Occasional Magazine Vol.5 No.4 (January 1948)
Notes on the Early Development of Milford-on-Sea by Dr. A. E. Sears. With its small population, Milford in 1867 was a self-sufficient agricultural village of thatched cottages and a dozen larger houses. Its development until 1896 is considered in detail as four stages: (1) At her death in 1886, the owner of Newlands Manor, Mrs. West, had enlarged her estate to 2000 acres. Her heir, Col. West, then initiated grandiose plans to transform the village into a Health Resort that would include a Grand Hotel, new roads and dwellings, a pier, esplanade, band stand, pleasure grounds and hydropathic establishment. (2) Between 1887 and 1890 in expanding westward more houses were planned and some actually built. (3) In spite of extolling the numerous proposed facilities, the June 1890 Public Auction of freehold land for dwellings was a failure. (4) By 1896 most of the proposed Resort plans had been abandoned, the estate now concentrating on new roads and houses. The O.S. map of that year confirms how slow development had actually been. [Note. The original lecture in 1938 relied on maps and drawings projected on screen; the present article gives reduced reproductions of two of these.]
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