IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Wimborne Road East, FERNDOWN, BH22 9NL

Situated behind us there is a large area of woodland called 'The Warren', which has been cleared and earmarked for development.

This is a view from the Wimborne Road near Trickett's Cross of the old trackway that once ran from Dudsbury hill fort on the River Stour, across the heathland of this part of Dorset and onto the hinterland of north Dorset and Wiltshire. It was undoubtedly used by smugglers for a time.

A view of an ancient trackway that once ran from the banks of the River Stour (Dudsbury hill fort) across the heathland and on into north Dorset and Wiltshire. The cottage on the left of the lane is known as 'Smugglers Cottage', and parts of it are thought to be over 400 years old. The trackway was almost certainly used to take contraband away from the coastal area in the south to 'customers' inland. The road in the foreground is the Wimborne Road, once a turnpike linking that town with Ringwood.

This is the old gateway to Ferndown Hill House on Wimborne Road (East), Ferndown - the family home of the Stewart family. The nursery on this site has two claims to national fame: in 1955, they opened the first garden centre in the UK on this site - just a little way to the west of the family house. And in the same decade, as the firm relocated to a fresh site at Broomhill, near Wimborne Minster, the Stewarts introduced container-grown stock to the British horticultural industry, revolutionising production and sales. As can be seen, the gateway has been bricked up. Behind the wall now lies an estate of houses – the wall is all that is left on this once great enterprise, though Stewart's Nursery still trades at Broomhill and elsewhere.

At first sight this is a most uninteresting view. However, this simple, yet elegant wall, which is well over a century old, is all that is left of a once vast enterprise of importance not only in the history of Ferndown (now the largest non-coastal community in Dorset), but also of seminal importance to national horticulture. In 1859, the brothers William and David Stewart, the young heirs to a long-established Scottish plant nursery enterprise, decided to look to southern England for a milder base to extend their operations. They purchased a large expanse of land just south of West Moors (Dorset), north of the Wimborne to Ringwood road. The growing nursery helped encourage the development of Ferndown - indeed it was the Stewart brothers who decided to merge the original name (Fern Down). David Stewart built a large house on the site - Ferndown Hill House - and this wall surrounded that property. When the house was demolished (I believe in the 1970s) the wall and main gate to the property were retained.

This image, roughly halfway between the busy Wimborne Road and the even busier Ringwood Road (A347), both former turnpikes of late 18th century vintage, shows the 'true' nature of the track that might have been familiar to folk using the way over a couple of centuries ago. I doubt the trees would have been so developed - the track would have passed across a heathland landscape and the shrubbery would have been cropped by ponies, cattle & wild animals etc.

Lost in the encroaching greenery is the continuation of a once ancient trackway that stretched from Dudsbury hill fort on the River Stour, towards St. Leonard's Common (West Moors) and then on north to Wiltshire and NE Dorset. The track is traceable on old maps of the 19th century. The road in the foreground is the A347 (Ringwood Road) which was very busy - it was quite a feat to capture this with nothing on it!

At the junction of Ringwood Road (A348) and Wimborne Road East.