Holdenhurst Village Conservation Area Appraisal - Bournemouth ...

neighbouring services on the northern
fringes of Bournemouth.
Activity and Uses
5.31 The aerial photo (Figure 3) shows there
is some variation in the land use today
across the eastern and western parts
of the village. To the western part the
land use is dominated by residential
curtilages with only a cluster of
small fields (which appear to be used
as paddocks). The section of land
connecting the two residential areas
of the village contains a narrow strip
of woodland, South Lodge, Longbarrow
Allotments, several fields and the road
itself. To the east agricultural land
surrounds the residential heart of the
village, with the only other land uses
being the religious site of St Johns
Church and the community facility of
the village hall.
5.32 The overwhelming activities in the
Conservation Area are residential
and agricultural. Many of the former
farm buildings that survive have
been converted into residential
accommodation. Where once there
were many small farms now only the
agricultural buildings of the former
Holdenhurst Farm are in agricultural
use.
5.33 The earliest buildings in the
Conservation Area are the timber
framed Magdalen Cottage (No. 1
Holdenhurst Village) and the cob barn
to the former Townsend Cottages.
Magdalen Cottage gets its name
from ancient links to the Magdalen
Charity that ran the leper hospital
at Christchurch and rented out the
cottage to help fund the hospital. The
cottage would have originally been very
small and despite a nineteenth century
extension, being single storey it is still
on a smaller scale than most of the
properties in the Conservation Area.
5.34 Agriculture has been one of the
biggest influences on the plan form of
Holdenhurst. The farmsteads that once
surrounded the village green (shown
in the Tithe map Figure 5) have long
gone. Modern buildings now sit in the
place of former farmhouses (such as
No. 18 Holdenhurst Village) and the
large gardens of some of the Manor
Farm development are made up of
the former agricultural plots of the
farmsteads.
5.35 Many of the yeomen farmers in
Holdenhurst would have kept animals
and at one time a village pound to
enclose stray animals was in use. The
site of the old village pound is shown
on old maps in Church Lane close to
Wood Farm, see Figure 6.
5.36 The past use of the land for farming
was assisted by ponds and drainage
ditches across the eastern part of the
village. Some of the old wayside rills
(small streams) that ran in front of
the cottages on the green can still
be identified by ditches. The site of
one of the old ponds, ‘hen pond’ is
identifiable on the ground in the garden
of Manor Farm Barn (see Figure 8). The
importance of the watery landscape
which once assisted the community
of Holdenhurst is also identified in
paragraphs 5.41 and 10.7.
5.37 Whilst the majority of the buildings
are currently in residential use,
several dwellings are conversions of
properties built for another purpose.
The former village school, smithy and
several of the barns have changed use
to residences. In general the village
has suffered the loss of a number of
services in recent years, such as the
post office, vicarage, bus service and
telephone box.
Holdenhurst Village Conservation Area Appraisal - March 2014 21