The Guide To Petersfield
Arts And Institutions
There is a flourishing Arts and Crafts movement in Petersfield, with a number of local artists working in a variety of mediums including paintings, pottery, textiles and stained glass. Residents can also enjoy music at the Petersfield Fete and other events. Petersfield Theatre Group was founded in 1969 as an amateur dramatics society (known then as The Petersfield Players) performing in the newly built theatre, now called the Corn Exchange, part of the current facility Foran Hall.
The group has always been run by volunteers who stage five productions each year to enthusiastic audiences, This Is Hampshire (thisishampshire.co.uk). The group's patron is Susan Hampshire. Petersfield also has its own Folk Dance Group, which is known as the Petersfield Town Dancers The group was formed in 1972. The goal of the group was to protect and preserve the traditional dances of this country from fading or disappearing altogether. Although many of the dances are English country dances, there are also Scottish, Irish, American and Newfoundland step-dances.
Petersfield has an Arts and Crafts Society which was formed in 1934. One of the founder members was the artist Flora Twort. PACS holds regular demonstrations and workshops and also holds a yearly exhibition in the Petersfield Festival Hall. Numerous events take place around the town, including the Petersfield Festival, a celebration of the arts, music and food which is held every year on the last weekend in May. The festival has taken place since 1976.
Commerce, Business, Industry
The town has a new shopping development, the Town Centre Quarter, mainly located on the site of the old bus station in the town centre; this project was also designed to free up land for the building of an additional four-story car park for visitors. As well as shops there are plans for a Tesco and Nando's restaurant, several restaurants and cafes, Hampshire College and Research Park businesses, an ATM (Automatic Teller Machine), a medical centre, hair salon, pharmacy, and food-to-go outlets (Petersfield is increasingly being developed as a 'gourmet food capital').
This quarter opened in October 2010. Petersfield is also a focus for larger strategic business concerns. It is home to the offices of Northern Rail and the present franchise will eventually be taken over by FirstGroup, which is headquartered in the town. There are also a number of local building and renovation contractors and a few specialist building supplies retailers. Another Victorian development is the eastern side of the southern half of the town, centred on South Street.
This area includes a number of late Victorian villas and large houses built for local merchants. Well-known Petersfield residents from this era include Charles Lancaster, inventor of the liqueur Angel Delight. A large part of the working population is employed outside the town in farming and forestry, in camps north of Petersfield, or in London. The largest employer is Serco, which has its headquarters on the east side of the town and operates large call centres for customers of BT, National Grid Company and Railtrack.
Commercial (out of town) development has been taking place at the Barley Mow Industrial Estate near Bearwood and at Hunton Park on the A3 road, and most recently in West Street (next to the railway station). New offices have opened or are being built adjacent to West Street. The most prominent art gallery in Petersfield is the Fawley Hill Gallery which exhibits a collection of paintings by local artists. The gallery also provides a venue for live music.
Gardens
The first flower bed that can be found is full of all kinds of colours and is known as the aromatherapy garden. The fun or 'funky'garden near the Charles Dickens garden has all sorts of different flowers with different shapes and smells. The bulb garden includes daffodils, tulips, snow drops etc. which bloom in early spring. It has been awarded for its design. Next is the children's garden, which was opened by HRH The Princess Royal on Thursday 25 May 2009.
There are lots of traditional favourites such as roses, hollyhocks and sunflowers which are surrounded by new features such as a water wheel and mini hay bales. All of the historic county is within easy reach of London. There are regular trains and hourly bus services to places such as Guildford, Dorking, Heathrow Airport, Reading, Windsor, Richmond and Staines-upon-Thames. There is a once a week market every Wednesday in the High Street which consists of local goods for sale.
The Town Council manages seven allotment sites at Charville Lane in West Horsley, Feltham Road in East Horsley, Horsley Wood Approach, Grange Road in Oxshott, South Park Avenue in Claygate, North Park Avenue in Claygate and Oaklands Hill Road in Ockham. Among the other open spaces in Cambridge is Midsummer Common. This large common is on the northern edge of central Cambridge, and includes Chesterton's Football Ground to the north. Several small children's play areas are dotted around this part of the town, including one near the junction with Brooklands Road and Hills Road.
The main gates of the college are at the northern end of Broad Street. The porters'lodge is opposite its southern end, and is a small mock-Tudor building with a half-timbered upper storey. At the opposite (southern) end is the Statistical Society’s House. There are three gardens called the physic garden in the United Kingdom. One is in York, one is a sub-tropical garden in Carmarthen and the other is in Cambridge. Come discover what has made this area so special.
