Milford on Sea Local News Archives

Welcome to my online web blog. Below is a summary of all of our 'old' news stories. Click on the 'news page' link to read the latest Milford on Sea news articles.

*Please see 'Whats On' for local events

Local Milford on Sea News Story Archives

17th September 2009: New Forest Basics Bank helping those in need.
The New Forest Basics Bank helps local people in need & if you are interested in getting involved they would love to hear from you. The organisation covers a wide area supplying food, household and hygiene items to local people in need and in dire emergency situations.

The New Forest Basics Bank is a completely non discriminatory, not for profit, managed by volunteers, local organisation and it relies totally on non perishable charity donations via a network of Churches, the public and other independent charitable organisations. After a successful fund raising appeal in 2009, Basics Bank has now relocated to a new purpose built base at the Lymington URC. (United Reform Church)

2009 is the 5th year in operation and Basics Bank has supported 1100+ individuals, provided 660+ emergency food parcels and worked with 43 of the 61 approved referral agencies. Basics Bank was set up in 2004 by “Churches Together” in the Lymington district to help in providing those who lack the means to feed themselves or their family with food for up to 5 days pending other longer term arrangements. Clients requiring such help may be identified and referred by any of the approved referral bodies including, for example, Social Services, Citizens Advice Bureau, local Housing Associations, Job Centres, Drugs and Alcohol Advisory Services and Women's Refuges. These bodies may give food vouchers to those in need, and the individuals concerned can exchange these at the Basics Bank for food parcels. All food donations are checked and stored by a team of volunteers working at the Basics Bank who also make up the food parcels. Here are some Basics Bank facts from the 1st September 2004 to the 31st August 2009, it has: Distributed over 2390 food parcels | Helped to feed over 5000 people/families which includes 2350 children | Covered an area from Fawley to Highcliffe extending up to Ringwood/Fordingbridge | Developed and is continuously working with 61 partnerships (processing over 2200 referrals) | Opportunities for over 40 volunteers including delivery drivers.

The Basics Bank provides a voluntary social service to the community in the New Forest and it urgently requires regular donations of non perishable food. Perhaps you can offer some volunteering hours?

You can call them or drop into their new centre at: New Forest Basic Bank, Lymington URC, High Street, Lymington, SO41 9AG. Tel. 01590 610008. Open: Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday 10am to 12noon. Donations & volunteers always welcome.
www.basicsbank.org.uk | www.lymurc.org.uk

24th September 2009: What’s that ship doing there!
We spotted an infrequent sight from Milford on Sea beach at around 7 o’clock tonight, as a cruise ship made its way to, & past the Needles. Now, that may not in itself seem strange, indeed seeing a cruise ship at sea is probably what you would expect. However, as every cruise we have made from Southampton the ships have turned left (which I think is portside or East in nautical terms), this is because most cruise ships are now so large they can’t easily navigate the waters to the Needles. So, either the ship must be small enough to get through, or the captain couldn’t tell his left from right, a bit like my mate Alistair. Having spotted the ship I was then on a mission to find out who she was. Your intrepid web friend then scoured all the evening departures from Southampton, & enthusiastically ‘googled’ all of the ships to get a match. Wish I hadn’t started this one, as I was unable to match any ship that had left this evening to the one I saw. I now had a choice, I could attempt to delve deeper like a real journalist, or give up. So I gave up, & prefer to consider that it may have been a ghost ship full of pirates. If you know different please let me know.

Footnote: Tim, one of our readers has informed me that (disappointingly) it wasn't a ghost ship. He believes it to have been the ‘Ocean Majesty’ operated by Page and Moy, on its way to Spain and Portugal. She is a mere 10,417 tons (QM2 is 150,000 tons) and carries a maximum of 621 passengers (QM2 has 2620 plus 1,253 crew), spread across six passenger decks (QM2 has 19 decks). The vast difference in size probably explains how she could sail this channel, & why the Queen Mary 2 & her contemporaries go the other way around the other way around the island! Having been fortunate enough to have cruised on both the Queen Mary 2 & the old QE2, the most useless fact that I can recall is that both have kennels for dogs & cats with a full time Kennel Master The QE2 even had an iron Edwardian for the dogs pleasure!

