Part of Southbourne Parish and tucked away to the north of Peter Pond is the West Sussex village of Lumley, with Brook Meadow to the west.
The area was part of the Stansted Estate at that time, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as being included in the Hundred of Bourne. The estate was huge and embraced land as far afield as Compton, Bosham and Apuldram.
Did you know?
It is a constant frustration of locals in Lumley, Hermitage and Westbourne that the Post Office decided to change the postal address of all these villages to ‘Emsworth, Hampshire’ even though they are clearly all in West Sussex!
The friendly and close community of Lumley was created when Lumley Mill was built by the MP Lord Lumley in 1760, providing instant local employment in grinding flour and making bread and biscuits on the mill’s extensive site.
Lumley is a relatively small hamlet centred around the old mill, with four Grade II listed and other attractive historic buildings. Groundwater levels in this area are always high. The main river flows directly to Lumley Mill whilst the eastern branch runs to the west of Mill Lane and then to Lumley Mill. Below a pond at Lumley Mill, near the south of the hamlet, a channel diverts from the River Ems and a millstream runs southwards towards Brook Meadow nature reserve (see later on) and Peter Pond, seen below.
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Before the A259 road was built, the track around the north end of Peter Pond past Gooseberry Cottage was once the only way of travelling between Hermitage and Emsworth when the tide was high!
Rose Cottage, now two semi-detached houses, was part of the original Stansted estate. With the exception of a small number of farms and outlying buildings, all the houses in Lumley cluster around the former mill race or ‘leat’. Lumley Terrace (below) was built in the early 19th Century to house the workers at Lumley Mill. Raglan and Victoria Terraces were built later, as the Mill expanded.
Lumley Terrace has attractive painted brick symmetrical houses with a bridge to access the houses across the specially constructed mill leat running along its frontage. This was used to power Lumley Mill to the north and sourced from the Ems through Westbourne.
The county boundary between Hampshire and West Sussex runs along the bottom of the gardens behind the three terraces. To the west of it lies the nature reserve of Brook Meadow, maintained by a dedicated band of volunteers on behalf of Havant Borough Council.
The meadow hosts a huge range of flora and fauna including an ever increasing and varied population of bee orchids. You might also spot one or more of the nesting boxes recently erected in co-operation with Network Rail.
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Over the years the meadow, which is also a constantly managed flood plain, has hosted a football pitch, travelling fairs, and even a petanque court, otherwise known as French boules!
Deer and foxes often inhabit the meadow, and there are a substantial number of grass snakes and slow worms (below) that were relocated from a building site in Warsash.
Did you know?
The slow worm is neither a worm nor a snake, but is, in fact, a legless lizard. Its identity is given away by its abilities to shed its tail and blink with its eyelids. It is much smaller than a snake and has smooth, golden-grey skin. Males are paler in colour and sometimes have blue spots. Females are larger, with dark sides and a dark stripe down the back.
There is also a bug hotel and the once prevalent water voles are reputed to be making a comeback!
On the wooden footbridge linking Brook Meadow to Seagull Lane, there is also a plaque dedicated to RAF personnel who lost their lives nearby.
The river Ems borders the western side of the meadow and, like the mill leat, contains sea trout and well camouflaged brown trout.
Behind the laurel hedge is Constant Springs. The house’s expansive grounds were once rumoured to have been a trout farm many years ago. One of Emsworth’s largest houses, it even has its own squash court!
Constant Springs house has areas which are below normal groundwater levels and often has flooding problems, as the groundwater level is said to be never more than 0.5m below ground level, even in summer. In winter and at times of high rainfall these channels run full to capacity and it is also usual for the garden of Constant Springs to be waterlogged.
In the garden of Constant Springs the western channel, what the Environment Agency calls the ‘main river’, is controlled by weirs and then continues south under the railway. A minor side channel from this feeds some water features at the house.
Lumley Mill house, at the start of the private road north, can be seen above.
Did you know?
The Mill Lane track from Emsworth above mill house is an unmade private road that goes all the way to Westbourne, where you can discover another part of the Bourne Trail. The lane is almost as bumpy in winter as it was over a hundred years ago!
North up Mill Lane little remain of the original Lumley Mill except for the remains of the mill’s bakery ramp (above).
The Lumley Mill manager’s house was called Little Lumley (above) and the neighbouring buildings of Lumley Cottage had stables and grounds which were used to produce vegetables.
Along Mill Lane you will also find the attractive Flint Cottages (above) and Mill Cottage (below).
From there it is less than a mile to Westbourne, over the A27 footbridge, past the friendly alpacas and following the unmade road to where it branches onto a footpath left to St John’s Church or right onto Whitechimney Row and into Westbourne.