Harefield is a suburb and Electoral Ward near

Bitterne Bitterne is an eastern suburb and ward of Southampton, England. Bitterne derives its name not from the similarly named bird, the bittern, but probably from the bend in the River Itchen; the Old English words ''byht'' and ''ærn'' together mean ...

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Harefield Ward consists of a small council housing estate built around 1952/3 on the estate of Harefield House and additional private housing. Harefield Ward had a population of 14,035 at the 2011 Census, and is adjacent to

Bitterne Park Bitterne Park is a suburb and Electoral Ward of Southampton, England, on the Eastern bank of the River Itchen, built on sloping parkland which once formed part of Bitterne Manor. Bitterne Park Ward includes the suburbs of Bitterne Park, Bitt ...

, Peartree,

Sholing Sholing, previously Scholing, is a district on the eastern side of the city of Southampton in Southern England. It is located between the districts of Bitterne, Thornhill and Woolston. Various explanations from where the name derives ...

and

wards.

History

Harefield House was a country house of Elizabethan style built in 1834 for Sir Edward Butler, chairman of the Southampton and Salisbury Railway Company, in what are now the grounds of Harefield Infant and Junior Schools on Yeovil Chase. Edwin Jones, the Southampton draper whose store ultimately became part of

Debenhams Debenhams plc was a British department store chain operating in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish ...

bought the house in 1887. Harefield House is often mistakenly reported as burning down in 1915, this misconception is printed in the book Memories of Bitterne by Irene Pilson and seems to have stuck. The house actually burnt down on May 6, 1917, as seen in the article GREAT FIRE IN WESTEND. Daily_Echo_Monday_May_7th_1917

The Jones family sold the estate in 1917 and there was some building in the 1920s but it was not developed in earnest until after the Second World War. The area was part of the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of West End when it was established in 1894, but was transferred into Southampton in 1954.West End Local History Society: Brief History of West End
/ref> The street names on the western edge of the estate are all named after

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

place names by the private housing developers active in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The later council housing extended these streets and added more to the west that are named after

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

villages. The development of the housing estate included two public houses (the Exford Arms and the Hare and Hounds), two shopping parades, two primary schools (Harefield and Moorhill, each consisting of infant and junior schools), and Moorhill Secondary School (named after Moorhill House, which stood just outside the estate in West End). The Moorhill schools and the Exford Avenue shopping parade were constructed in 1964–65. Until that time there was a Post Office in a

Nissen hut A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure for military use, especially as barracks, made from a half-cylindrical skin of Corrugated galvanised iron, corrugated iron. Designed during the First World War by the American-born, Canadian-British ...

opposite the Exford Arms. Moorhill Secondary School was renamed as Woodlands Community School in 1984 and subsequently demolished and rebuilt in 2003. It is now known as Woodlands Community College.

Transport links

Harefield has had a number of different local bus services over the years. It now only has the number 13 First Bus service that goes to Bitterne, Woolston, and the City Centre with no bus service on Sundays.

References

*Jessica Vale. ''The Country Houses of Southampton''. {{Districts of Southampton Wards of Southampton