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There been more reasons to contact the membership byemail than usual in this half-year. We value having youremail address. If you do not get these communications,please contact us via the website to provide your emailaddress.I regret we cannot use any other means ofgeneral communication, except for subscription or otherpersonal issues.Planning is currently a hot topic! Horsham’s approvedLocal Plan and an embryonic parish Neighbourhood Plan(NP) are good news. The confident way in which officersdemolished the developer Gladman’s case for building atFairlee opposite the bottom of Church Street was bothrevealing and welcome. HDC were particularly supportedby those they have to consult on highways, landscape,heritage and drainage. There may be a new plan forFairlee, or an appeal, but we expect Horsham will playfair, and if an appeal, fight on our side. It was not an easydecision for me personally to take up this issue on yourbehalf, as the owner of the land is a friend, and Iunderstand why someone in her position might wish tolook to make money from land her father had left her,knowing it was an insurance for his grandchildren, andshe unexpectedly widowed at a young age. ‘Rules isrules’, however, and this land is inappropriate fordevelopment in many ways. Supposing only hergarden and farm buildings had been offered, or wereto be offered as an NP site, what would we say in theevent of an application for 5-10 house, using theexisting access? That is precisely the kind of offer wemay be asked to approve in a suite of NP sites insurveys and eventually a referendum.The NP meetings have been positive, and RPS mustwish the army of volunteers every opportunity tomake rapid, productive and sensible progresstowards their numerous goals. Let no oneunderestimate the task ahead over two or moreyears. Some of you (members) are volunteers, andwe thank you. We salute the newer parish councilmembers for finally biting the bullet that a previouscouncil did not. We lobbied them in vain, and now, Iunderstand, there is less financial support from HDCthan if we had been an earlier adopter. This is alesson learned, but to Richard Landeryou, Council

Chairman, and Ian Mac, NP Chairman, we look for firmand decisive leadership, whilst fully aware there are rockyroads ahead.Sites for development over the coming 15 years, whichwe cannot avoid, must be very carefully vetted, yet willcome with pressure from those who stand to gain. I thinkthe village has already spoken loudly against largedevelopments, so a number of small sites in locationswhich do not raise alarm will have to be found. Our villagemust not be allowed to sprawl outside what are our“naturally defensible boundaries”. Our sensitivecountryside environments and “heritage assets” must beprotected. Numbers such as adding 10% to our existinghouse stock are being bandied about, but this is anuncomfortably high number, and seems not to meet therequirement that it be “appropriate to the scale andfunction of the settlement”. Development must also meetour housing needs and assist retention of our communityservices and facilities. As I understand the process, theNP forums are presently assessing our parish on theseand related issues. RPS has counselled that we start withwhat we already know from the Action Plan, Design

In This Edition:Chairman’s Report…………………. 1Malcolm’s Miscellany………………. 2Happy Birthday Arun & Wey!……… 2Planning Matters……………………. 3

The Skies of Sussex .……………………………………………. 3Rudgwick’s Railway: Revolution or Evolution (Part 3) ………. 5Rudgwick People: Keith’s Story………………………………… 9Air Raid Precaution………………………………………………13A Look Back on Summer Walks………………………………..14

Chairman’s Report Roger Nash

www.rudgwick-rps.org.uk

NewsletterAutumn 2016

No. 62

Founded 1984

An historic view of Fairlee

2

Statement, Housing Needs Survey and 2011 Census,over the past ten years. A good supply of maps ofRudgwick may also be needed!If all this is not enough, we must be aware and guardedabout developments elsewhere in our patch. DavidBuckley writes warning us of developments in Waverley.Even little Alfold is under threat, but one big developmentthere at Springbok has been turned down. BroadbridgeHeath and Billingshurst are our direct neighbours, andtheir contribution to traffic through Bucks Green inparticular is becoming a major talking point in the village,as so many commute into Surrey and back again. Iincreasingly feel the A281 is likely to kill any sense oftranquillity we had hoped to preserve in this parish. Morepeople have bent my ear about all these issues than isusual, and the one which came out of left field to hit CoxGreen is perhaps the most extraordinary. I write of theland behind Crouchers and Songhurst, which is in EllensGreen, Surrey, and exhibits an air of neglected parkland,with lovely trees, and rolling slopes, accessible byfootpath. For reasons why this should never bedeveloped, see above! So far, no application….

I write this on 2nd October, the day on which the Wey andArun Canal opened in 1816. This weekend, thecelebrations have taken place along the length of thecanal, and I chose to visit Compasses Bridge in Alfold,where Dame Penelope Keith opened the new bridge intoDunsfold Park, the very place where the canal directorsand navvies gathered for fine words and much eating anddrinking 200 years ago. The canal passes through a smalledge-length of Rudgwick at the demolished Hope Bridgein The Haven, which can be seen if you look carefully inthe photograph. The canal was not as revolutionary as therailway from Rudgwick, there being no wharf nearer thanLoxwood or Newbridge. Evidence for the use of the latter Ispotted in a court case Elliott v Silverlock in 1840. Theplaintiffs, Elliotts, seed merchants in Rudgwick had sent10 sacks of trefoil seed via Newbridge, carried by barge toChichester. The defendant claimed they were not ofsufficient quality. He lost the case. Timber merchants wereamong the biggest users, and Rudgwick also had goodtrade. In 1844, Thomas Langton, George Marshall, both ofRudgwick, and Edward Child, Slinfold, joined forces to tryto lower carriage costs by a letter to the proprietors,results unknown. The canal, of course, died at the birth ofthe railway, but now ever so slowly revives, with thedetermination of WACT volunteers.

