Brownhill House in Lower Brownhill Road closed its doors, ending the care facility which began in 1954 and served Southampton for 62 years.

It was an elegant and lavish villa when originally built in 1867 by surgeon Herbert C Wilkins.

By 1984 a gentleman and his wife purchased the mortgages for the 2 cottages,

The Cobbolds eventually moved into the big house in 1900 and over his lifetime Augustus Hills Cobbold set about transforming just under five acres of field into lovely landscaped gardens which boasted a lake and stream called Farming Brook.

The lake is sadly no more and the brook overgrown and slowly drying up.

Augustus died in 1931 and his wife a few years later. Their daughter inherited the house but moved out in 1937.

The last private owners of Brownhill House sold up in 1952, with the building being purchased by Hampshire County Council in 1953.

It opened as a care home in 1954 for 18 residents. My late grandmother was one of the them and I, as a nine year old, would visit her there. She passed away in 1964.

Later in life I moved next door and worked there as a carer, I also helped the manager and a few members of staff empty the house and hand the keys over.

The house currently sits guarded by live-in security while it awaits its end in summer 2018 when it will be pulled down to be replaced by homes.

For 152 years it has been an important part of Southampton, but its destruction will be another part of Millbrook’s identity lost forever.