Geography
Geology. The underlying geology around Petersfield is complex. The town lies on the western edge of the Hampshire Basin where it meets the dip slope of the Wealden anticline. The greensand here closely approaches the near vertical, but is overlain by Lower Cretaceous ragstone at Hangers Hill. This band of rock runs from Chartwell (Maidstone) in Kent through Stonefall and Nettleden in Hertfordshire to Filwood Park near Crawley and Wareside near Camberley. It is infrasound detected during the drilling for the High Speed 1 railway tunnel beneath the English Channel that showed that chalk seams lie beneath the sandstones.
The Rother flows to the north of the town, down a steep valley, and then joins with other tributaries to form the River Arun before flowing into the Solent at Rye. The Petersfield Canal crosses the valley of the Rother from west to east, linking the town with Alton which lies on the northern bank of the river. To the west of Petersfield, along this canal, is Crowlands Park and Crowlands Farm Nature Reserve.
This is managed by Hampshire County Council and is open in spring during the cherry-blossom season, in summer for car parking and informal recreation and in winter for cross-country skiing. Petersfield lies on an outcrop of sandstone, and this outcrop forms the line between two layers of Lower Greensand, which belong to a period just after the Cretaceous. The town is cut in two by the Stour river. The Hampshire Basin lies to the north, beneath chalk; and to the south-east it becomes narrower and deeper, until it reaches the impermeable further chalk.
The deposits contain gravel that is eroded from both these underlying rocks, with clays (brown soil) found on top of them. This drainage basin was once occupied by a lake called Lake Hampden. Petersfield is surrounded by National Trust land. This includes the wooded area surrounding Binsted Park to the west, and Dunsfold and St Martha's Hill to the south. Numerous chalk and flint arrowheads found in the area suggest settlement in prehistoric times, although there is little evidence from this period.
The Greensand Ridge is flanked by the river valleys of the Hampshire Avon and Western Rother, and bisected by the A3 road. The town is in the valley of the Western Rother, at the foot of Roundhill. To the east are Walker's Wood and Hangers Hill, to the west Panshanger Park and Hartley Wintney. The Western Rother Valley forms a scenic area, with open heathland, woods and beds of limestone. The caves are formed by springs from the base of the valley sides.
Government
The local council is the governing body responsible for providing services such as housing, planning, leisure and tourism. Representing Petersfield on Hampshire County Council are councillors Barry Cheeseman, Bill Fowler, Darren Gamblen and Robin Knape. Petersfield is part of the North East Hampshire parliamentary constituency which has been represented in Parliament by James Arbuthnot (Conservative) since 1997. Petersfield is in the East Hampshire (UK Parliament constituency). The town has not had its own Member of Parliament since 1955.
Instead it shares an MP with five other towns; Alton, Bordon, Liphook, Midhurst and Winchester. In elections to Petersfield Town Council, the three wards, West Town, South Town and Petersfield Park elect 17 councillors to the council. Currently the seats are held by 13 Conservatives and two Liberal Democrats. Petersfield is within the South East of England European Parliament constituency which elects six MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation. On the European level, Petersfield is part of the South East England constituency in the European Parliament, which in 2014–2019 consists of nine UK seats.
Local Media
There was a South version of the BBC One 'clock'ident, but it only lasted a few months before the national ident was restored. However some local programming was retained including a late night news programme – Meridian Tonight. ITV Meridian also had an opt-out from South Today between 1 4pm. This lasted until 2004 when BBC One launched its own hour long lunchtime news programme, BBC News at One. Non-broadcast media. Snowprint Ltd.
provides weekly print newspapers for distribution to the local communities. It also provides a monthly free newspaper for East and West Sussex, the Shoreham and Worthing Gazette, delivered to 190,000 homes. Medway, Kent's local ITV station is Meridian (formerly Thames Valley). Broadcast for the first time on 28 June 1968 from Television Centre in West London. A local radio service for the South area is provided by Juice 107. 2 (renamed The Breeze in spring 2009).
Sport
The town has one rugby football club, Petersfield R. F. C., founded in 1920 and over the years they have moved several times before settling at a ground on Redhill Road opposite Millmead School. They currently play in London 3 South West, the sixth level of English rugby union. There are also two cricket clubs: Petersfield Town CC and Petersfield Schools CC situated next to each other on Monxton Road. Facilities. The town is on the River Loddon which has been navigable since Roman times but has not had a regular connection to the sea for many years.
It has a small mainline railway station, which also serves as the terminus of a branch line from Three Bridges, on the Brighton Main Line. Mary Sills Associates have a modern purpose built office in Petersfield UK. Sport in Petersfield is overseen by Petersfield Town Council. A former Mayor of Petersfield, Walter Newland also undertook the role of Patron of the Petersfield Sports Association. The council provides sports pitches and five full size Football / Soccer pitches which are home to 3 football clubs .