Happy Birthday Wey & Arun!Roger Nash

Trees in Cox Green

Hope Bridge, The Haven

The Shapingof Rudgwick

Only £2

The definitive history ofRudgwick in 23 pages: Chapter1 from Diana Chatwin’s classic

book on Rudgwick

Available atAutumn meeting,

or contact us via website

3

Although Horsham District Council’sPlan has been approved by theInspectorate it doesn’t mean that it isthe end of contentious or difficultplanning applications. The inspectorapproved a target for the total numberof applications over the plan periodbut still left the opportunity for someloose ends to be explored.One aspect is the concept of ‘windfall’applications, namely applications thatare not included in the plan but are theresult of existing policies beingapplied. Examples could be where ahouse is demolished and replaced bymore dwellings, when industrialpremises are converted or whenproposals are agreed inneighbourhood plans.An example of this was the DistrictCouncil’s refusal to allow developmentat Woodfalls, which then became thesubject of an appeal. At the hearingthe Council argued that the inspectorwas happy with the number proposedand that local neighbourhood plans forplaces such as Nuthurst were likely toprovide sufficient extra permissions toensure that targets were met. Theappellant disagreed and suggestedthat the housing numbers were aminimum which could be exceeded ifother conditions could be met, whichwould make it a windfall site. Theinspector agreed with Horsham’sinterpretation and rejected the appeal.The implications mean that anydevelopment proposed for Rudgwickshould only be approved if it has gonethrough the planning process – in ourparticular case through the medium ofa Neighbourhood Plan. An examplewas the recent application at Fairlee,which was rejected by Horsham as itis outside the defined village border.However, neighbouring Waverley hasnot yet reached agreement on its localplan. The consultation period ended inOctober and it will be interesting tosee how they propose to allocatesufficient housing to the area.Their consultation proposals include adevelopment larger than Rudgwick atDunsfold aerodrome:‘5.21 There are a number ofbrownfield sites located in thecountryside. By far, the mostsignificant of these is DunsfoldAerodrome. In 2009, the Secretary ofState rejected an appeal relating to aproposed new settlement at the site,comprising about 2,600 homes alongwith shops, business premises,

community and leisure facilities andschools. The appeal was dismissedon the grounds of transport impactsand prematurity. However, much haschanged since 2009:The NPPF (the National framework)requires the Council to positively seekopportunities to meet the developmentneeds of the borough and to meetobjectively assessedneeds unless anyadverse impacts ofdoing so wouldsignificantly anddemonstrablyoutweigh thebenefits, whenassessed against thepolicies in the NPPFas a wholeThe objectivelyassessed need forhousing has beenassessed as 519homes per annum, far above theSouth East Plan target for Waverley atthe time of the appeal.Although Dunsfold Aerodrome is in arelatively isolated location, there areno other large brownfield sites inWaverley that could make such alarge contribution to meeting theassessed needs.The NPPF states that developmentshould only be prevented or refused ontransport grounds where the residualcumulative impacts of development aresevere.They add5.22 The Council has commissionedevidence on the likely traffic impactsof different scenarios for development,including different levels ofdevelopment at Dunsfold Aerodrome.The evidence to date indicates thatthere is potential to provideappropriate mitigation on the highwaynetwork, although more work needs tobe done on this.5.23 It is considered that, subject tothe necessary infrastructure beingprovided, including highwaysimprovements, the benefits ofredeveloping Dunsfold Aerodrome forhousing and other uses outweighother concerns, including the relativelyisolated location of the site. It istherefore allocated in this Plan as astrategic site for a new settlement ofup to 2,600 homes, employment andassociated supporting uses.

It is difficult to understand howhighway improvements can mitigatethe effects of such a largedevelopment – the A281 is alreadycarrying large amounts of traffic asanyone travelling through Bramley anymorning will confirm.The Parish Council has registered itsobjection to not only this scheme butalso to the two others in the Cranleigharea:

Whatever Waverley finally agree toin their plan there will beimplications for Rudgwick.David Buckley is the Chair ofRudgwick Parish Council PlanningCommittee, writing in a personalcapacity

One thing that is noticeable whenstaying in other parts of Britain is thelack of background noise, frompassing aircraft or general road trafficnoise. The massive increase of airtraffic over Sussex, and in fact over allof the South East of England, isunfortunately a fact of modern life. Atpresent there is a lot of presscoverage regarding the proposedsecond runway at Gatwick and itslikely effect on our local area, I am notcommenting about that but would liketo turn the clock back a few years.As a boy I can remember going toLondon by train to Victoria, and seeingthe disused Gatwick Race Course,including its own station, whichbecame part of the modern GatwickAirport. Gatwick Race Course wasquite a notable venue and had evenhosted the Grand National race in itsearly years. There had been a smallairfield adjacent to the race course inthe 1930s, its terminal building is stillin existence, as the famous Bee Hivebuilding that can be seen as onedrives up to Gatwick Airport on theA23; it is now a grade 2 listed building.

