections’, he recounted what then happened. Two Lightnings were coming in to land, perhaps having been damaged. They were warned off by a red flare fired in front of them.

One plane veered sharply away and then dived straight into the ground on the Petrol Road and burnt. Often when I go to the same fields (which I now own) I wonder about that forgotten and un-named airman who died so tragically only minutes from safety, perhaps anticipating a good dinner after exhausting action. Fritham village may have suffered a good deal, but those on the other side of the wire paid an even greater price.

My parents were both in the forces, serving initially in Dorset. That was where I was born, with the family not returning to the White House until my father came back from Germany in 1945. By that time the aerodrome was already winding down, but I remember gazing through the wire at the lines of (to me) huge aircraft drawn up on and around the perimeter track, presumably awaiting disposal.

I remember, too, the cheery greetings from the RAF guards in the gate hut at the end of our road. Then came the immense opportunities for adventure when the aerodrome was finally opened-up to grazing in the summer of 1947.

The huge fuel tanks had been mounded with gravel and soil for protection against blast and these miniature grassy mountains were ideal for children to slide down. Eventually the above-ground tanks were dug up and removed, but nothing was done about a large underground tank which remains a hidden menace to this day. The Forestry Commission has steadfastly ignored repeated warnings about this, and its eventual collapse will perhaps engulf a picnic party or an unfortunate group of Forest ponies.

Even as the latest technology of warfare ruled the aerodrome, the Hickmans and everyone else in Fritham continued as their predecessors had done for centuries. A small gate led from our garden into the adjoining farmyard, and I would creep into the brick stables to watch the huge cart horses enjoying their evening feed.

If there were any tractors in the village at that time, I don’t remember them. All the land around was worked by heavy horses and, of course, farming was a reserved occupation so that the fairly elderly brothers were not involved directly in fighting. Still, they were no strangers to tragedy as several members of the family were lost in the sinking of the Titanic 30 years earlier. The photograph shows the Hickman brothers and their horses at New Farm in the 1940s

As Fritham life slowly got back to something like normal, the first horrid manifestations of public pressure started to show themselves. Screaming motor cycles from the surrounding towns started to plague the abandoned aerodrome.

Eventually things got so bad that holes were broken in the concrete runways and wire fences were built supported on distinctive black and white posts. I am not sure they achieved much, but in those days the authorities were still willing to make an effort against abuse.

Then, almost 15 years after the aerodrome was abandoned, came the welcome news that the concrete was to be broken up and removed. Once crushed it could be sold for just under the price of dug natural hardcore. It was not easy to get the plans approved as the concrete was beloved of visiting motorists – especially learners. I learnt to drive there.

Still, despite opposition, by 1966 a huge crushing machine had arrived looking like a tin shed on wheels. The photograph shows it at work on the north-south runway, west of Kings Garn Gutter Inclosure. Over many months its jaws devoured the main runways and some of the other roads and hardstanding.

Already almost all the buildings had been cleared, including the dominant white control tower. Few photographs of it survive, but I can remember my father training a horse outside it one evening.

A second wave of restoration commenced a quarter of a century later and was even more efficient than the first, with only a few scraps of concrete remaining thereafter. All this work was done before the predecessors of Natural England had tightened their grip on the Forest and banned proper restoration work with brought-in topsoil.

The result was a far better job at Fritham than was done at either Beaulieu or Holmsley aerodromes. Local people were allowed to collect bits of hardcore left on the surface and one couple went home each day from their dog walk clutching one or two excellent bricks, so that in time some very serviceable walls were developed in their garden.

Today so little of the aerodrome remains that anyone unfamiliar with its history might think this was a piece of virgin Forest. Only the determined ambitions of the authorities mean that four car parks, two huge camp sites, information boards and ice cream sales disfigure the recovering landscape; but there remains one other reminder.

If you drive east from Ocknell Plain (particularly if you drive too fast), you will feel a violent jolt just past the entrance to South Bentley. This marks the reputed line of an underground pipe packed with explosives. It would have been used to destroy the main runway in the event of invasion.

Nobody remembered it until after the huge battering rams which broke the concrete prior to crushing had completed their work. Then the army dug out the mines and the filled trench subsequently settled. Perhaps some of the crushing contractors had a narrow escape.

Forest verges – parking or no parking?

It was good to see (A&T 8th September) that police had seized the car of a learner driver which had been driven onto the Forest, although it was not entirely clear what action would be taken against the offender.

The police spokesman is reported to have said that a public space protection order applies to the New Forest and so indeed it does, although it is of very limited scope.

However, I am a concerned about the statement that “Parking on the verges is prohibited”. That, of course, is exactly what the regulations should say and the officer was presumably looking to what the law should be, rather than what it actually is.

No doubt he is absolutely correct where such parking constitutes a highway danger. Certainly, there is nothing in the public space protection order which prohibits it. If the order had covered this subject, it would have been of immense value to the Forest and if enforced it would have prevented huge amounts of damage.

I am not aware of any other regulation which bans such parking. The byelaws of Forestry England cover, but are never enforced against, public abuse of the Forest such as mountain bike trespass, drone flying, illegal camping and so on; but when it comes to verge parking, they are far worse than useless – they specifically authorise it.

The 1982 byelaws are more than 40 years old and designed for a world before the public recreation invasions of the Covid and post-Covid era. Byelaw 6 prohibits vehicular access to Crown lands, but clearly and specifically states: “This byelaw shall not apply to the parking of any vehicle by the side of a highway”.

FE has so far refused to revise its byelaws, it does virtually nothing to enforce those it has, and has ignored all calls to amend the nonsensical exception of verge parking from Byelaw 6. That makes all the more surprising and ineffective the large number of boards which add to the clutter all over the Forest.