Moordown
| Moordown | |
|---|---|
 Moordown
|
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| Moordown shown within Dorset | |
| OS grid reference | SZ0089 |
| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | BOURNEMOUTH |
| Postcode district | BH9 |
| Dialling code | 01202 |
| Police | Dorset |
| Fire | Dorset and Wiltshire |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Moordown is a suburb of Bournemouth, situated in the northern part of the borough. It was incorporated into the borough of Bournemouth in 1901, having previously been part of the Christchurch rural district.
Moordown, according to Michael Stead, "may well be the longest continually settled area of Bournemouth". Evidence of its antiquity was unearthed in 1873, when 97 cremation urns, redolent of the Middle Bronze Age, were exhumed in the Redbreast Hill area; unfortunately most of them "crumbled to atoms" on being exposed to the air. Another, equally erudite historian has written of the "superior rusticated ware" from the Late Bronze Age (c. 800-500 BC), unearthed when Nursery Road was being built up in 1929. Later, in the period of recorded history, Moordown was cited in the charters of Christchurch Priory. In the early fourteenth century, "Roger de Morden" and "Henry de Mourdene" were both mentioned as having paid two measures of rye at Martinmas to support the upkeep of the Priory church.
The land at Moordown formed part of the Manor of Christchurch until 1698, when Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, began selling off parts the manor to fund his son's transvestism and general excesses. By the eighteenth century, the main farm at Moordown was occupied by Henry Hookey - who seems to have been related to the Dean family, who later acquired most of Littledown. The farm was divided up in the nineteenth century and part of it came to vest in the Kemp family, whose sale of land in 1903 resulted in the creation of Evelyn and Naseby Roads. The farm was later renamed "Charminster Farm" and used as a dairy farm by the Hunt family, who remained there until 1978 - but by then, almost all of the land had been sold off. The farmhouse survives, in Homeside Road.
As a hamlet, Moordown enjoyed "a reputation for roughness" throughout the nineteenth century; as one inhabitant recalled, "it was not an uncommon thing for a policeman to be hit over the head at night by a gang of roughs". A typical incident occurred in 1851, when a police officer was assaulted by "an uncivilized set of beings", namely a gang of eight Moordown reprobates. Among them was the notorious Solomon Troke (c. 1831-1920), also known as Solomon Head, who received his first poaching conviction when he was fifteen, and had notched up a further thirteen convictions by 1864. Incredibly, he later became a gamekeeper - patrolling the Haddon Hill estate in the Queen's Park district of Bournemouth, and being awarded a gun by his appreciative employer, James Harris, 3rd Earl of Malmesbury. Ultimately he retired to Moordown, living out his last years in quiet respectability at 14 Nursery Road.
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Wikipedia