Having re-crossed Iron Bridge, to your right is a group of dwellings that have previously had other uses.
The part of 103 The Borough (Creel Cottage) nearest the river was formerly the Iron Bridge Basket Works, established i n 1801 by Mr Eastman. At that date it was purely a basket works but 50 years later the company produced its first wicker chair. The American Eastman family, of Kodak Film fame, is descended from Downton Eastmans. The building has the only surviving example of a painted Burgage number.
101 The Borough (Borough House) was formerly used as one of Sid Stevens’ drapery shops. The old shopfront can now be seen in the Breamore Countryside Museum. The small annexe to 99 The Borough was converted from the former National Westminster Bank building.
The Heritage Trail plaque is located at the front of the Old Granary, converted to residential use in around 1990. Former occupiers of the site included Hardings grain merchants, Hickman Brothers corn, cattle food and fertilizer merchants, Critchcraft and Logan Homecare.
Next to the Old Granary is the access to Green Lane. Although it appears to be quiet residential street, Green Lane was almost a small industrial estate at the beginning of the 20th century. The large building next to the access, together with the land on which the houses in the lane are sited, was last occupied by the Chemical Pipe and Vessel Company, although there had previously been a row of cottages to the rear forming the original Green Lane.
The surviving building was originally the village workhouse and gaol, built in about 1730. Adjoining the workhouse was the smallpox house. The building was also later occupied by Downton Home Industries, the Unionist (Conservative) Club and the South Wilts Bacon Curing Company. The land behind the workhouse was the old Downton gas works run by the Downton Petrol Air Gas Company.
Downton Home Industries was founded in 1901 by Mrs Plumtree and Mrs Robinson, under the patronage of the Countess of Radnor, primarily to organise local lacemakers and other craft workers into a more professional unit. It is not known exactly when lace making started in Downton, but it continued as an ‘industry’ until 1966, although by then it had moved back into the cottages. The Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum has an excellent display of Downton lace.
Although several examples of artisan thatched cottages have been demolished over the past century, a number of listed buildings and other properties of interest remain in this part of The Borough. On the northern side of the first green, between the Old Granary and Moulds Bridge are the following:
Horsehoe Court was formerly the Three Horseshoes, a public house,which was converted into flats in around 1990. Next to the old pub, at 83 The Borough, a new house has been built on the site of Mr Miles’ legendary ‘shell house’. During the 1960s and 1970s coach parties of tourists visiting the New Forest and Salisbury would make a special excursion to view the model village he had created out of broken tiles, pottery and crockery. Remnants can still be seen on the boundary walls of the property.
79 The Borough (Hurdles) was formerly the Free and Easy public house and a grocer’s shop. The Barber Shop (previously the Cottage Loaf baker’s shop) was formerly occupied by Ernest Street’s ironmongers, grocers and provisions shop and the Halifax Building Society. The Free and Easy, along with the George and Dragon was possibly closed as a result of the activities of a Temperance Society (Heritage Trail Plaque 8).
Returning to the southern side, 86 The Borough (Caxton House) was formerly used by an estate agent, Anneke’s Fashions and a baker’s shop. Cottages and a set of advertising hoardings once occupied the area of 78 to 84 The Borough, while 76 The Borough (Herons Walk) was built on the site of the former Army Cadet Hut. In November 1918, as part of the village's Armistice celebrations, an effigy of the Kaiser was burnt on a bonfire in the meadow on this site.
