Townsend is part of ancient Holdenhurst. In 1086 the village was recorded in the Domesday survey as Holeest, meaning ‘Holly Copse’. There was a Saxon chapel, a mill (now called Throop Mill), land for 20 ploughs and 181 acres of meadow. About 380 villagers lived in wattle and mud cottages, surrounded in
stockade or thick hedge and Townsend may have been the ‘Tunsend’ (old
English for ‘enclosures end’.

Between 1100 and 1500, travellers and pilgrims passed through Holdenhurst, on their way to the markets and fairs held at Christchurch and to see the Miraculous Beam in the Priory, which can still be seen. Down the ages, other hamlets grew along the River Stour: Iford (Huvre) in the 12th century, Muscliff (Musclyve) in the 13th century, and Throop (Lathorpe) in the 14th century. Wild heathland of gorse and heather stretched over Littledown and
Pokesdown (recorded as Pox Down in 1650) and there was a treacherous swamp at Strouden. Snakes were so common that farmers kept a bottle of ‘adder oil’ in a hole in their gate posts.

From 1750 to 1820 the health smugglers to hide lace, raisins, tobacco and other contraband. An Excise officer records that he ‘surveyed the Health, Littledown and Boskum, found smugglers looking out, returned and acquainted my officers’ (extract from ‘Diary of a Riding Officer’ at the Red House Museum, Christchurch). Other hazards were the press-gangs on Bournemouth beach. In 1803 Farmer Wests sons narrowly escaped capture by a gang of armed sailors. Some names of the inhabitants are recorded in wills and accounts of the time.

Among the villagers were Cornelius Trim, Widow Chub, Goody Critch, John Legg and John Up. Some of the rate payers were Widow Sweetapple, Elizabeth Cool and John Comely. The local doctors were Dr. Gune, Dr. Hackman and Dr. Larder and the ‘well to do’ who were Chaplin’s or ‘overseers of the poor’, were the Dean, the Reeks and the Dale family. A village school was built in the 19th century, (opposite the Vicarage). In a log book of 1869, the teacher reports: “School as usual, Jane Winter runs away”. Things must have improved by 1878 when the Inspector records that “… it is now one of the most pleasing schools in my district”, and the annual school treat was cake and games on Hadden Hill.

 

 

Bournemouth started to develop from 1820 and a lot has changed since then, but oak trees still grow on Townsend, along Woodbury Avenue and Castle Lane, which are descendents of trees from those Saxon days.

 

Extracts taken from Holdenhurst – Mother of Bournemouth by K. Chilver.