Shoreburs Greenway

From the car park at the end of Victoria Road in Woolston start at the Golden Jubilee Butterfly Walk Information Board and follow the path through the butterfly glades at Jurds Lake and up to Archery Road.

Mayfield Park is an attractive partly wooded park. A footpath runs through an area of beech woodland passing alongside a play area, skatepark and Fox’s Memorial. This is the most extensive area of beech woodland in Southampton.

Beech trees cast a very deep shade and little vegetation grows beneath them. A greater variety of plants can be found along the stream including water mint and marsh marigold. Bats feed on a variety of insects which live by the stream. A Pipistrelle bat can catch as many of 3,500 small flies and gnats in one night.

Miller’s Pond is the only area of open water in the greenway. A footpath runs along the south side of the pond, linking with the adjacent roads. Situated here is Sholing Valleys Study Centre.

Miller’s Pond supports a number of wetland plants including gipsywort. A variety of birds use the area and the pond is important for dragonflies. Palmate and smooth newts can be found here.

The footpath runs through woodland and rough grassland and provides a link to Butts Road recreation ground.

The section of rough grassland is an important wildlife habitat for butterflies such as skippers and browns. The area close to South East Road is also an outstanding area of oak woodland.

Access to Bursledon Road is now possible along the path that stretches northwards through Weston Common deviating from one side of the water course to the other.

Part of Weston Common consists of heather and gorse scrub which is unique within the greenway. This type of habitat would have once covered much of what is now Southampton and has declined at a greater rate than other habitats such as woodland.

The footpath runs from Station Road to Church Path passing through Squirrel Drive and through an area of woodland running alongside the stream. The area to the north of Church Path consists partly of woodland and partly of grassland. There is no public access northwards from Church Path.

This is a popular locality for butterflies with the green hairstreak butterfly recorded here.

A footpath runs from South East Road through an area of woodland and grassland following the stream to a cross valley path.

Allotments are sited on the northern side of the path and access to these are restricted to plot holders only.

The area is frequented by the holly blue and common blue butterflies.

William Chamberlayne built Weston Grove House in 1802 on land that he inherited from his life long friend Thomas Dummer of Cranbury. Tree lined lawns swept down across the site in Archery Road to the waters edge and extended towards Netley along Weston Shore.

Thomas Chamberlayne sold 33 acres to Colonel Robert Wright in 1854. Mayfield House was being built at the time of Wrights death in 1857. His family lived in the house until 1899 when the estate was sold to the third Baron Radstock. The Southampton Corporation bought the estate in 1937 and turned it into a public park. The 23 bedroom mansion served as temporary accommodation for homeless families during and after the war but was demolished in 1956. The bowling green is sited on the former Mayfield House. The stable block and clock tower which housed the carriages of the Wrights and Radstocks can still be seen on Wrights Hill.

Visit Mayfield Park for more information.

Within Mayfield Park there remains a tall stone obelisk which William Chamberlayne had erected to the memory of Charles Fox a Whig politician who he particularly admired. From here you can see Trinity Chapel built in the mid 1860’s to relieve the overcrowded Jesus Chapel at Peartree.

Mayfield Park is also the site of the remains of Weston Mill which probably dates to the 1300’s at which time it may have been a corn mill meeting local needs. Very little is known about its history until 1770 when the pioneering Southampton industrialist Walter Taylor leased the mill from Thomas Dummer. Taylor used the mill to make wooden blocks for rigging for the Royal Navy. All rigging on The Victory was made at Taylor’s mill. The mill was fed by two streams that in turn were fed from Miller’s Pond. This water was harnessed to drive the mill. However the insufficient flow of water in the stream during the summer months persuaded Taylor to move to Wood Mill further up the Itchen at Swaythling where he built a steam mill.

Miller’s Pond was once much larger than it is today and extended in a V shape up both valleys as far as Botany Bay Road on the eastern side and southwards to Portsmouth Road. When the railway was built in the mid 1860’s Portsmouth Road was diverted to run further south at this point but the building of the embankment meant that the pond’s southerly extension was reduced. During the 19th century this was a traditional brick making area with the Sholing Brick Company centred here. Brickworks remained in the area until the 1930’s.

Visit Miller's Pond for more information.

Remains of a road have been discovered on the common which dates from the Roman occupation. It is thought that this was part of the road which ran from Chichester to Clausentum.

The area was largely open ground in the 19th century. There was a brickworks in use in the 1890’s near Magpie Gardens which was disused by 1966 and built on in 1977. In the late 1800’s a volunteer rifle range was located at the top of the common and the legacy of this is seen in the names of nearby roads – Butts Road and Shooters Hill Close.