History of Ferndown Doctors
This piece was written with thanks from memory by Mrs Gwendoline Wells, 2005.
Dr Drake was the first doctor in the Ferndown area as far as I know. He lived and ran his surgery in Dudsbury Avenue - then the most classy area of Ferndown. The road running through was also tarred. He retired due to ill health in about 1929 and was probably here for 30 years or so. My grandmother came to live in Victoria Road in 1894 when my mother was 1 year old. During the following years had 8 more children and needed a doctor quite often. Her children had several serious illnesses and she spent a fortune on medical treatment. Dr Drake was the most likely doctor.
There was no chemist in the area and she had to walk to Bournemouth with her prescription - going over Ferndown Common (now golf Links Road) then Parley Common to the ferry at Hurn, Blackwater, then across the fields to the tram at Moordown and thence to the arcade for her medicine. A chemist opened a shop at Penny's Hill at the end of the First World War. There were several problems involved in getting a message to Dr Drake. There were hardly any phones or cars - the usual transport was cycle or walk. My father would leave home by cycle and take a message about 6.30am on his way to work. Sometimes it was a day or so before you got your medicine. This always came in a bottle with a cork and was usually vile to take. Very often you had to rely on neighbours and we tried to help one another as much as we could.
The roads and lanes were terrible in those days and Dr Drake always did his rounds using a horse and buggy. Most Bournemouth doctors used this method but had a groom to do the driving and see to the horse. Dr Drake drove himself and always left his horse where there was some grass (plenty of that) so that the horse could eat this and not get bored.
He never failed to turn up when asked and often came in to see me after dark - calling me his "little skinny rabbit" every time. He poked my tummy with freezing cold hands while my mother held the candle. My two brothers were delivered by him and then in 1924 myself. I was a weak baby with breathing problems and he was a very frequent visitor for 6 months. My mother was convinced she would not have reared me without his support and expertise.
My father had sinus trouble and was sent to a London hospital for 3 operations in the 1920s and visits to a consultant. This was quite unusual then, even though Wimborne, Boscombe and Poole hospitals carried out a lot of operations. He went by train every time.
The main road before 1919 was the Ringwood Road, (Ringwood to Poole) and later after the war the New Road was built (the New Road bridge caused problems). Other than that Dr Drake and his horse would have had to use a lot of lanes - narrow but sometimes tarred in the middle with deep ditches either side or mud tracks which were quite impassable. However, he got to some of his patients remains a mystery - I imagine he had what my mother and I had to do sometimes - trespass on privately owned land.
It was very, very dark around here at night and unless the moon was shining the only light you saw were just glimmers from the odd cottage and houses, so he must have had a very intelligent horse with fantastic eyesight. He would otherwise have ended up in the many ditches. I am sure he would have had to have 2 horses (one always in reserve) and being called out at night would have been a nightmare. He would have had to harness his horse and buggy and when he eventually got back un-harness the lot again. Horses always took priority.
During the 1920s he rented two front rooms in Victoria Road from the Mornies family and I went there once when my aunt went about herself. I was shocked at the waiting room; a few scrappy chairs on some scruffy lino and scruffy brown walls. These rooms were used quite a lot because it was cheaper than calling in the Dr. I think the charge for a home visit was 2/6d (25p) but I am sure if you were grindingly poor he overlooked his bills. These were sent every month and the vast majority of people paid up at once. This was a top priority because people would have been too ashamed to call in the doctor if they hadn't paid the last bill.
You managed things like poisoned fingers or poisoned gnat bites at home with hot poultices and called the doctor for more serious things like a high temperature or continuous sickness etc. My father had breathing problems as a child and the then doctor in 1902 stopped him from going to school for 2 years. Dr Drake was involved in most peoples' lives and was a great help in the Great War. When sons were killed in France the families back home were devastated and he must have had his work cut out at that time. My father's family in Longham had their eldest son blown to bits at the battle of the Somme in 1916 and my grandmother was found dead in bed a few weeks later. They never recovered and were ripped apart. My grandma in Ferndown lost her eldest boy in France in 1918. They were so shocked that they all fell ill and my mother had to give up her job in Bournemouth to care for them. She found it too much (she adored her brother) and had a nervous breakdown. Dr Drake was a great comfort to them and others in the same predicament and they never ceased to be grateful. They went to him for advice on matters not even medical and he was always kind and helpful. I noticed they always took his advice and acted on it.
He was a real family doctor and must have had a very busy life in a Ferndown that is totally different today. I feel pretty certain he was the doctor referred to by Grandmother and Father in the early 1900s. Otherwise there were doctors living in Wimborne who probably had patients in the surrounding countryside. Wimborne was a small busy compact little town with shops and a large market and probably had had resident doctors for a long time.
One of these was Dr Druitt who was one of the first surgeons at Wimborne Hospital in late Victorian times. He lived just below the hospital in a lovely mansion called Westfield House (now flats) with beautiful gardens and grounds. He was also a magistrate and was very well known. He was also convinced that his son Montague was the criminal "Jack the Ripper". He made no secret of this and he had every cause to think so. Montague committed suicide in the Thames and was buried at Wimborne at midnight on consecrated ground. Another Wimborne doctor a bit later was Dr Ormerod. He lived in Rowlands Hill in a large 8 bedroom house with lovely gardens and seemed again very prosperous.
