The Heritage Society held its AGM at the Village Hall on Thursday, March 16th, which was well-attended. The highlight of the event was a presentation by Stephen Dean, who spoke about his restoration work on Hambledon Common’s heath. Stephen also shared interesting information about the different types of flora, fauna, fungi, and feathered friends that can be found on the common, making for an engaging and informative talk.
Stephen’s talk was recorded and can be viewed below.
We are really, really pleased to announce that on Tuesday 30 January at about 11am, the lovely Lucky gave birth to a new cría (baby llama), a little silver grey boy, who was up and running within thirty minutes! He will be named via a competition, so look out for more information on this.
This is Lucky’s third cría – daughter Toffee and son Dylan are already part of our herd, as is Diesel who has become a dad for the first time at the age of 4. This is however the first cría born at Surrey Hills Llamas in our 15 years of operation and everyone is doing well, although they will need some time alone before they can start receiving visitors. We will keep everyone up to date with progress.
Hambledon Heritage Society has assembled a range of audio and video recordings of villagers.
Norman Gravestock – Curator of Oakhurst Cottage of the National Trust
Mr Milligan, son of F. E. Milligan, former Headmaster of Hambledon School:
Joan Vickery on her life living in Hambledon:
Louis de Bernieres on his formative years living in Hambledon:
The Heritage Society assembled for their 2009 AGM in the Village Hall – the theme was a “Night to Remember” – memories of living in Hambledon during the 1940’s. A number of guest speakers were invited, and recordings of their stories are included here for you to listen to
Olive Thornton and here wartime rescue story:
Muriel Campbell:
Rosemary Arnold:
Marilyn Wilkes:
Terry Price:
May Denyer:
Colin Denyer:
Louis de Bernières, award winning author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, returned to Hambledon, the village of his childhood, to open the fete and to talk to the village website on camera.
He speaks candidly about his book Notwithstanding, set in Hambledon, and posed beside a Morris Minor, a car which, with nuns behind the wheel, struck fear into the hearts of any motorists they encountered on village lanes.
For accounts of this and other reflections on his life growing-up in our village view the 30 minute video below:
Hambledon Shop was featured in a London News TV report back in the 1990’s.
Who do you recognise? Can you tell us what date this was recorded?
You may have noticed a new look and layout to www.HambledonSurrey.co.uk. This is the look of the re-launched website after some substantial changes to the platform that underpins the workings of the site. The Website Development Team, along with a new volunteer from Hambledon resident Jon Petersen, have been working on migrating the website to a new design and publishing system. After 7 years the old Joomla software was not able to be updated and was proving difficult to keep secure and efficient. We have now migrated to WordPress software which is a popular and more modern platform.
It brings significant benefits –
It is more intuitive and easier for residents to add content, articles, events, photographs
It has a greater flexibility for design changes to the look and function of the site
It integrates well with Twitter & Facebook.
It allows residents to Subscribe – they are sent emails when News is added.
Residents can add Comments to many articles.
It is easier to upgrade to combat potential hackers.
It has a number of added functions such as galleries, forums, and Twitter feeds
Finding volunteers to help contribute to the site may be easier as WordPress is a popular platform.
Over the next few weeks we will be showing how these new features will work. In addition we will be offering one-to-one training to residents who have expressed interest in adding articles and updates to the site. In the meantime, take the first step by following us on Twitter or Facebook or Subscribe by email – see the blue buttons and options in the righthand column.
For a video overview:
The Web Development Team
The Background Story of the German Air Crash at Lodge Bottom
How many times have you driven through Lodge Bottom on the Hambledon Road and glanced over to the statue standing at the far side of the dewpond? Most of us know some of the story behind it but the whole story is full of fascination. With the help of a wealth of material provided by Lady Gillian Brunton who lives at North Munstead Farm and articles written by Frances Morris I will attempt to bring to life the characters who took part in the events of 9 April 1941.
There was a survivor, a young girl involved in the rescue of the survivor, and the air crew who shot the plane down and all have a story to tell. Our story must start however with Gillian Brunton because little would have been known about the crash if she had not researched it in the first place.
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