The History of Brickfields Country Park

History of Brickfields Country Park - Letters Received
From David Medhurst

Dear Mike,

While surfing the net I decided to have a look at my birthplace on the web and came across your website. It drew my interest, as I lived in Moorlands Rd. and went to school at St. Michaels Secondary School during the late 50s and early sixties. Brickfields along with Rowhill copse was a favourite haunt of my friends and me. While attending St Michaels I was a member of the Army Cadets and we used the Brickfields as a training ground during 1960 to 1962.

I remember well, spending an afternoon lying in the grass on the western escarpment looking down into the partially filled pit, lost in the beauty of the overgrown but very hypnotic view of nature's natural reclamation of the abandoned area. I was supposed to be ambushing an assault team (such were our training war games). The day was warm and balmy, but not so warm that I was drowsy, but more a sinking into the environment and being one with It. The impressions of that afternoon were so strong that after 45 years they are still clear in my memory, and if I could revelry again in that afternoon I would.

Since then I have become involved in our local flora and fauna here in Australia, and I am a member of the local committee responsible for the upkeep, protection and promotion of our local environment. My original interest, I credit, to those early years in some of England's most beautiful and un-spoilt areas.

Listed below are those areas that stay within my memories as significant:-
Paterson's Pond, Rowhill copse, Brickfields, The area around what we as kids called Old Mother Hubbard's cave, The Hog's Back, Caesars Camp. The area around Basingstoke canal - Between North Lane and North Camp. The area around Runfold. There was also a very large hazel nut tree, in fact so large, that all the multiple trunks had combined to form a single large trunk base with a stage like appearance, about 20 feet in diameter. We liked to think that it was the tree that Robin Hood used as a base camp. It was over in the army training area west of Farnborough near fleet. I forget exactly where. As you can see, we roamed far and wide. They were the days when one felt a lot safer than we do today. From the River Wey south of Farnham, east to Guilford, north to Camberley and east to Basingstoke, we roamed walking or on bicycles, from the age of eight. They were glorious days.

If I were young again, I wouldn't change a moment.

Yours, a truly grateful son of Aldershot,

David Medhurst

PS. If this letter, in any way, may prove to be useful in the promotion of your Park, by all means, you may publish it.

A lovely letter from David echoing a time past that I remember still. How things change, some parts of "progress" are not always for the good. Many thanks David.

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