Planning Matters David Buckley

The Skies of SussexMalcolm Francis

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Gatwick Airfield was requisitioned bythe RAF during the Second WorldWar.In the 1950s I saw quite a lot of airtraffic over Rudgwick, much of itrouted from Gatwick Airport, whichwas starting to be used for civilian airtraffic. An old neighbour of mine,would often say to me “Is that aDakota?” as a small passenger aircrafttrundled overhead. The DC3 Dakotawas the famous workhorse of theSecond World War and in the ensuingyears a lot of them were used forcharter work in the early days of airfreight and package holidays. In 1950it was announced that the GatwickAirport site would become London’ssecond major airport, despite localopposition. The airport was eventuallyclosed for two years from 1956 formajor construction work whichincluded the building of the present7,000 feet runway. In its early years,as London’s second airport, I canremember reading an article in therenowned “Flight“ magazine thatGatwick Airport was a white elephant,as it was being underutilised!Over the years the skies overRudgwick have seen considerable airtraffic. The nearest airfield toRudgwick was Dunsfold Aerodrome; itwas built by the Canadians in 1942and was a base for American MitchellB25 bombers. In the post war years acompany called Skyways used it as anengineering base and supported thefamous Berlin Airlift (thoughoperational flights to Berlin did not flyfrom Dunsfold). The Sixties sawDunsfold airfield expand when HawkerSiddeley took it over as a test airfieldfor the production of Hawker Huntersand then the famous Hawks andHarrier aircraft. Aircraft from Dunsfold,which one would often see circlingaround our village, were never veryintrusive, other than when the Harrierswere on their final approach to therunway, on what is known as a slowlanding, when the aircraft’s lift nozzleswere pointing towards the ground.I often wonder if the general publicknow just how much moderntechnology is in place to ensure thatall aircraft have a safe journey in ourcrowded skies. Aircraft these dayselectronically ask each other theiraltitude, speed, compass heading, etc.and give the pilot a series of warningsto take avoiding action if necessary. Iworked in the aircraft industry formany years, based at Dunsfold , as anavionics engineer. My work included

servicing a lot of radio communicationand radar systems; my departmentwas constantly monitoring many of theradio channels used for militaryaircraft and also all of the main civilianchannels covering all air traffic intoGatwick and Heathrow. WhenDunsfold was an active airfield it hadits own air traffic controllers whocontrolled quite a large sector of airspace that was outside of Gatwick’scontrol. The Dunsfold air trafficcontrollers handled aircraft flying outof Dunsfold airfield and all the loweraltitude traffic, to the west of Gatwickavoiding the Gatwick TerminalManoeuvring Area (TMA).Rudgwick lies just to the west of theTMA, and that is why our skies arealways busy with aircraft arriving ordeparting from Gatwick. If oneimagines the sky above as a series oflayers, above the TMA there aredifferent air corridors crossing thecountry. Those corridors are strictlycontrolled by teams of air trafficcontrollers, these days based atSwanwick in Hampshire (originallybased at West Drayton). Above thehigher stratas of airspace you find thedomain of military aircraft, but stillcontrolled by dedicated air trafficcontrollers. The thing that always impressed mewas the professionalism of all air trafficcontrollers, whether controlling thecommercial flights into Heathrow andGatwick, or guiding a light aircraft thatpotentially could be straying into verybusy airspace, what a stressful job itmust be. For example there is alwaysan overnight rush of transatlanticflights that arrive over the UK forbreakfast time. The airliners arestacked, flying in large circles to awaittheir landing slot. Quite often aircraftfor Heathrow are stacked over Epsom,Gatwick traffic is often held over EastSussex. Sometimes one would hearthat a particular aircraft was allegedlyrunning low on fuel. The controllerwould challenge the pilot to whetherhe was stating a “fuel emergency” ,the reply was negative, with thecontroller quoting the legalrequirements and ensuinginvestigation if it was a false alarm!Military aircraft from Dunsfold would flyto specific test areas after leaving theairfield at low level, they could notclimb out rapidly because of Gatwickair traffic. Air traffic controllers wouldalways keep a very watchful eye ontheir radars to ensure that no lightaircraft strayed into the path of the

high speed Harriers and Hawks. Irecall one incident when a lightaircraft strayed too close toDunsfold airfield without gaining therequired permission to cross theairfield. At the time there was aHarrier in circuit and it was divertedto intercept the errant light aircraft;the Harrier actually came alongsidethe light aircraft, matching its speedby hovering and took its registrationdetails, the light aircraft’s pilot wasnot very happy! Harriers were avery high performance aircraft sowhen in the local area were notable to be “let off the leash”, havingthe ability to go from a standingstart on the runway to an altitude ofeight miles in just two minutes!Military aircraft fly much higher thancivilian airliners, though there arelow level corridors where militaryaircraft are allowed to transit. Hereis one very amusing story thatproves that test pilots still like tohave a little fun, whilst carrying outa dangerous job. A Harrier wasbeing flown by one of the test pilotsover the Bristol Channel at a veryhigh altitude (way above anycivilian aircraft). The pilot wastesting a radar system that requiredhim to remain at that altitude forsome time, to ensure that thesystem’s electronics remainedserviceable under extremely lowtemperature conditions. When thetest pilot was returning to Dunsfoldthe air traffic controller commented“somebody has been busy”, as thesky to the west of Dunsfold wascrisscrossed with contrails…thepilot radioed that he had done themover the Bristol Channel andadmitted that he was trying to writehis name, but the “B” was ratherdifficult.One final anecdote, any temporaryhazard to an aircraft’s safepassage through our skies iscovered by a notice called aNotam, which is sent to all air trafficcontrol agencies. It will give awarning of any potential temporaryhazard, for example a flyingdisplay, its exact location andduration, parachute training, etc. Aroyal flight has the added securityin the form of what is known as apurple corridor covering the routewhich “appears” well before theQueen’s aircraft takes to the skies,and remains in place for some timeafter the royal flight has passed, Iam always amused by the notion ofpart of the sky changing colour….

