Moordown

Moordown is a suburb of Bournemouth, situated in the northern part of the borough. It was incorporated into the borough of Bournemouth in 1901, having previously been part of the Christchurch rural district.AntiquityMoordown, according to Michael Stead, "may well be the longest continually settled area of Bournemouth". Evidence of its antiquity was unearthed in 1873, when 97 cremation urns, redolent of the Middle Bronze Age, were exhumed in the Redbreast Hill area; unfortunately most of them "crumbled to atoms" on being exposed to the air. Another, equally erudite historian has written of the "superior rusticated ware" from the Late Bronze Age (c. 800-500 BC), unearthed when Nursery Road was being built up in 1929. Later, in the period of recorded history, Moordown was cited in the charters of Christchurch Priory. In the early fourteenth century, "Roger de Morden" and "Henry de Mourdene" were both mentioned as having paid two measures of rye at Martinmas to support the upkeep of the Priory church.Moordown FarmThe land at Moordown formed part of the Manor of Christchurch until 1698, when Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, began selling off parts the manor to fund his son's transvestism and general excesses. By the eighteenth century, the main farm at Moordown was occupied by Henry Hookey - who seems to have been related to the Dean family, who later acquired most of Littledown. The farm was divided up in the nineteenth century and part of it came to vest in the Kemp family, whose sale of land in 1903 resulted in the creation of Evelyn and Naseby Roads. The farm was later renamed "Charminster Farm" and used as a dairy farm by the Hunt family, who remained there until 1978 - but by then, almost all of the land had been sold off. The farmhouse survives, in Homeside Road.