Park Life is the name of a new quarterly newspaper published for the Leigh Park Estate and we are privileged to provide a page of each quarter dedicated to the history of the estate. The newspaper is only delivered to the 20,000+ residents on the estate but there are many thousands of people who have lived in Leigh Park and for one reason or another now live in places all over the world. Each quarter we are going to place on this page other interesting facts about the estate that are included in the Park Life page for all the ex-Leigh Parkers to read.

Park Life - New Year Edition 2008

Seats of Learning - The first Secondary School built was Oak Park which was in Leigh Road. Although now demolished, its memory lives on in the names of the roads build near there: Gaulter Close, Hodges Close, Barrows Close are all names of Heads and teachers from the school and Oak Park Drive speaks for itself. Another road there, Anderson Close, was named after the first District Nurse in Havant, Elizabeth Anderson.

The Staunton Park Genealogy Centre has a copy of the initial registers for the school and will be publishing them in the not-to-distant future. They also have the opening registers for the scond Secondary School, Broomfield, which was in Middle Park Way and will also be published in due course.

Did you have a donkey stove? - Well you would have done if you had been one of the first people to live in Leigh Park when the naval authorities released land at Stockheath Camp. The Housing Committee of Portsmouth City Council jumped at the chance to convert some of the buildings into habitable dwellings as a temporary measure..........Once the alterations were completed, the main part of each unit consisted of three fairly large rooms - two as bedrooms and the third as a living room. In the living room there was a donkey stove which could be fed with coal, wood or almost any combustible waste material and this provided the heat for the whole hut. At the back of the stove was a chimney which went through the wall and when outside was high enough to clear the roof........... Alongside the living room was a kitchen, bathroom and toilet. In the kitchen was the electricity meter which took penny coins. The floor was concrete and the occupants used all sorts of materials to cover it so as to make the rooms more homely.........The residents of these huts were the first real residents of Leigh Park and they gradually moved out as the proper housing was completed on the estate.

Did you know that - Portsmouth City Council bought the land on which Leigh Park is built in secret deals before the Second World War ended because they could see that there was going to be thousand of people homeless because of the bombing raids?......Leigh Park was once the third largest Council estate in Europe?........In 2004, Leigh Park made the news when a gang stole more than £100,000 from the Nationwide Building Society?........About 20,000 people live in the estate nowdays?........That Staunton Community Sports College is the new name for Staunton Park School which, in turn, used to be Wakefords Secondary School?

Park Life - Spring Edition, 2008

A week in my life I shall never forget

This was the title Betty Bell wanted Phil Hammond to use when he interviewed her about the life in Leigh Park just a few days before she died. Although very weak, she insisted in giving the interview which was for the Leigh Park book of the first 50 years of life, as her tribute to the people of Leigh Park which she loved so dearly. She related her experience of the week she was put in prison for supporting her husband and four other councillors in standing up for the rights of the people against the officialdom of Portsmouth City Council in the fight to get Leigh Park gardens opened to the public for free. Leigh Park is much the poorer for the loss of Betty, but she will live in people's lives for many years to come for all the love and dedication sher gave to the people of Leigh Park.

Park Life - Summer Edition, 2008

Leigh Park Farms - Most of the Leigh Park area was originally farmland, so a large number of houses on the estate today were actually built on land that had been farmed for many years, in fact back to the early part of the 18th century. The details about the farms was not printed, however it can be found on its own page on this website and can be found from the Home page.

Growing up in Leigh Park by Sandra Brooks (nee Carey)

I remember Leigh Park in 1953 when my parents moved to Purbrook Way from Portsmouth. The road stopped where the parade of shops, including the Co-op is now. It just had a wire fence across it with field after field, all the way to the Hulbert Road.

My first impression of our new house was the space - large rooms downstairs and long, long gardens. Mud was everywhere. The builders had just finished Purbrook Way and were building Barncroft Way and there were diggers, tractors, and scaffolding everywhere you looked. There were no shops, just the grocers called Burnett and Piper which was in a nissen hut near my first school, Stockheath, which was made up of the kitchen and admin block of the old navy buildings. The school rooms were cold and heated by a stove. We all dried our hats and gloves so that we could wear them again on the journey home. I remember the free bottles of milk that had ice in them making the lids lift off. No winters like that any more in the south!

Our house was cold too! The only heating was an open fire in the lounge and we often had ice on the inside of our windows in the mornings. There was a doctor's surgery in Park Lane but we still had to go and knock on the door of Sergeant Stokes's house if we wanted a policeman. The midwife lived locally and our church was in Havant before St Francis was built.

All our shops were mobile. The Red Spot Grocery, the Co-op, a Veggie van, the Co-op milkman and coalman actually delievered to our door. Before we had any other amenities we had to go into Havant for the cinema or local pub. We only had the Cricketers pub in Riders Lane and we used to play rounders or die and seek on the common while waiting for a lemonade and packet of crisps.

Another memory of Leigh Park was my secondary school, Broomfield, which is now called Park Community. It was built 50 years ago this year. I was 11 years old and one of the first pupils to enter the school when we all joined as first years and went up through the school, always being the top, with new pupils coming in each year below us. We had to share the facilities with Havant Grammar School while they waited for their new building to be built. I loved my days at Broomfield and I also met my husband there aged 12 and we have now been married for 41 years. Miss Gregory, the Headmistress, found me a Saturday job at the Pelham Bookshop in Havant which is now a cafe next to Clarkes Shoe Shop.

At the end of my story I have a lot to thank Broomfield School and Leigh Park for - my husband Terry and a career in Bookselling.

You can send in any memories, stories or photographs that we could use in Park Life by Email at leighparkhistory@googlemail.com or by post to SPGC, Staunton Park Community Sports College, Wakefords Way, Havant PO9 5JD.