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Minley Estate, Cove

1949 to 1959

Minley Estate consisted of only three roads. Twelve Acre Crescent included wide grass verges which were useful for ball games but had no other special features. Broomhill Road lived up to its name and the slopes were good for roller skating and soap box races. Cripley Road was well known to all the estate’s children because it led to the woods and Sandy Lane, when it actually was a sandy track, and to the army’s Hawley Lake on which they played with amphibious vehicles and demanded a licence fee from the public who wished to access it. For some reason local residents called it Minley Lake and it was popular for picnics and paddling. Few paid the licence fee and sometimes a hasty retreat was called for if someone with a peaked cap approached. For all these reasons Cripley Road was well used by the ragamuffins of Twelve Acre who got to know their counterparts in that road. This was helped to some degree by the fact that several of our mothers had become friends through their membership of Mother’s Union and Young Wives Group. A certain amount of birthday party interchange took place too and most of us went to the same school in Fernhill Road.
Minley Estate Minley Estate Twelve Acre Crescent Twelve Acre Crescent
Cripley Road Cripley Road Coronation Day Coronation Day - 1953
The ‘Twelve Acre’ and ‘Coronation’ photographs were taken on simple Box Brownie and folding Kodak cameras between 1949 and 1956 and processed by the chemist in Cove. The ‘Cripley Road’ photographs are from the album of school friends, John and Philip Fouracre and the later ‘Minley Estate’ photographs are the result of Malcolm Knight’s investment in his own camera and some home made developing equipment and a tendency to snap away at anything that moved and quite a lot that didn’t.

If you have arrived here from the Historic Farnborough website you should note that this site was designed to illustrate my family’s history and may not be laid out in the best way to explore this part of Farnborough.


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