Roger Wilding

Jim Clarke is making good progress in tracking down details of the many shops and businesses that have disappeared from Westbourne over the last 80 years or so for our next publication. However what has proved very illusive is getting original photographs of these.  Jim begs everyone to allow him…

The Group is delighted to have a further new recruit. Clive Pugh has joined and is most welcome. Many people may know Clive already as an active member of Emsworth museum and an expert on maps of the area.

The most important reference work for any would-be Westbourne historian is a book published in 1913 by Rev. J. H. Mee entitled “Bourne in the Past”. It has been out of print for many decades and available copies are extremely rare. The Group has scanned the entire book with its…

The group has a new recruit, Jim Clarke, and he has taken on the task of producing a book, project name, “Westbourne’s Lost Shops & Businesses”. The idea is to show the history of the many businesses and shops that Westbourne used to have, now largely converted into dwellings, as…

Roger Wilding has been working on a project “The Watermills of Westbourne” for some time. He admits to making slow progress as other interesting smaller projects (like updating this part of the village website) keep arising and distracting him. Anyone with documents, photos or any other information regarding waterways, mills…

Please seach your bookcases for a copy of the booklet “Valley of the Ems”  1863 by C J  Longcroft   of Havant. Part of the booklet has been published more recently, but it is just a part of a  printer’s draft with many hand amendments.  Even the eminent Rev. Dr. Mee did not own a copy  –…