17th September 2009: Property recession? Not in Milford on Sea!
We have all heard that the property market is stagnant, & I am sure we all know people that are genuinely struggling in the current recession. With everything going on around us you would expect that a luxury development of new homes would suffer the same fate. Well it probably would, if it wasn’t situated on the spectacular Milford on Sea seafront. If you have not been down to the beach recently, you may not have seen that building has now started on the ‘Waters Edge’ development in Hurst Road. Five luxury detached homes are now being built by Antler Homes, & it has been reported that all have been sold before the first brick has even been laid. Having (very) briefly considered buying one of the two prime position sea view houses we were soon deterred by the £1.5 million price tag, however it looks like such amounts were in the reach of some of our soon to be new neighbours, or simply they were better negotiators than us. The plans of the development certainly appear attractive & will again uplift the prestige of our village, I reckon some lucky people will love living there, and my wife has promised to be nice to them even though they will be occupying in ‘her house’!
www.antlerhomes.co.uk

17th September 2009: I now know about Rookcliff!
I spotted in this websites ‘Whats On’ diary (what an outrageous plug!) that the Milford Historical Record Association were last night holding a presentation of ‘The story of Rookcliff at Milford on Sea’. Having taken a joint membership of the society (for only eight pounds after their excellent exhibition in August, which I heard had over 1700 visitors!) I was happy to trundle along. Sadly I was alone, my fellow joint member & wife didn’t join me as she didn’t want to miss Eastenders & apparently ‘hated history at school’. (Her memory must be quite good I suppose.) ‘Billy no mates’ (that’s me) arrived just as it started and the village church hall was already full with around 150 people in attendance. (I wondered to myself if anyone had turned up after seeing the event in our ‘Whats On’ diary, but felt it would be inappropriate to ask them all individually. I then considered making a dash for the microphone to ask the throng, but sensibly decided that this might not go down too well.) The lecture commenced and was professionally presented by society member, Clare Church. She had done a fine job in her research. Unlike yours truly, who mainly relies on the web & local gossip for research, Clare had read real books, visited libraries & trawled public records to build a complete picture of the history of Rookcliff House & estate. Sadly, the historic house is now lost, but its story will live on. I can hardly do the detail of the full lecture justice, but I do recall some key points. Rookcliff House was built in an Italian style by Major Henry Rook around 1780, as a holiday home! (Times haven’t really changed that much then?) The house stood in the centre of a triangle of land created by Kivernell Road, De La Warr Road & the cliff top road Park Lane. The main house had clear sea views and stood in 21 acres, with the entire estate extending to over 61 acres. Over the years various families purchased the house, some to live in & some more for holiday pleasures. The estate began being sold off around 1932 and a number of houses were built in the old grounds by the locally renowned builder Ravescroft. Those distinctive ‘art & crafts’ houses can still be seen today. In 1935 the original house became Rookcliff Girls Preparatory & Boarding School for two years, after which it became a hotel for a short period. During World War Two the US Army occupied the house as officers billets. The development of ‘the triangle’ continued and today Needles Court sits close the site of the original house, plus of course the name lives on at Rookcliff Court in Rookcliff Way.

The committee at Milford Historical Record Association do some amazing work in recording the heritage & history of our village and deserve a well earned pat on the back for their stirling efforts. The society has also produced a 2010 calendar with historic images of the Milford on Sea village & surrounding area, these can be bought in our local village newsagents if you fancy one. If you have an interest in our local history it may be worth parting with a few quid to join the society & support their worthwhile efforts. My wife’s contribution of course may only do the latter, unless they can plan events when Eastenders isn’t on and I can convince her that history is actually quite interesting. The societies next talk is about ‘Milford on Sea & the Military’ on the 26th November and you can find full details in our ‘Whats Diary’. (Oh no, I have done another outrageous plug, but who cares, our ‘Whats On Diary’ is a pretty good place to find out what entertainment is going on locally!)
www.milfordonsea.com/milford_historical_society.htm