Holly Bowers – Andrew Barton remembers

Andrew Barton remembers…

I lived in Holly Lodge during most of the 1960s. My most vivid memories are of the streams and ponds in the area, where we used to look for frogs and newts. Our long garden went down to the stream which ran behind the houses in the road. The stream was quite wide I  places, especially in the garden of Kemnal Wood, where I remember the kids made a raft out of oil drums and planks which we would navigate downstream. The stream eventually ran under the footpath leading from Kemnal Road to Belmont Parade, where it can still be seen, and into The Banana Pond, so called because of its shape. This was a great place for frogs, fishing and tadpoles.

Holly Bowers house was still occupied when we first moved to Kemnal Road. Mr and Mrs Jones had three children, with whom we would play. They had a large Scalextric set in one of the large upstairs rooms, the first one I had ever seen. After they moved away there were some small fires at the house, and the lead on the roof was stolen, so that the house became derelict. This was great for us, since we were able to get into the house easily and play in the dark rooms and cellars. I remember coming across large jars of liquids in the cellars. One was full of mercury, which we had great fun playing with. Finally there was a huge, spectacular fire which gutted the house, and left it a shell. It was shortly after this that the house was demolished and Mapledene flats were built.

The garden around Holly Bowers was great fun. There was a large rectangular pond in front of the house (to the north), which was not very deep, and we would find plenty of frogs and, memorably, a Great Crested Newt there. The pond was overgrown, but was a formal pond, and there was a large pedestal in the middle, where once there had presumably been a statue. On the other side of the pool there were stables, which were used by the family who lived in the old Mapledene, the house that backed onto the footpath. I was friends with their daughter, who kept a couple of horses in the field running alongside the footpath. There was a driveway from Kemnal Road to the house, which passed to the north of the stable block. When they moved out the house lay derelict for a number of years and became a play area and meeting point for all the local kids.

Our garden extended behind the lodge, and covered an area of what were previously the formal gardens of Holly Bowers. We had a huge statue of Eros on a pedestal in the garden, but this was smashed when my Dad chopped down a tree which fell on it. At the very foot of our garden, where it met the stream and the footpath, there were very old remains of a small brick-built structure, and a great deal of old charcoal. I often wondered if this was one of the charcoal kilns that were used in the old woods here. We used to put out Christmas Lights in the tree in the front garden in December, a silver fir tree, which can still be seen opposite Mulbarton Cottage.

Mr Goldsmith of Forest Ridge, next door to us. I think he was a City Banker. He also had a large garden, and he built a small golf course at the bottom of the garden, where he would practice, wearing plus fours. He also had a full time gardener, Mr Hicks, who would get very angry if our ball went into his garden.