Fleet
is a town and civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire, England, located
36 miles southwest of London and 10 miles east of Basingstoke. In 1792 the
Basingstoke Canal opened. The canal passed through the town site, but apart
from a few inns to serve the passing trade it had little effect on the
locality. Apart from the Farnham to Reading road, the site remained largely
undeveloped until the construction of the London and South Western Railway,
which opened in 1840. In that year a church - Christ Church that was to become the heart of the new
ecclesiastical parish of Ewshot and Crookham was built midway between the
villages of Crookham and Ewshot. This parish included the area that was to
become the town of Fleet. The railway company promoted Fleet Pond for a
destination for day excursions and many people came down from London to skate
on the Pond during the winter. This attracted a number of gentry, particularly
retired army officers, who moved to the area bounded by Fleet Road, Elvetham
Road and Reading Road North and laid the foundations of what was to become
known locally as "The Blue
Triangle". By 1860 Charles Lefroy, a local squire, commissioned All
Saints Church, Fleet - in the Blue
Triangle area in memory of his wife who had died in 1857. The architect
was William Burges. The ecclesiastical parish of Ewshot and Crookham was split
into two in 1862 with the northern section based on the All Saints church,
becoming the new parish of Fleet. The development of Fleet accelerated when the
land to the south east of the Blue
Triangle was sold for development in 1882 which, unlike the Blue Triangle, was laid out in a grid
pattern. Thus it is that there are few very old buildings in Fleet, with much
of the modern town formed around Victorian buildings. As in many parts of
Britain, there was a building boom between the First and Second World Wars. Two
developments in Fleet involved the opening of a new shopping centre, the Hart
Shopping Centre, which was opened officially by HRH, The Duchess of York in
1991. On the same day, she attended the opening of the Hart Leisure Centre on
Hitches Lane (towards Church Crookham).
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| Calthorpe Park |
Fleet Town FC was formed in
1890 and were originally called Fleet FC. The club's first played
in Watson’s Meadow, and moved to their present ground in 1923 when Lord
Calthorpe of Elvetham Hall made available the site. The ground was subsequently
bequeathed to the council for the non-commercial recreational use of the
residents of Fleet and Church Crookham. The ground was given the name Calthorpe
Park. From 1923 up until World War II, Fleet ran two Saturday teams and
a Wednesday XI in the Aldershot and Basingstoke Leagues. During the war the
club competed in the War Emergency League before returning to the Aldershot and
Basingstoke Leagues when hostilities ceased. The club entered the Hampshire
League in 1961 and in 1963, after changing their name to Fleet Town FC, were
Division Three champions earning Promotion to Division Two. In 1966 further
promotion followed as they won the league, and moved up to Division One. The
season later the club made its debut in the FA Cup, making the Second
Qualifying Round, before losing to Horsham 3–0. In 1978 the Club entered the
Athenian League staying there until the league was extended for the 1984–85
season. As the new ground requirements could not be met for the Athenian
League, Fleet moved into the Combined Counties League for two seasons, followed
by a season in the Surrey County Senior League and then a season in the Surrey
County Premier. For the 1987–88 season the club then joined the Chiltonian
League. Basic improvements to the ground and facilities followed and the Club
gained acceptance to the Wessex League for the 1989–90 season. During the
summer of 1991 further considerable improvements were carried out with the
clubhouse being completely refurbished, the pitch totally re-seeded, the
floodlights upgraded and the perimeter of the ground fenced.
This Pieman visited Calthorpe Park on a Tuesday evening. The journey by train from London Waterloo was followed by a ten minute walk to the ground. An evenly contested FA Vase Preliminary Round replay saw the hosts defeat visitors Sholing Sports by the odd goal in three.
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