North Stoneham

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North Stoneham
Hampshire

Stoneham War Shrine
Location
Grid reference: SU439175
Location: 50°57’21"N, 1°22’35"W
Data
Postcode: SO50
Local Government
Council: Eastleigh

North Stoneham is a small village sitting between Eastleigh and Southampton in southern Hampshire. It was formerly an ancient estate and manor. Until the nineteenth century, it was a rural community comprising a number of scattered hamlets, including Middle Stoneham, North End, and Bassett Green, and characterised by large areas of woodland. It once had a lordly park extending over 1,000 acres, North Stoneham Park , which was redesigned by Capability Brown in the eighteenth century, and was one of the largest ornamental parklands in Hampshire.

The Concorde Club, Stoneham Lane

History

For some centuries, the Willis Fleming family of North Stoneham Park were lords of the manor of North Stoneham, and the principal landowners in the parish. The estate was purchased by Sir Thomas Fleming in 1599[1] from Henry Wriothesley, a young Earl of Southampton who inherited the title and estate at the age of eight.[2]

The church of St Nicolas stands in Stoneham Lane, on the edge of the former park, while opposite is the former rectory, now an office complex for Mott MacDonald.

The aviation pioneer, Edwin Moon, selected the flat field at North Stoneham Farm for his first flight in 1910, on what is now Southampton Airport.

The Stoneham War Shrine was built in 1917–18 in memory of thirty-six local men killed in First World War. The Shrine was restored in 2011.

North Stoneham and neighbouring South Stoneham are together sometimes referred to as 'the Stonehams', but are also recognised as part of the wider town of Eastleigh.

Development

Stoneham Park office complex

In the early 1990s, Southampton Football Club considered building a 25,000-seat stadium in the area to replace their stadium in the town, The Dell. However, by 1999 the plan had been abandoned in favour of a 32,000-seat stadium, St Mary's in the St Mary's area of Southampton, which opened in 2001.

North Stoneham was however chosen as the preferred site for a new housing development as from 2015, with 1,100 new homes, a new primary school, nursery, community centre, care home, shops and play facilities, to be built on a 153-acre area of the former North Stoneham Park estate.[3]

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about North Stoneham)

References