Eating out New Milton, New Forest Online
The History of New Milton
The modern growth of New Milton is interesting, for here we find the phenomenal
development in the district in the 20 years following the first Great
War.
There was only the little village clustering round the Parish Church,
with a few very new buildings grouped around the Railway Station which
had been opened in March, 1888. Previous to this, anyone wishing to travel
here by train had to get out at Holmsley Station, and hire a horse conveyance
from there.
There was a "George Inn" at the old village, but it was not
the large building it is today, but only a small place set back from the
road, with seats outside on which the oldest inhabitants used to sit and
quaff their ale. The little Post Office was the only one for miles around,
and incidentally it served the public in that capacity for some 90 years,
only recently having been taken over for another type of business.
Ashley was connected with Milton by a narrow lane, which has widened out
into Ashley Road, and there were only a very few houses along it. The
ground at the bottom of Spencer Road was an orchard, while a brickyard
occupied the space from the corner of what was until recently the Waverley
Cinema. Most people used to shop at Lymington or Christchurch, many of
them walking the entire distance! For many years Milton's menfolk went
to Christchurch for a haircut, as there was no barber in the district.
Eventually a pair horse bus owned by the proprietor of the Hotel Victoria,
Milford, plied between Milton and Milford. There is no doubt that the
first founder of what eventually became New Milton, was a Mr. Hugh Wyeth,
a brewer who came to the district from Winchester in 1888 and took a great
fancy to it. He built the Milton Hotel, a shop, and Milton Hall, while
he was responsible for drawing out the plans for the general development
of the district. With his brother he erected two more houses, and at the
start of the twentieth century these had been augmented by the two shops
opposite the Hotel, and three houses on the right hand side of the road
below the railway bridge. On the site of what now forms Whitefield Road
and the Recreation Ground was pasture belonging to a farm, with a frontage
on Station Road. A famous meeting place on the cross-roads by the Gas
Board's showrooms was the Whitefield Coffee Tavern.
New Milton became an Urban District in 1926, but after 5 years of efficient
administration a re-organisation of boundaries came along. Despite public
meetings of protest and appeals to the Ministry of Health, the change
became effective in April, 1932, and with other neighbouring districts
the town was merged in the Borough of Lymington. Since then the New Milton
members of the Borough Council have worked for the good of the Borough
as a whole.
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