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The Energy Revolution -Rudgwick Coal Merchants

There is no greater indication of Rudgwick’s goods yard inaction than the coal trade. There were no coal and cokemerchants and probably little burning of coal in the villagebefore the railway goods yard was available. Now, railwayengines and householders alike could use it. As soon as1866, Kelly’s Directory lists the landlord of the MartletHotel, William Hogwood, as a coal merchant. EdwardBotting, a retired farmer, one of the large Botting clan thatfarmed much of the parish, who had recently moved fromHowick Farm to Hencocks in the village also took up thetrade. One imagines he and Hogwood making tentativesteps in a novel business, finding better off customers togive up wood and faggots for regular deliveries of blackgold. The idea must have caught on as Botting moved toCobblers, and continued to sell coal and coke, presumablyfrom the station yard, until his death in 1887.William Francis took over the business, moving toStanstead Cottage, opposite the station yard. He becamea fixture in Rudgwick’s commercial life, and in 1907brought his sons, notably James (Jim), into a partnership,William Francis & Sons. The Francis family had lived inRudgwick for several generations, so here was a genuinegain for Rudgwick’s employment and business from therailway. William was born at Furnace House, his father acarter. Young William left school in Rudgwick to be agroom at Tower Hill near Horsham before returning towork on the land. He married Fanny, and they lived atArun Villas (now The Old Tollhouse). His background waswith horses, so he had the skills to take over Botting’sbusiness. He may have worked for Botting before the oldman’s death.In 1915, William died and Jim took over, running thebusiness from his home at The Laurels, Bucks Green, butretaining the coal yard at the station. Jim had marriedAnnie, and had various homes before settling into the lefthand half of The Laurels, then newly built. In his time,motor lorries were introduced, and the yard adjacent toThe Laurels, which is still there, was the base. A 1920sstation photo shows railway wagons in the livery of‘Francis’, the name prominent on the sides. Earlier photosindicate the importance of household coal from theDurham coalfield, with wagons covered in tarpaulins

marked LNER (what was known in London as ‘sea-coal’).Coal fires and ranges had become very commonby 1915 so there would have been a good andwidespread trade, not just with the “better off”.Older readers will remember the coalman arriving,humping heavy sacks into the cellar, bunker orshed, and the pungent aroma of the coal dust.Some of us had coke-fired central heating in the1960s, a last-ditch way to keep the age of coalalive.The enterprising Jim Francis was coal merchant,carman & contractor. He was also assistantoverseer, rate collector & clerk to the ParishCouncil. By 1927, he had a telephone, No 48. Inabout 1933, he sold the business, the house andthe two yards, and the goodwill, to BernardHempstead. Jim was not yet 60.Wesley Bernard Hempstead and his sister Bessiewere born in Grays, Essex. Their parents moved

from the Essex-based Peculier Brethren to join theCokelers (Dependants) in Loxwood. Bessie eventuallybecame Company Secretary of Aylward Smith & Co andhad to oversee the shop’s closure in the 1970s. TheCokelers also had a coal business, run by Mr Cole! He gotsupplies from Rudgwick, and he too had a transportbusiness. Bernard Hempstead married his daughterCharlotte, and was the Loxwood carrier, travelling toHorsham regularly through Bucks Green. Jim Francis’suncle, also Jim, had become a Cokeler, along with hissecond wife and son William. They lived in Alfold, laterCranleigh, and were buried at the Dependant graveyard inSpy Lane, Loxwood. Francis and Hempstead and Coleknew each other well.By the time Hempstead took over, motor transport was thenorm, but the railway was still the means to carry coal longdistances. In 1934 his business at The Laurels was coalmerchant and haulage contractor, with a 14 seat motor-coach for hire. He became the Rudgwick carrier from the1930s to the 1950s, using a motor van, three times a weekto Horsham, returning the same day. The role of villagecarrier pre-dates the railway. Bernard’s brother-in-law,another Dependant, was Fred Kilner, who Malcolm Franciswrote about in the Newsletter. He ran the bus servicethrough Rudgwick for many years from the Loxwood coalyard. Hempstead ran the business during the difficult war

Rudgwick’s Railway: Revolution or Evolution? Part 3Concluding Roger Nash’s 3-part history of Rudgwick’s railway century, 1865-1965.

