Cams Lane

Street by Street

Towards the most westerly end of West St is the junction with Cams Lane on the corner of which is the popular Old Forge Tea Room. The lane snakes up an increasingly steep incline past cottages on the left and, on the right, the distinctive Jacobean house, simply called Cams, set in a lovely landscape and with a commanding view over the western part of the village.

Recorded on a late Victorian Ordnance Survey map as Cams Cottage, in the mid 19thC this was the residence of Mr William Barkworth whose nephew and heir, John Boulderson Barkworth was a major donor for the refurbishment of the Church of SS Peter & Paul in 1876.

Cams c1910: Hambledon Hunt meets in the grounds

Cams Lane continues to Hoe Cross and the farmhouse there that takes its name;

West St entrance to Hambledon c1905; view northeast at across Chestnut Meadow, midground. Cams can be seen through the trees and the row of housing in Menslands Lane. Goal posts show the meadow was also the local football pitch.

Along the way to Hoe Cross can be seen a roadside landmark of a notorious crime that took place in August 1782; the Murder Stone. The Grade II listed monument was badly damaged in 2020, probably as a result of motorised kerb-mowing, making national news.

It was erected where Soberton man, James Stares, was brutally killed by John Taylor a young worker at the Cams corner smithy. Taylor was found guilty in 1783 and sentenced to death.

Menslands Lane forks left off Cams Lane running alongside Goldsmith’s Plantation and Madam’s Copse, the former gaining its name from James Goldsmith who purchased the hanger in 1752; what we see today is all that remains from the woodland felled in 1982. At the junction with Cams Lane was a row of rustic cottages illustrated below.

Three cottages in Menslands Lane, early 1900s, standing where Cams Hill Wood is now. They were demolished sometime after the Second World War. Goldsmith’s Plantation rises left.

Menslands Lane continues with scenic views over Fareham Road and Well Hill, passing by Glebelands Farm to Menslands Pond – a less well known and rare downland feature that is very overgrown with vegetation.

Cams Lane

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