It is amazing to think the inhabitants of such a sparsely populated and undeveloped place such as Ferndown (and most of them quite poor) could have had access to doctors but it seems even early on that they were able to do this in dire emergencies. The doctors must have been very dedicated and very tough to do this, it must have been very different to be a doctor and treat patients in these difficult conditions. Dr Drake would have had a telephone. The first telephone exchange was installed in 1900 in my grandmother's parlour in her farmhouse in Longham. When she moved another person in Longham had it installed in her house. Later a purpose built telephone exchange was built at Northbourne.
Dr Limbery
Dr Limbery succeeded Dr Drake in about 1929 and carried on in much the same way as Dr Drake. The only difference was that he used a car instead of horse and buggy. He used the same two rooms in Victoria Road to start with and then when he was settled, in Croft House in the Ringwood Road near Ferndown cross roads. He had a waiting room built on to the house and he discontinued the rooms in Victoria Road.
Ferndown was slowly growing and some patients who lived near would go to the surgery. We and lots of others had no means of transport so he still spent a lot of time visiting patients.He was kept pretty busy and had no other doctor living near enough to help out.
The roads were much the same, the Ringwood Road still had very sharp bends and an awful corner. The New Road was better but had very little traffic. Dr Limbery was now called out to local accidents and three times in the 1950s he was called out in the middle of the night to accidents at the Angel Inn corner at Longham. Cars driven by young men would hare down from Trickett's Cross and would be going too fast to take the corner - going straight into the cottages on the opposite side of the road. Dr Limbery would soon be on the scene (the ambulance would have had to come out from Poole) and he often went in the ambulance to hospital if the patients were still alive.
He also visited his own patients in Wimborne Hospital most days. He was responsible for their care after having had operations. I once reckoned about 1/2 the patients in there were his. He was on call at night in Wimborne Hospital and in 1952 came to me late one night and stayed for a long time and seemed in no hurry to go home. In about 1935 another doctor came to live on the Wimborne Road and started a practice as a part time GP. He used the rooms in Victoria Road, but his main job was as an anaesthetist at Wimborne and later Poole Hospital. He eventually did this full time. He would join forces with Dr Limbery to ease Dr Limbery's work load. He was Dr Courtin. At about the same time a young doctor arrived in West Moors and took it in turns with Dr Limbery to do night work and accidents and doing locum when Dr Limbery had a holiday.
West Moors was then very sparsely populated - most of the population were gypsies. These were the peasants who had been living rough in Bournemouth Health and were turned out by the landlords when Bournemouth started to be developed. They were mostly petty criminals, people who had fallen on hard times, and redundant smugglers etc. They were pushed off and eventually arrived at West Moors Common where they stayed in peace for well over 100 years when they were re-housed locally. Ferndown and West Moors were slowly being developed and another doctor seemed to have enough patients to keep him going.
Dr Limbery was called up for war service and went to India and the practice was run buy a very able Burmese lady doctor and then a young lady doctor helped out by a semi-retired elderly doctor.
When Dr Limbery returned he was joined by Dr Morrison and by then 2 district nurses. They lived in Victoria Road and were kept busy with child birth and looking after the sick and aged.
In 1952 Sister Webb was called out in the night to a birth in Pinehurst Road, West Moors to a villa called Mimosa Villa. She eventually found it and it was a tent sitting in a large puddle. The patient was naked and there was no bedding at all on the camp bed. The only light was an old candle. She asked the girl's husband to find her something to stand on the keep her feet dry and he produced an old door. Later on at dawn chickens and ducks wandered in and out. Sister Wells was furious and from then on the gypsies had to go to Poole Hospital for all births. They were furious and up in arms and horrified at having to go to hospital.
Before he was called up Dr Limbery was asked to visit a very sick old man in Hampreston. He went along and the elderly gentleman told him was too poor to pay and was very worried about it. Dr Limbery told him not to worry about it and instead of a bill the patient had a nice cheque by post. The rector of Hampreston told my father that Dr Limbery often did this and was a fine Christian Gentleman. Dr Limbery later on in the 1950s regularly gave a cousin of mine in Longham sums of money to buy meat and coal. This cousin was an alcoholic and chain smoker and had ruined his health but Dr Limbery visited him every week and saw that he had all the niceties.
The practice grew and Dr Limbery was joined by Dr Rees in April 1972 and Dowson in December 1972. The practice is now headed by Dr Rees. It is a modern thriving purpose built practice in a very busy and still growing Ferndown.
I last saw Dr Limbery huddled in a pew at St Mary's Church after the funeral of Sister Webb. He was then retired and I sat beside him and gave him a hug and a cuddle. He was crying his eyes out. Our choir The Ferndown Ladies T.G Choir had sung a lovely piece of music and he explained he had never heard anything so beautiful and it had completely got to him.
Just like Dr Drake he was a real family doctor in the old fashioned caring way and had devoted his whole working life to the people of Ferndown.
Another doctor did come to Ferndown in the 1940s and he stayed until 1948. He was called Dr McDonald and he lived and had his surgery in the New Road opposite the Dormy Hotel. He had quite a few patients and was quite popular, but I never met him and have no idea why he left after just a few years.