Roger Nash

c1904: No 42, also 56 and 57,were the last of the LBSCR 4 and6 wheel train sets

c1956: Bernard Hempstead &a Thames Trader (Bixley)

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years, when both coal and petrol must have been in veryshort supply at times. An old Pennthorpian has written ofjourneys from the wartime school at Gibbons Mill to thestation at the end of term in Hempsteads coach, whichwas dirty and smelly from the coal he sometimescarried in the coach! He gave up in about 1958,and returned to the house Aylward Smith had builtfor him for £2,500, Oak Lodge, Spy Lane.Presumably he paid them back from the sale ofthe business. They were good at looking aftertheir own. Hempstead died in 1965, the year theline closed.The coal business was dealt a hammer blow bythe railway strikes of 1955, which brought goodstraffic to a complete standstill, and from which theHorsham to Guildford line never recovered. Longdistance road freight was given a boost, and hasnever looked back since. The final chapter in thisstory of an energy revolution is therefore one ofcounter-revolution. The business passed, perhapsunwisely, to D & R Ireland. They started out withenthusiasm and a new fleet of Dodge lorries. InApril 1962, the twice daily goods service was withdrawn byBritish Railways. In September, the goods yard closedpermanently. Donald & Ronald Ireland, coal merchants,trading at Station Approach, Rudgwick, of SomersburyLane, Ewhurst were declared bankrupt. It was of course

not just the closure of the goods yard thatdid for them: markets were changing too.Oil, and bottled gas, were heating options,now gas from pipes under our roads, andof course electricity was availableuniversally in Rudgwick for cooking andheating. Rudgwick School in Bucks Greenwas of course warmed (only relatively, so Ibelieve) by coal until it closed, and JimFrancis once knocked a gate post downwith his cart; the school today has pupilswho have no experience of coal as a fuel,on balance, probably a good thing.A Revolution in WordsThe telegraph was an advance on the‘bush telegraph’ that preceded it. Firstreference to the telegraph in Rudgwickwas in 1874 at the railway station. The first

railway telegraph was installed between Paddington andWest Drayton in 1838/9, a world first in commercial use,and an obvious way of keeping track of the trainsthemselves. Telegraph poles and wires were introduced toEnglish language usage. Morse demonstrated his coded

transmission in Washington DC in 1842. The ElectricTelegraph Company came into being in 1845.Transmission of news to newspapers, messages to policeto apprehend suspects, began soon after, and a cross-Channel link was provided in 1850. In 1968 the

Postmaster-General took control in the UK (Seeabove, 1918: Kelly’s Directory)By 1876, the telephone was also born.However, Rudgwick was not exactly a priority,so we were catching up on the one whilst theother was still 40 years hence. One futureRudgwick resident, Erwin Schumacher, had atelephone in London as early as 1888, thoughnever in his time at Pallinghurst. The telegraphnot only made railways safer and more robustenterprises, but also allowed the general publicto use the service by visiting the station inperson to send a telegram, or have onedelivered to your home by the postal service.Charges were by the word, so Twitter and textusers would have felt at home. The telegraphoffice remained at the station until about 1902,when it moved to Bucks Green Post Office.Presumably, by then, telegraph wires were

Aug 1964: recently abandoned goodsyard (Scrace)

c1907: end-of-platform pole, &telegraph wires, just visible

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strung along the main road, enabling the service tobe taken ‘in house’ by the Post Office. BucksGreen won, over the Post Office near the church,because it was on the main road.One small irony is that despite the ‘electric’telegraph, the station had no electricity, and noelectric third rail, relying on oil lamps kept in thelamp room for lighting the station and goods yardright up to the 1960s. The station had a post box(4 collections daily in Edwardian times), which haslong since gone. As the Post Office was closed onSundays, public use of the station telegraph wasreinstated about 1907 (possibly never ceasing),“on Sundays at train times (except in the winter)for sending and delivery of telegrams on thestation premises only”.The last directory that refersto this was in 1934. But before this, by 1915, itbecame possible to place or receive a telephonecall at Rudgwick Post Office (TN1), and it was bythen an additional telegraph office – poles now on ChurchStreet - whilst at Bucks Green, telephonic express deliverywas available. In 1924, the directory records TN3 for DrBoxall at Church Hill, and by 1927 there were at least 48telephones linked to the Rudgwick exchange, and by1930, even The Haven Post Office had a telephone.Revolution or Evolution of Landscape?Ten changes.The construction of a railway in the 1860s created a new

landscape. The first proposals of Edward Wood, theengineer, submitted to parliament in 1860 makefascinating cartography, but were in fact not the final route.Consider: 1.) Baynards Tunnel (all 360 yards of it) and itsapproaches, 2.) the excavations needed for Rudgwickstation goods yard, 3.) the embankments and cuttings,particularly more significant in Rudgwick’s rolling terrainthan anywhere else on the line, 4.) the workings for brickclay near Lynwick Farm. Brickkiln Plat on the 1844 tithemap was worked by James Puttock, farmer andbrickmaker at next door Woodsomes Farm in the 1850sand later it had a kiln and pit, a likely source of bricks forlining Baynards tunnel and for nearby bridges, culverts,etc. 5.) Roads leading from Naldretts and Pensfold Lanesto Slinfold were closed off, and 6.) ancient fieldboundaries, shapes and sizes, noticeable in GreathouseFarm and the Arun valley were altered. James Braby mayhave been landowner, but it was his tenant at Greathouse

who had to cope with the extra time spent going from fieldto field, and creating stockproof hedging. 7.) There is themysteriously named, 1.3 acre, Tip Pond behind Foxholes,still marked in blue on maps but now a marshy and untidydepression, slowly infilling. The name is surely a misnomer– it seems likely it was created to dam the water of thestream flowing through Greathouse Hanger, so that therailway embankment would not be eroded in times of highflow. It then became an attractive spot for walks and for

fishing. The remains of culverts and controldevices downstream are so past their time ofeffectiveness that the embankment isdisappearing before our eyes. Fortunately,the upstream swamp still does its job up to apoint. 8.) You only have to walk to the A281to find a dip in the Downs Link which I amtold was washed away in the 1967 floods. 9.)In their own rather attractive way, the bridgeswhere the line went under Church Street,Lynwick Street, and at Baynards, over theArun (particularly this unusual double bridge),and over a farm track near Riverside Farmare all architectural punctuation marks and

