63 High Street
Coventry Patmore’s widow lived in this Georgian brick house in the 1910s. Coventry is best known for writing a series of poems called ‘The Angel in the House’, a portrait of married life that became the Victorian ideal of domestic bliss. After disastrous early reviews the poems achieved great popularity, selling nearly a million copies by his death. The poet, who believed in ‘the woman’s excellent privilege of subordination’ is rather less popular today. After retiring to Lymington he died in 1896, having caught a cold after walking down to the Angel.
In 1939 accountants LF Hope Jones moved into the building and in the 1980s it was taken over by Scott Bailey.
64 High Street
Twynham House was occupied by surgeon Charles Fluder and his wife in 1840, followed by George Banks and then William Murdoch, who ran the Solent School here. It is now a private residence.
65 High Street
Ivy House was also occupied by the Fluder’s, until at least the 1890s. It remained a residence until solicitors Johnsons arrived in the 1980s. It now houses Scott Bailey.
William Murdoch (1835-1903) ran this well-regarded boys’ school from about 1867 to 1896, which included the Burrards of Walhampton among its pupils. Edward King, sent to the school from the age of eight, recalls “I lived a life of terror as [Mr Murdoch] kept a huge bundle of canes in the corner and was extremely free with them. I once saw a big boy thrashed with extreme force and much to my admiration he took it without wincing”. William was mayor of Lymington three times in the 1870s and 1880s and later ran another boarding school at Stanwell House until his death in 1903.
