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Stone Age finds in Sholing

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People have been living in Sholing for hundreds of thousands of years. Finds from all three Stone Age eras have been made here, including a Paleolithic flint hand-axe, found in the former clay and gravel pits near Butts Road; a Mesolithic tranchet axe, and a Neolithic arrowhead. These are now on display in Winchester Museum. 

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The Bronze Age in Sholing

By 2000 BC, the Bronze Age had arrived in Britain. An axe-head from this period was discovered in 1897/8 in one of the clay pits near Dragoon Close and Imber Way. If you head just north of the junction of Heath Road and Middle Road, you are standing above the site of a Bronze Age tumulus, a mound of earth and stones raised over a burial site.

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Roman coin discoveries

During the later part of the Iron Age, British tribes began trading with the Roman Empire. 11 Roman coins were found in Sholing in around 1887, featuring depictions of the emperors Victorinus, Tetricus, Postumus, Carausius and Claudius II. The reign of these emperors dates back to the late 3rd Century AD – a time of great political instability, with generals and statesmen fighting for control of Rome’s West European provinces. A Roman road tracing from Bitterne to Chichester is thought to have run parallel to the modern-day Bursledon Road, at the northern end of Shoreburs Greenway. 

 

The establishment of Hamwic

After the Romans withdrew from Britain in the 5th Century, Anglo-Saxon settlers soon followed, arriving in Hampshire and establishing a town called Hamwic – known today as St Mary’s in central Southampton.

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A growing town 

Pre-19th Century Sholing was relatively sparse in population. A few bungalows appeared in the Botany Bay Road area in the 1790s, but much of the area remained undeveloped heathland, prone to periodic flooding.

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In 1836, a cable ferry across the River Itchen was built, making Sholing more accessible, and surviving in one form or another until 1977. Sholing train station opened in 1866, connecting the growing town with Netley Hospital, whose staff settled in Sholing. More buildings were erected in the following years – including a church, a chapel, a volunteer rifle range and The Target, a former public house on Butts Road. 

 

By the 1890s, brickyards had been established in the area, where, according to one account, “at night, you could see the fires glowing in the kilns and clamps”. Several of these brickyards lasted until the 1930s. If you take a stroll through the Miller’s Pond area, you can still see evidence of the Bagshaw Brickworks Company – with the identifier ‘BBC’ impressed into the bricks.

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Mayfield Park site

In around 1762, Walter Taylor of Southampton built a water-powered wood mill on the west bank of the stream that flowed through what is known today as Mayfield Park. Using the reservoir of Miller’s Pond, Taylor’s mill made ship’s blocks for the Royal Navy. It is likely that HMS Victory (now stationed at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard) had its wooden blocks made at this site. Once the stream became insufficient for the mill’s needs, Taylor moved his business to Woodmill, Swaythling, in 1781.

 

During the 19th Century, the mill was replaced by a domestic dwelling, known as Oldmill House. Oldmill was lived in until around 1941, when wartime damages meant its inhabitants had to leave. 

 

In the 1990s, a community archaeology team uncovered the remnants of a mill building, dating back to the 18th Century. Millstone fragments found as part of the excavation suggest that the site may also have been used for flour milling.

 

World War II 

A prime target due to its docks, Southampton suffered heavily during the Blitz, when bombs rained down over the city, killing many of its citizens. In September 1940, the Woolston aircraft manufacture works were bombed, and 110 people lost their lives. Southampton kept its spirits high however, and production of the formidable Spitfire fighter plane took place across the city, with bus stations, launderettes and garages utilised in the manufacture of aircraft parts. 

 

Three bombsites are recorded in Millers Pond vicinity alone; there were two bomb craters to the south, and one unexploded bomb (since removed) to the northwest of the Pond. 

 

Millers Pond

By the early 20th Century, Millers Pond had become a local beauty spot. One local account tells of the changing seasons: “Millers Pond would freeze over and you could skate on it. One Sunday afternoon in 1910, someone fell through the ice and drowned. I fell in one summer, climbing through a tree overhanging the pond. I lay in the sun and didn’t go home until all my clothes had dried. My mum never said anything.”

 

In the early 1960s, the Pond was partially drained due to local council plans to develop new housing, industry and shops in the area. Prone to floods however, the plans stalled, and a small pond was reintroduced to collect overflow water and divert it via underground piping. By the late 1960s, the area was being used as a rubbish dump, which was eventually covered by concrete and topsoil. This ground covering the dump has since sunk, and the drain culverts can now be seen several feet above ground level. 

 

In 1987, the Millers Pond Conservation Society was formed to protect the area, and the pond was restored. The Sholing Valleys Study Centre was also established, with the mission to ‘Protect, Enhance and Educate’. It became a registered charity in 1988. By 2012, Millers Pond became a designated Local Nature Reserve, giving it a greater protection from the threat of development.