1860: proposed route; Church St left,Lynwick St right (south top)

Inside Baynards Tunnel,Rudgwick entrance

Tip Pond outflow, GreathouseHanger, behind Pennthorpe

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examples of slowly weathering brickwork. 10.) The onlyone to be demolished was over the A281, for very goodheight restriction reasons.Foreign Revolutionaries Attack from the West!From Vestry Minutes, 25 March 1881: “It was proposed byJames Braby that whereas the greater part of the roadleading from the railway station in Rudgwick to Crab TreeCorner in Loxwood is used considerably more by foreign[sic] than by local traffic bringing goods of every and heavydescription from Wisborough Green, Loxwood, Alfold,Kirdford, and other places beyond these parishes toRudgwick station, the owners thereof enjoying the meansof such traffic, whilst living outside of the parish ofRudgwick, and consequently contributing nothing towardsthe maintenance of the said road, this Vestry dorespectfully appeal to the County Authority to the effectthat this road is made and considered a main road, andthat consequently half the expense of maintaining it bepaid by the County under Sec 15C:79:41 Vict: HighwaysAct 1878”. Motion carried.The station, and goods yard in particular, led to anincrease in horse drawn road traffic. The parish wasbecoming increasingly frustrated at its inability to pay forthe upkeep of all roads and bridges out of rates, and, oftenvoluntary, subscription from by no means all landowners.A near identical resolution was passed on 27 March 1883.The villages west of Rudgwick had no station nearer thanRudgwick, alternatively having to reach Haslemere,Billingshurst or Petworth (2 miles south of the town) onother lines.After 1888, the county had to take responsibility for majorroads, but in Rudgwick and elsewhere, the Vestry was stilllevying rates for highways up to its final meeting in 1894.The new Parish Council (PC) employed local labour fordigging stone, and a steam roller. They too encouraginglandowners to contribute to the cost in the vicinity of theirproperty for repairing parish roads. However, HorshamRural District Council (HRDC) surveyor now had someresponsibilities too. In 1897, the Loxwood Road wassubject to flooding due to the unsatisfactory state of theculvert near the blacksmith’s house – sounds very familiar!By 1898, road issues and even footpaths and fences werebeing passed for the attention of HRDC. The PC alsomade representations to HRDC for a footpath on Church

Street from Watts Corner to therailway station.A new foot path along the southside of the railway line fromChurch Street to Lynwick Streetwas in place by 1898. LBSCRwere asked if they could install afootway crossing of the line fromthe path to the platform for theuse of passengers. A sensiblesolution, but it never happened.A curious remnant of the originalarrangement for themaintenance of Church Streetbridge is revealed in 1909, whenthe PC wrote to LBSCR to tellthem of the dangerous state ofthe road on the bridge as thestones had not been rolled in.Clearly the bridge was theproperty of the railway.

Highways had become too big a responsibility for thevolunteers of the PC, the more so as traffic moved greaterdistances, often for commercial reasons. No wonder theywere not well disposed to the Loxwood ‘foreigners’.ConclusionsThere can be no doubt that the railway era was arevolution in terms of its social economic andenvironmental impact, whether locally in Rudgwick, orglobally. It changed the provision of goods in and out,including fuel and farm traffic, though not on the scale ofthe industrial towns. Its effect on mobility (in and out) ofthe population was immediate and permanent, thougheclipsed by more recent communication revolutions.Rudgwick’s people had opportunities opened up to themwhich previous generations could not have imagined.Gentrification came, and eventually went, as estates werebroken up in the 20th century, but the movement ofincomers with rather less wealth, and houses toaccommodate them (or should I say, us), has onlyincreased over time, outlasting the railway era, andcreating a new and more complex (rather linear) villagemorphology centred on what the Design Statement calledRudgwick Central, its nodal point being the station andenvirons. Our environment became less tranquil, but itssounds punctuated the life of the village, yet not on a scalesubsequently endured. The 19th century railway eraprovides a distinct chapter in Rudgwick’s landscapehistory and transport archaeology, an overlay on themedieval inheritance, continuing to shape our 21st centurylandscape.We have seen in these three articles how temporary someof the changes were, such as the brief construction periodwhen navvies from Ireland and elsewhere were here, butwe know little of them. Nothing permanent came of ourRailway Hotel, the Martlet, but the station and hotel sitesare now our most significant services, medical and retail.The Downs Link is a valued asset, (but the tunnel is inretirement). The telegraph came and went, but was theprecursor of much more profound developments. Theannoying influx of ‘foreign’ Loxwood folk is no longer seenas a threat, though a history of road transport might beless charitable to strangers passing through in the post-railway era. That however is another story! My conclusionmust therefore be revolution and evolution.

