In memory of Pam Moore

The following is a shortened version of a heartfelt eulogy by former Education Officer Diane Walker, paying tribute to our late Company Secretary Pam Moore, who was known to so many. Pam stepped down late in 2025 after many years’ service to the Trust.

Pam’s proud roots lay deep in the soil of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and these areas were always home.

During 1979 Pam began her degree in Historical Studies at Portsmouth Polytechnic and the research skills and contacts she acquired were to frame the rest of her life.

Having been brought up on the coast gave Pam an abiding appreciation of its naval heritage. She joined the Society for Nautical Research (South) and was also part of the Naval Dockyard Society. There wasn’t a rope walk, sail loft, warehouse or dock that she didn’t know inside out in Portsmouth, Fareham or Gosport. Pam’s knowledge was encyclopaedic and her memory for detail was phenomenal.

Pam’s particular interest was the life of Admiral Sir Charles Ogle who became ‘Commander-in – Chief, Portsmouth’ in 1845 and she published her Portsmouth Paper, detailing his life and career in 1988 and was to continue her research throughout the following decades.

Pam’s life in Portsmouth brought professional contact and friendship with Deane and HBPT founder trustee Celia Clark and their children and she became a willing babysitter. Deane vividly recalls the Treadgolds Ironmongery workshop in Portsea, where Pam spent hours photographing and cataloguing all the Victorian tools and equipment in the foundry, right down to the smallest nail!

Fareham remained important to Pam. She was a member of the Fareham Society, the Local History group and was a Friend of Fareham Museum in Westbury Manor. Her deep knowledge of the town was evident in her book ‘Bygone Fareham’, published in 1990 and dedicated to her beloved grandfather who had introduced her to its history as a child.

More widely across Hampshire and nationally, Pam became more involved in the early attempts to either preserve or record the industrial buildings that were in danger of being lost in the name of redevelopment. She joined a number of county-based groups, amongst them the Southampton University Industrial Archaeology Group which later became the Hampshire Industrial Archaeology Society and then became a member of the Council for the Association for Industrial Archaeology- the A.I.A.

Pam, through her diligence and hard work, was the ever-reliable ‘lynch pin’ of many of these organisations. She served on committees, often acting as Secretary, but she also stood in muddy fields recording farm buildings as part of the Historic Farm Buildings Group, on windswept coastlines photographing abandoned lime kilns and getting her hands dirty during the restoration of Southwick Brewhouse. Lord Asa Briggs joined them to try the first pint that they brewed, but there was an unexpected guest at the ensuing party when a chap from HM Customs and Excise knocked on the door, just to make sure that they weren’t selling any of the beer!

The team behind the restoration of Southwick Brewhouse. Pam Moore is top right.

Through the University Industrial Archaeology Group, Pam met Edwin Course, a lecturer at the university, and they were to spend a decade together as she drove him to lectures, helped organise field trips and supported his research. They had worked together at Southwick Brewhouse and were later to co-author ‘Hampshire Railways Then and Now’ and Pam was later to be instrumental in preserving Edwin’s extensive archive of photographic slides and research for future generations.

Her writing and communication skills were well used as she continued to publish her own articles and books. The publication in 1998 of ‘The Industrial Heritage of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight’ drew together all the strands of the projects she had so devotedly given her time to.

The project to preserve Twyford Waterworks saw Edwin and Pam involved from the very beginning and it was a lifelong commitment for them both. Graham Feldwick, the current Chair, paid tribute to Pam’s role as the longest serving trustee, noting that she ensured that the Trust was always true to its founding aims. Her support, advice and encouragement were a vital contribution to its success over the years and he added that her gentle guidance, wise words and determination, especially during more difficult times, were always an inspiration to everyone who had the pleasure of working with her.

