.. Apart from the obvious point that the Dowd's Farm developers installed the street name plate and then put their security fencing so close that it has loosened the footings and pushed the name plate out of the perpendicular, that is...
I quite like the Council's practice of giving us a little history lesson on new street name plates. I particularly like that walking round the Dowd's Farm housing estate you can find two roads a few yards apart, one commemorating Hedge End's first publican, the other Hedge Ends' first Salvation Army officer. It all helps to relieve the tedium of the new urban landscape that has replaced the green fields and rural footpaths of the old farm.
But it's not the Council's job to rewrite history.
The Rev. Payne would have been chairman of Hedge End Parish Council in 1894, and Hedge End would have been a rural parish with a population counted in the hundreds and six parish councillors. Very different from the built up dormitory town it has become.
The First Chair of Hedge End Town Council in 1992 was Councillor John Butcher. Perhaps he will get a street name plate in a hundred years' time.
Is it a surprise that the first chairman of Hedge End Parish Council was a Payne?
ReplyDeleteAll that extra writing, including the pretty sign which shows residents that they live in Eastleigh, all adds (presumably) to the cost of the sign? Can anyone quantify this extra cost?
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