1956: goods train shunts on thesiding in cutting under Church St

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Keith Linscott is a well-known Rudgwickresident, a member of the RPS and regularRPS walker,also a leader for HorshamHealth Walks. It was while walking with Keiththat I became interested in his story andwhat it can tell us about Rudgwick over thesepast 75 years. I wasgoing to say thatKeith has lived inRudgwick for all ofhis 75 years but thatisn’t strictly true.Keith was born inSouth Norwood,Croydon, in January1941,still at theheight of the Blitz,and Keith’s mothergave birth to himunder the kitchentable as the bombsfell. He wasevacuated, at theage of 4 months, inMay 1941. Althoughby that time it was near the end of the Blitz,bombs were continuing to rain down uponLondon and houses close by were

disappearing or becoming unsafe. In fact,their house survived the bombing andcousins of Keith continued to live there.Baby Keith, along with his mother Ivy and3-year old brother Anthony (‘Tony’), foundsafety in the Sussex countryside, while hisfather Francis (‘Frank’), fulfilling his ARPwarden responsibilities, stayed behindtemporarily, joining them later when theLondon bombing had eased. Their newhome was actually just outside our parish, inLoxwood parish, at Brickkiln Farm, wherethey moved in with Jesse Wait and hisfamily: Jesse, a farm labourer, his wife Lucy,son Harold (aged 22), a gamekeeper,daughters Jessica (aged 20), Muriel (aged15) and Vera (aged 13), and son Robert(aged 7) [ages given as in 1941]. Two oldersons, Walter and Ernest, were no longer athome. The farmhouse was part of the largePallinghurst estate. Keith was never to returnto London and grew up in what was still

largely a rural community. Keith’s immediatefamily were not the only members of hisfamily to be evacuated here, for in a cottage

very close bywere his uncleFrank (one of hismother’s fourbrothers), auntIris and cousinDiane (born1939); anothercousin Rolandwas born early in1943.Keith’s earlymemories are, ofcourse, largelypost-War, but heremembers theblackout and thecandle lighting.He was to live inthe farmhouse

Keith’s Story As told to Doug Betts

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until the end of 1952, although the Waitfamily moved on in 1945, to Ivyhurst Cottage,Loxwood, part of the Pallinghurst estate.Keith’s family was then enlarged with thearrival of his grandfather, his mother’s fatherErnest Jenner; his maternal grandmotherSarah had died at the end of 1940. Beforethe Wait family moved out, one of Keith’searliest memories is of the Wait daughters.Keith was slow to talk and the girlsencouraged him by repeating swear words athim – he doesn’t say if these words wereamong the earliest he uttered! When he was5, Keith started school in Rudgwick. For theinfants (ages 5-7) this was in one room at theback of the Social (working men’s) Club,near Woodfalls Manor in the Loxwood Road,as there was not enough room for all agegroups in the main school. Keith, aged 5,would walk here in 1946 with his 7-year oldcousin Diane, taking the farm tracks and thenthe road through Tisman’s Common toLoxwood Road. The infants teacher wasMiss Tuff who lived in Tisman’s Common.Keith’s brother Tony was already at the mainschool, where Keith joined him and Dianeafter the infants school. The school was(and still is, though no longer a school)situated on the A281 in Bucks Green, nearThe Fox, a slightly longer walk, though latercycled. The age range was 7- 15 (less thosefew children who had passed the 11+ forCollyer’s, then a grammar school, orHorsham High School for Girls) and Keithwas here until he left school in March 1956,aged 15. Keith enjoyed school, says he wasgood at maths, and liked (most of) theteachers. During his time there the headshipchanged a number of times. Mr Bacon wasthe head in 1946 and he was succeeded byMr Huggett, who died in a freak accident –on that day the children were sent home.Then there was a headmistress, Miss Cox,and successive headmasters Denton,Crompton and Guest; the heads usually livedon site in the schoolhouse, while theteachers mostly came by bus from Horsham.

Keith’s teacher from 9-11 years was MissSimmons, who later married a chemist fromHorsham and became Mrs Smith. Keithseems to have had less happy memories ofher. Keith’s cousin Diane, of whom he wasvery fond, stayed on at Rudgwick Schooluntil she was 15, even though her family hadmoved to Pallinghurst Farm around 1950, buther younger brother Roland attended schoolin Cranleigh. After she left school she workedin Humphrey’s store and Post Office, thenworked for a solicitor’s in Horsham, becamea Wren, met a sailor in the Fleet Air Arm andmarried; she now lives in Spain.Keith had school lunches, hot meals servedfrom the canteen (the large hut, next to theold school). The school had a football teamand they played at the recreation ground inBucks Green. Sometimes they took a coachto play another school away, such asWarnham. Keith says he was a defender butcannot recall any great feats! He joined thescouts for just a year or so. Class sizes werearound 20-23 children.School holidays were wonderful times offreedom playing in the woods with friends.The children knew every part of their worldand Keith could probably still guide youunerringly through the paths and the lostpaths. At harvest time in July and August,when he was around 7-11 years old, he andhis friends would follow the harvester,catching rabbits trying to make their escape.Life in the farmhouse was, by modernstandards, fairly basic. Cooking was on acoal-fired range, water came from a well, hotwater was achieved by placing a copper overa log fire and thence to a tin bath; lightingwas from an Aladdin paraffin lamp andcandles. Keith’s relatives at the cottage hadno water and came to their well. There wasan outside toilet (without running water),which, Keith says, with a door having anopen top and bottom, could be a bit draughtyat times. One lovely feature of the farm wasthe orchard: apples, pears, plums, plusblackcurrant and gooseberry canes, fruitswhich found their way into his mother’sexcellent cooking.After Keith’s dad joined them, he worked fora while on the farm and then for WestSussex County Council, doing road repairs.Around 1950 he took a job as a groundsmanat Christ’s Hospital school and used to cyclethere, leaving Brickkiln Farm at 6:00am.Keith’s family moved, in October 1952, aftermore than 11 years at Brickkiln Farm, into acouncil house in the late 1940s developmentin Furze Road in Rudgwick. If you were tolook for Brickkiln Farm today you would havedifficulty in finding it, other than a fewscattered remains. It was abandoned afterKeith’s family moved out and graduallydismembered.

