Northwood Village History
Until 1894, the sources for local history do not always differentiate what we know today as Northwood from the history of the wider Cowes, Gurnard, Thorness and Parkhurst area, as the ecclesiastical parish of Northwood once included all these places. Its western boundary was the river at Newtown and its eastern one the Medina; its southern boundary was Parkhurst Forest and its northern one the sea. To further complicate matters, Northwood was itself a Living which the incumbent Rector held jointly as Rector of Northwood and Vicar of Carisbrooke.
West Cowes did not become a separate parish until 1894, even though a chapel (which later became St. Mary's church) had been there since 1657.
The parish boundary probably marks old Anglo-Saxon land divisions. Some of the local hedges have been dated as being at least one thousand years old. Neolithic finds have been made at Pallance Farm. A coin of Vespasion was found in Pallance Road and a coin of Marcus Aurelius in Parkhurst Forest. Near the church is an unexcavated Roman site, on top of which evidence of the mediaeval strip field system has been identified.
One local farm was mentioned in the Domesday Book - Luton (Levinton). In the 13thC Northwood was called 'Northewede' and also, in 1295, 'North Wode', becoming Northwood by 1364. Fourteenth-Century Northwood was the site of one of the string of warning beacons across the Island, our one, called 'Roghelonde' existing in 1324.
In 1770, smugglers were apprehended at Three Gates. In the 1820s and 30s, several Northwood residents were tried for smuggling and sentenced to either serve in the Navy or be imprisoned in Winchester Gaol, their main contraband being brandy, spirits, wine, tobacco and East Indian silk.
In 1777, Sir Richard Worsley bought the Manor of Northwood.
Turnpikes were erected in 1813. In 1816 they were moved from Love Lane to 'Dallimore's -which was somewhere near Smithard's Lane. Also in 1816, the Highway Commissioners removed the three gates on the road from the Horseshoe to Nodes Farm - the fields were to be enclosed with culverts, and drains were to be built on the 'Northwood Road'.
1875 saw a boundary dispute between Newport and Cowes. In 1876 the village was hit by a tornado: a thirty-yard wide strip of trees was blown down in Parkhurst Forest; two houses at Marks Corner and one in Tinkers Lane (Pallance Road) were destroyed before the tornado tore through Cowes.
The Ward family began buying up farms and plots of land in the early 19thC until they owned most of the local farms. These were sold off at the turn of the 20thC when the estate was broken up.
Most of the housing development of Northwood took place during the 20thC, with the Nodes Farm estate (Venner Avenue, etc.) being built in the 1960s. Later, farmland at Medham was developed.
Historic Sites and Heritage Features
Northwood has one Grade I Listed Building - the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist. There are several Grade II Listed Buildings, including Hope Cottage and Fryers Cottage, Tara House, Pallance Farmhouse, Wyatts Cottage, Barleyfield Cottage and buildings at Chawton Farm.
St. John The Baptist Church was a chapel of ease in the Carisbrooke Parish until the reign of Henry VIII when it obtained parochial privileges. The building is mostly 12thC and 13thC with some Victorian 'improvements' and repairs being made in 1864. Most of this restoration was financed by Miss Emma Ward. In 1874 the church bell was hung.
The Old Rectory (Tara House) was renovated and enlarged in 1736 by a very rich Rector, Dr. Thomas Troughear - a man connected by marriage to many of the landed families on the Island -but by the end of the 19thC the curate ran a boarding school in the house to supplement his stipend. The church sold the glebe lands surrounding the old Rectory to neighbouring farms in 1918 and finally sold the old Rectory itself in 1953, building the new Rectory in Chawton Lane as a replacement.
In 1855 the school was built in Wyatts Lane on land bequeathed by the Miss Ward sisters.
A certificate was issued in 1777 for a Dissenters' Meeting House and James Day built a Presbyterian chapel.
In 1837 Trustees were appointed for the Independent chapel built at Marks Corner on land purchased in 1806 by James Flux and James Clarke.
1880 the old Wesleyan chapel was deemed insufficient to meet the increase in Wesleyan Methodism in the area and a new chapel and school room were build just below the old one in Tinkers Lane (Pallance Road). This new one could accommodate 130 people. It is now a private residence.
From modest industrial beginnings with, for example, a blacksmith next to the Horseshoe in the 1820s, this part of the Island became a major source of industrial employment. In 1919 Somerton Works was sold to a manufacturer of motor scooters, in 1927 it was leased to the Vectis Bus Company and in 1935 it re-opened and was re-equipped for the manufacture of aircraft components. Somerton Works finally closed in 1966. The old J S White's sports ground was at Somerton.
Decca opened in Northwood in 1959 before becoming Plessey and going through several name changes until the current BAE Systems.
There were several brickyards in the parish including those at Medham (which was in existence in 1772), Werrar (which was then in the Parish and was pre-1884), Wyatts Lane and Marks Corner.
In 1513 there was a hospital in Northwood. A confraternity called the Brothers and Sisters of St. John the Baptist was founded near Northwood Church about 1513 and was dissolved in 1536. The building housing the confraternity, later known as Church House, was still standing in 1690 and was near St. John's church.
In 1727 and predating the one at St. Mary's, one of the earliest work houses in the country, instigated by the Revd. Thomas Troughear, was opened near the church. This supplied apprentice labour to many of the local farmers - and also the Rector himself to work his glebe land.
Land was purchased for a cemetery in 1855 (in Newport Road), with two thirds consecrated and one third unconsecrated.
The Present Community
The community today is characterised by several discrete areas and phases of settlement: 'Central' Northwood
Most of what residents consider today to be 'Northwood' developed when part of Decca Radar relocated onto the old aerodrome site in the late 1950s. Prior to the development of the Wroxall Farm and the Nodes Farm Estates (housing many Decca - later Plessey - employees and families), there were distinctive communities in Furzyhurst close to the school and sporadic houses in Wyatts Lane and Tinkers Lane (Pallance Road). Victorian and Edwardian properties, with some later, inter-war and post-WWII buildings result in a mixed building stock in the older, linear settlements in Oxford Street, Wyatts Lane, Pallance Road, Pallance Lane, Coronation Avenue and the Newport/ Cowes Road. Significant development took place in Harry Cheek Gardens and Cranleigh Gardens in the 1990s - the latter increasing significantly the social housing stock in the community.
A number of new infill developments have been created, most recently Willow Tree Drive (off Venner Avenue) and Wyatts Close. The majority of lower-cost or affordable housing is found within 'central' Northwood.
Chawton
The area known as Chawton, around Northwood Church, is the oldest part of the village. In recent years Chawton Farm barns were sympathetically converted into housing.
Pallance Gate
Pallance Gate is a small community of three or four dwellings, former farm-workers' cottages, off Hillis Gate Road.
Hillis
Hillis refers to the dozen or so households located from Hillis Corner to the road to Parkhurst Forest (Hillis Gate Road). The houses at Hillis Gate Road are a combination of former farm houses and cottages, forest-workers' cottages and homes to residents once employed at the local brickworks.
Medham
Medham Village is a 1980s development of seventy one properties surrounded by open countryside at the bottom of Medham Farm Lane.
Somerton
Somerton is host to most of the industry in Northwood as well as being an area of housing. There is a thriving industrial estate as well as BAE Systems, Cliftongrade scrap yard, and a branch of the Co-op. Somerton is probably most famous for having the air strip which was in existence from 1916 to 1951 (now the BAE site).
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