As a child I used to go with my mother who was a home help to visit her clients during the school holidays as there was nobody to look after me while at home. One of these old people lived behind the tin church at Bartley which lies within the parish of Netley Marsh on the western edge of Southampton and the New Forest. It was easily found as you just headed for the huge BBC radio transmitter mast that towered above the trees, sadly this is now long gone.

The tin church after restoration
(Photo kindly supplied by Neville Hunter Bartley)

The old tin church used to fascinate me and as the village village has little historical importance, by way of architecture, then this all there was. Except of course for Goldenhayes a large Georgian house with its own park and it is said that it is from this household that the 'tin church' came into being. The church itself stands in the centre of a 'y' junction opposite a tiny shop that stands within a garden and it is the main and now the only focal point of the village of Bartley.

The old corn and meal stores on Bartley Cross
(Photo kindly supplied by Neville Hunter Bartley)

On the edge of Bartley and Woodlands can be found Woodlands Lodge Hotel and it is said that it stands on what  used to be the site of a hunting lodge most probably built during the 1500s.

Winsor Mission Evangelical Church		The Compass Inn Winsor
Bartley Cross stores The Junction on the main Southampton to Cadnam Road was also known as Bartley Cross		Cottage at Bartley Cross
The stream by Bartley Cross		The Haywain on the main Cadnam to Southampton Road

If you go through Bartley to Cadnam there is not much to see, just a mixture of houses, bungalow and the odd smallholding, at Bartley Cross there is the post office and turning up the side of it you come into Cadnam by the Haywain public house. Here there is a busy crossroads and care should be taken when crossing over to Bartley School and other shops. Turn right and this takes you to the start of the M27 and the main Bournemouth/Ringwood road, with the Sir John Barleycorn public house on the right hand side in a lay-by which was once part of the main road. But go straight across the Haywain crossroads and you will come to the pretty little hamlet of Winsor. With its old brickyard, modern church and village pub, The Compass, just past the pub on the way to Tatchbury and Calmore is the Winsor Mission Evangelical church.

The Sir John Barleycorn near Cadnam roundabout
(Photo kindly supplied by Stephen Oddy, Australia)

The Sir John Barleycorn today

Nearby is Stoney Cross the site of a World War Two bomber airfield which was a  popular place after the war for campers, picnickers and those learning to drive. Now there is only the water tower left to remind us of what was once here. The photo is courtesy of Colin Green and shows the airfield today with the main A31 Southampton to Bournemouth Road, (bottom of photo) well known to tourists. The main outline of the runway can still be seen as well as some of the dispersal points

THE BARTLEY TIN CHURCH
The building is believed was bought in kit form ready for erection on the site.It is constructed of a timber frame lined internally with tongue and groove pine, a pine floor and the exterior was covered in a deep woodland green painted corrogated iron sheets.

The rear facing wall contains four stained glass windows which give the building some sense of pride.

The cost of this work was £17.10.00d with expenses for visitng of £1. 1. 0d carried out by "F.G. Christmas of Underelm studio, Hay Lane Kingsbury" and the receipt states "to executing three stained glass circles with angel's heads to designs as estimate". dated November 19th 1930. The original receipt is still in existence. The whole building was topped by an excellent pendulum clock given in 1903 to the village by Constance Howard, in memory of her husband J.H. Howard. Records show that

"Bartley village is in debt to the late Mrs Constance Howard for all she did twoards the institution and welfare of the Bartley Church Rooms during very many years of devoted labour of love and benevolence."

In 1992 the Church of England abandoned the building but it remained under the care of trustees up to 1998, when the village managed to raise £10,000 by hard work and local generosity to re-purchase it back off the Diocese of Winchester, they representing the Church of England.

It was then that the villages created the project into a charitable trust "Bartley Village Hall Charitable Trust". The trustees got busy raising funds to restore the building as a village hall once more as a centre for the community. this meant taking off the whole wall and roof covering, repairing the wooden frame, insulating and re-covering with new corrogated iron. The windows and floor had both been damaged by wood rot and had to be replaced. New lighting, toilets, small kitchen and cupboards were installed including a new drainage system.

Many items of character were removed from the site before sale by the church but the pedal type organ and piano have both to be retuned and restored. Inside the church the church was cleverly designed to play its dual role, by closing the folding oak doors over the chancel and altar the building became a church room, a very convenient meeting place and in those days used a great deal, and that is how the trustees of today see its new future after restoration.

Before it was built the people of Bartley had a very long walk to Copythorne. The Howards determined to solve this problem set about raising funds in the village to build a place of worship that would give the people a church and Sunday school and centre of village life of their own.

The Howards were the main family of the village owning much of the land and many of the cottages, most of these had been built by the owners of Goldenhayes over many years and the Howards continued this build of cottage housing for families working on the estate building particularly in Purkess Close , these properties are now mainly privately owned. The land having been given to the village people.

The church rooms and the land in which it stands were conveyed as a gift by sealed instrument dates 13.3.1901 into the custodian trusteeship of the Winchester diocesan Board of finance in whose hands the church thrived until the 1980,s when interest seem to deteriorate and they decided to sell the site off for development of a house or bungalow, the protest from the village was long and loud and planning permission that had been applied for was denied, the present restoration committee grew from this and was able after a lot of fund raising and generous donation by the inhabitants and local business and charities to purchase the site from the Diocesan Board, the committee felt sad that the church could not give back to the community that which had been given to them.

The church in the 1920's held morning services with a lay preacher ( Mr. Hadenn) present taking the services. A choir of boys singing under the supervision of Miss Mabel Light playing the harmonium and also the part of lead singer as well. At the end of each service the choir and children all marched out singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" a very happy and invigorating time I would think. The church bell.( still in place) was rung before the service by a Mrs. Dunnings , she lived opposite in the little shop (still in business and run by Kathy Luke) with her sister Rhoda Hiscock. Next to the church is a cottage (Springfield) and the house next door were in the 20's still owned by Mrs. Howard these were used to house the church Lay Preacher's . A Mr. Parris was the Lay Reader in the late 1910's with his wife taking a very active role in village life and after his death Mrs Parris as a church worker lived there alone, we are told she was a very large lady who rode a tricycle around the village keeping the sick people in touch with the church and the vicar. (Details kindly given by Mary Poore Nee Hadden) Mrs Parriss is shown in one of yesterdays photographs donated by Violet Turner and it confirms Mary's description.

In a note written by H.C. Howard he notes that a Mr. Chamberlain was the first Lay reader and his son after he was ordained ,returned to baptize the first baby at the Bartley Tin Church and that was Mrs. Mannooch"s daughter Violet (Violet Turner, USA), Water brought back by Mrs. Howard from the Holy Land was used, that must have been very social in 1920, and shows the intense interest of Constance Howard in her church and her village people.

Hope Cottage opposite the tin church
(Photo kindly supplied by Neville Hunter Bartley)

The Haywain formerly the New Inn Bartley
(Photo kindly supplied by Neville Hunter Bartley)

Southampton Road Cadnam
(Photo kindly supplied by Stephen Oddy, Australia)

The tin church Bartley showing the clock tower.
(Photo kindly supplied by Neville Hunter Bartley)

The old corn and meal stores on Bartley Cross, which stood on
corner of the main road to Southampton the field on the left was
where later a BBC transmitter mast was erected.
(Photo kindly supplied by Neville Hunter Bartley)