report in the Hampshire Advertiser also describes the building which would include an upstairs boardroom 30 ft long by 25 ft wide, and downstairs offices for the clerk, surveyor, inspector of nuisances, and the collector (of revenues). A dinner to celebrate the opening of the new building was held on 12 January 1894. After the move, Ravenswood appears to have been used again by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The Local Board became the Urban District Council in 1895 with the same membership. It dealt with similar issues, for example the 27 November meeting included a report about "how Shirley and Freemantle are drained" but actually about problems with the system. It was to become preoccupied with the question of "Annexation" by Southampton which had recently been raised in some detail at a special meeting of the former Local Board on 28 November 1894. The Hampshire Advertiser report of the first UDC meeting, held on 2 January 1895, ended with "The 'Annexation' Scheme: At a special meeting of the Board, held on Saturday, it was resolved that one or two counsel be retained to represent the district at the forthcoming inquiry relative to the extension of the Southampton Borough boundaries." There was much concern about the impact of annexation on the rates, particularly given the incomplete state of mains water and drainage, but it was announced at 6 July meeting that these had been resolved. Subsequent UDC meetings were no less skeptical and the Hampshire advertiser reports continue to use the word "annexation" throughout. As abolition approached, the 16 October 1895 meeting started late and was brief. The subsequent meeting reported on 26 October was even briefer and concludes with "This was all the business". Transport In the late 1800s the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway planned to build a railway through Shirley, to a new station near Southampton's Royal Pier. In the event the line was only built as far as Winchester Chesil Station. Deposited plans showed the line continuing South via Twyford, Chandlers Ford, Chilworth, Lordswood, the East side of Dale Valley, under Winchester Road, through land now occupied by Shirley Junior School and on to the East side of Hill Lane near Archers Road where there is a surviving (but never used) embankment to the North of Commercial Road. A story grew up that St James' Park, Southampton, in Shirley was to have been a local railway station