About New Milton
History of New Milton
Although New Milton celebrated its Centenary in 1996, the land on which it stands has a much older history, It was the arrival of the railway station in 1896 which created a geographical and topographical shift, as the older hamlet of Milton moved gradually and almost imperceptibly north and east to reflect the tide of progress and prosperity.
The Early Years
The area is remarkable in that, within one parish, there has been found
evidence of almost every period of pre-history. The Roman army of General
Vespasian was certainly in the area around 43AD, and various Roman relics
have been found locally. Hunting, fishing and farming were the obvious means
of livelihood of the Germanic inhabitants of the area during Milton's first
millennium.
Milton and its surrounding villages and manors were listed in
the Doomsday Book (1086). The name Milton derives from Middletune, meaning
middle farm. The Jutish or Saxon settlement was in the midst of other tuns,
namely Barton, Wootton, Chewton and Becton. Milton is one of only a handful
of Hampshire villages with a storehouse of mediaeval deeds. For this we must
thank John Fromond, owner of a scattered estate centered on Fernhill, which
he bequeathed to Winchester College in 1445, along with documents which take
local history back to around 1200. A church, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene
and linked with Christchurch Priory was built at Milton in approximately
1260. Parish records date from 1654, less than a decade after the end of the
Civil War, when Milton had been caught between the conflicting loyalties of
Royalist Christchurch and Republican Lymington. The compilation of Forest
Claims in 1670 was a source of importance for identifying local landlords and
farmers. From 1708 there are records of settlement orders concerning the
poor, apprenticeship indentures and bastardy orders. Poor Law records date
from 1760, with lists of overseers and churchwardens from that time, and
giving details of the rates paid by each landowner, and how the money was
spent.
A Poor House was built in the 1790s, to be destroyed by fire only a couple of
years later. Its replacement was built, apparently a few paces east of the
existing George Inn at Milton Green, and the remaining parts of this building
were removed as recently as 1984. Children from this Poor House were employed
at a cottage in nearby Chewton between 1806 and 1818, making tiny chains for
the insides of watches. Many local men undoubtedly tried to eke out a meagre
existence by participating in illicit poaching and the landing of smuggled
goods. In 1780 the local Customs & Excise Officer, Mr Bursey, was murdered at
his Chewton cottage by smugglers. The author Captain Marryat visited the area
in 1821, and may have extolled its virtues to his brother who was in the
army. The Captain's brother subsequently bought Chewton Glen House, where the
author's Children of the New Forest was written. The Chewton Glen is now one
of the most prestigious hotels in the country. Smuggling continued to be a
menace well into the 1860s, when Coastguard Cottages were built at Barton.
The present Church of St Mary Magdalene, dating (apart from its Stuart tower)
from the 1830s, replaced the mediaeval church. In the porch there is a staged
effigy of Dorset soldier Thomas White, along with his actual sword. The new
brick nave, Gothic windows and chancel cost £2,000, but less than 100 years
later the chancel was entirely reformed with a barrel vault. A northern side
aisle, incorporating in its windows the rounded shape of the chancel with the
Gothic of the rest of the nave, was added in 1959. Although it's likely that
the church and various nonconformist Sunday schools existed in the parish
before 1800, the first record of day schools is in 1833, when five such
schools (presumably dame schools in cottages) were known.
Milton Grows
The population at the first census (1801) was only 522, including possibly
100 living west of 
Chewton stream, but by 1881,
with the Chewton area excluded, the population had grown to 1,489. Roughly
100 years later it has risen to around 23,000. The 1841 census provided much
information for local historians, giving names, ages and occupations of
everyone living in the parish. In 1843 just over 100 fields were handed over
to the newly created parish of Highcliffe. This was the area west of Chewton
Bunny as far as Belvedere Mansion (replaced by Wolhayes), which became the
Marydale Convent School, demolished in 1970. The area included Chewton Common
and land in Walkford.
The railway arrived in 1847 at Christchurch Road (later Holmsley), then the
nearest stop to the developing and fashionable town of Bournemouth, but
Milton was to wait a further forty years before it joined the railway
network. Milton Station was built on the new main line to Bournemouth in
1886, seeing its first train in 1888.
A new sub Post Office was built just north of the railway
bridge, which the Postmistress, Mrs Emma Newhook, named New Milton Post
Office. The Civil Parish Council and the postal authorities agreed to the
name in 1896, and the railway adopted the name for the station the following
year. There had previously been some controversy about the name of the
station, as Milton became confused with Wilton, near Salisbury. And there
were other Miltons in the country (56 to be exact), whilst calling it Barton
would have been worse since there were 84 of them! Other names were
tentatively put forward for the district, concluding in 1931 with an attempt
to rename the civil parish Milbarton. The station provided a focal point for
new business and housing development.
Some highlights or the last 100 years or so
The water tower, designed, like the station, in Tudor style, was built in
1900, the same year that Britain's 
first reinforced concrete bridge
was built at Chewton. Brick kiln works began to flourish in the area as
bricks could now be easily conveyed to rapidly growing Bournemouth.
The year 1895 marked the setting up of a Civil Parish Council, which took
over many functions previously undertaken by the old Ecclesiastical Parish
Council, and from 1926 to 1932 New Milton was an Urban District Council.
For just over a year from 1905, a steam bus plied between New Milton and
Lymington stations, via Milford, but it was too heavy for the gravel roads
and was withdrawn.
A Scout troop was formed in 1909, and in December 1910, the 14 boys were
inspected by Baden-Powell at Lymington, with four being selected to go to
London the following year to be inspected by the King. Soon a Guide Company
was formed, followed by local football and cricket clubs.
Largely as a result of the efforts of the much-loved rector, Mr Kelsall, the
land adjacent to Whitefield Road was preserved as a War memorial recreation
ground in April 1920. The ground was bought for £850, the money having been
raised by public subscription. Mr Matterson, a Bournemouth chemist who lived
in Fernhill, bought the rough ground to the north and handed it over for use
as bowling greens and tennis courts.
In 1928 a local institution was born, in the shape of the local newspaper,
the New Milton Advertiser. The paper, edited in the early years by Mr Kirby
Wynne, was later bought by Mr Charles Curry, who linked it to the Lymington
Times to extend its coverage. The paper is still owned and edited by Mr
Curry's son Charles.