Pam also belonged to the Hampshire Mills Group for decades. She gave talks that were fascinating and inspiring, and her enthusiasm and love of her subject was always infectious. Indeed, when I first joined the Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust as the Education Officer, I was lucky enough to be taken on a field trip by Pam to Eling Tide Mill, Bursledon Windmill and Whitchurch Silk Mill. There wasn’t a question that she couldn’t answer and her unwavering passion for preserving the wealth of human stories connected to these iconic structures was apparent.

The Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust became an important vehicle for Pam’s work in industrial archaeology, and she served on the board for many years. From 2011, Pam was the Secretary of the Trust, producing agendas, minutes, reports and ensuring that the trust ran smoothly. She also organised the AGMs and edited the annual reports.

Former Trustee Bill Fergie paid tribute to the particular contribution that Pam and Phil Turner made to the Trust from 2010-2011 onwards that was, in his words, ‘rather like the cavalry coming over the hill to save the beleaguered defenders from a fate worse than death… both just quietly got on with what needed to be done,’ as they worked tirelessly to help the trust get back on its feet after County Council funding had ceased and the trading company at Bursledon Brickworks had to be wound up. In Bill’s view they helped to avert the closing down of the Trust at that time. The value of her contribution was deeply appreciated by Bill and then later by Charlie Fraser-Fleming  and Peter Goodship as Chairs of the Trust.

Twyford Waterworks and Whitchurch Silk Mill have been the two buildings and operations that Pam was to focus on most particularly in later years. At Whitchurch Silk Mill, Christine Beresford, firstly as the General Manager and later as a Trustee, got to know Pam well. Pam had been an active Friend of the Mill for years and Christine recalled her regularly driving from Chandlers' Ford in what she described, and we all recognise as, her ‘small, slightly battered car covered in stickers from her trips to Sweden’ to attend meetings and fundraising events and she was appreciated as a generous donor to the Lottery Funded improvement project. Pam later volunteered as Board Secretary, a role she carried out very efficiently until she had to give up driving.

Over and above her work with the Silk Mill, it was just simply a place in which she loved to spend time. Many gentle summer afternoons were spent over coffee or lunch in the gardens. She enjoyed the peaceful, riverside atmosphere and inevitably popped into the shop to pick up gifts for friends and family, as yet another way to support the operation.

Many of these trips for meetings, or for coffee and cake, were made with Phil Turner. Phil, as a former Planning Officer, was also a trustee at the Silk Mill and Twyford and was on the board of the HBPT. They spent decades working together to support the preservation of buildings in Hampshire and on projects further afield.

Pam and Phil shared a constant and deep friendship which lasted over four decades until his death last year. Their interests ran parallel and they were involved in many of the same organisations in Hampshire. It was a close companionship that Pam was later to describe as being like brother and sister- and for an only child, it made theirs a relationship that she valued enormously. Phil teased Pam like no one else could…and he got away with it!

They were both proud Europeans and as Phil became involved in the English Steering group  of the European Rural University, Pam was to take over a number of the roles that Louise Beaton had previously been doing and she recalled that Pam was a tremendous support to Phil with the ERU, dealing with the administration and the organising of field trips. Pam and Phil made many good friends through the ERU, and Louise would marvel at Pam’s ability to remember details of people’s lives that she had met, and of events they had attended.

Through the Royal Town Planning Institute, Pam and Phil also became involved in the European Council for the Village and Small Town or ‘ECOVAST’, founded in the 1980s to provide support and advocacy for the well-being of Europe’s distinctive rural areas. Pam was the Secretary General from 2005- 2012 and Editor of the biannual reports for many years, and they travelled extensively on study tours and to conferences in the UK and across Europe.

In increasingly poor health, Pam’s family helped her to relocate her huge IA research archive and library to the Hampshire Industrial Heritage Centre at Bursledon Brickworks.

She leaves behind her a professional legacy of rare breadth and depth. Her lifelong research on industrial archaeology made her one of the most knowledgeable experts in her field - for which she will be long remembered.