History

Admiral Frederick Moore Boultbee commissioned five almshouses to be built on land he had purchased for £120 from Joseph Payne, the local builder, in January 1871. When the Admiral died in 1876 he left the almshouses to his niece, Charlotte Boultbee, as the sole Trustee.

Charlotte’s heirs, in 1909, made over the almshouses by deed of gift to the vicar and churchwardens of Christ Church, Emery Down – The Reverend Walter Bree Hesketh Biggs, Mr. Reginald Hargreaves of Cuffnells and Mr. Ralph Ward-Jackson of Camp Hill.

Mr. Ward-Jackson ‘recorded his vote against installing the electric light in the Alms Houses’ in November 1929 and subsequently resigned.  Mr. Aris of Northerwood agreed to become a trustee following the death of Mr. Hargreaves in 1931.

The trustees held an emergency meeting in June 1942 and unanimously decided that the Almshouses should be known as ‘Boultbee Cottages’ ‘to commemorate the name of Admiral Boultbee, the famous founder of the Trust and a great benefactor to the parish’.  Boultbee Cottages remains the almshouses’ postal address.

October 1961: the Almshouses were managed by the ‘Emery Down Cottages Trust’ with the vicar and churchwardens being trustees ex officio.

In 2014 the Trust was constituted as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation known as ‘Emery Down Almshouses’.  Further details are available on the Charity Commission website.

The cottages and recent conservation work on the wall and the central Well House are described further at New Forest Knowledge.

Please see the gallery for current colour photos and historical black and white photos.