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The cottage in which his uncleand family lived has alsodisappeared. If you walk therewith Keith he will show you,looking through the now-maturetrees and shrubs, where it stood,how the house, garden and yardwere laid out and the paths thathe took to and from school some60-70 years ago. A happy time forKeith, who had known no other lifefor his first 11 years, and forwhom life in a modern councilhouse must have seemedstrange, but no doubt wonderfulfor his parents. Still, Keith says,there were woods to be found and played inclose by, including those now known asGaskyns Close!Unhappily, Keith’s father Frank was to die lessthan three years later. Frank Linscott, stillworking at Christ’s Hospital, also didgardening work around the village. Cycling toa house in Bucks Green he fell off his bike anddied instantly, from a heart attack. Keith camehome from school on 28th March 1955, to findhis uncle Frank there with his mother toconvey the bad news. His father was 54. Hismother Ivy then had to supplement hermeagre widow’s pension with cleaning jobs.Keith says that she was a good cook andloved her garden. Later, when Keith camehome from work, she would ask him hadn’t heseen what she had done in the garden thatday. Favourite meals were beef stew anddumplings, toad-in-the-hole, and steamedpuddings. Keith was to live with and supporthis mother for the rest of her life.Keith left school a year after his father died, on28th March 1956, aged 15. His brother Tonyhad already started work, at Gibbons Mill Farmfor Jos Musson (who also farmedneighbouring Newhouse), doing tractor andarable work. Tony married for the first time in1957 and he and his wife lived in a cottage inLawns Road, Baynards, before Tony leftfarming work and became a floor layer for aHorsham firm. And what of Keith’s work? FromApril to October 1956, straight after leavingschool, he joined his brother at Gibbons Mill

Farm, as a farm labourer.Then for a year he moved toExfold Farm, where Joe Knighthad been injured by one of thehorses – a hunter, not one oftheir carthorses - and theyneeded an extra hand. Thiswas followed by 22 years atHornshill Farm, from October1957 to December 1979. Thefarm, situated off the A281past Hornshill Lane, was about150 acres and for the first 10years of Keith’s employment adairy farm, involving Keith in all

the tractor work associated with cutting andstorage for silage, hay making and beddingstraw, winter ploughing and cultivating.Hornshill then became a pig farm, with newemphasis on sowing winter and spring corn foranimal feed. At harvest time work would startat 7.00 am and often finish at between 10.00and 11.00 pm, working the tractor in the darkwith spotlights. There was a foreman pigmanand one other worker, with about 1,000 pigs,including 3 or 4 boars for breeding. It was anopen plan farm with corrugated sheltersovernight, the pigs being called in by bangingon the tin ‘for tea time’. A batch of porkerswould be sold off each week. At Christmas 3pigs would be killed, one for the big house andtwo split between 4 workers. Keith had a ladyboss, Mrs Jean (Maggie) Newmark, widow ofHerbert Newmark of the Newmark WatchCompany in Croydon, who owned the farm.(Mrs Newmark had been a ferry pilot duringthe War and still flew over to the continentregularly). She lived in the big house but spentthe week in London, returning at the weekend.Up to 1975 Keith cycled to work then owned acar for the first time. He and his mates wouldenjoy ‘a few beers’, especially at the weekendand The Fox was their local, whose landlordwas Hugh Pike. It was still a pub, not arestaurant, but it did serve sandwiches. Thepub was differently arranged then, with the barright across and a separate snug bar. Themates also enjoyed a game of darts there.

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Keith and his mother moved from FurzeRoad to Princess Margaret Road in late1965. The 14 houses were also originallycouncil houses of which 8 have been soldand 6 now owned by a housing association.Keith has seen all of the post-Wardevelopments in the village: Queen Elizabethand Princess Margaret roads, in the 1950s,Princess Anne Road in the 1960s, GaskynsClose in the 1960s, The Marts (previouslyallotments) in the 1970s, etc.Before moving on to Keith’s later working lifeI want to mention some other features ofRudgwick that Keith recalls, especially theshops and businesses. In his early days, ofcourse, ration books were still needed. Nextto the King’s Head was the G.W. Humphreyvillage store (‘a bit upmarket’ said Keith). Inthe store was a post office run by MrsButcher. The store (now The OldBakehouse/Church Gate House) closed in1979 and part of it is the church office. Thepost office went across the road to anenlarged ‘Woes’. The butcher’s shop wasrun by Billy Butcher, who lived at EamesHouse situated just beyond the Jubilee hall;Southdown House next door was the shopand abattoir. Mrs Butcher at the post officewas his daughter-in-law. A little further downChurch Street, opposite ‘Freshwoods’, wasFleming’s, the village newsagents and one ofthe general stores and had an off licence.They delivered newspapers but not onSundays, when they were delivered by a MrBill Tubbs (later the shop MJ Pike’s, now TheCo-op, took over the newspaper business).The Martlet, a hotel and pub on the corner ofStation Road, closed in February 1962; itwas then used as a private house for a timebut later demolished and 4 new shops built.At the top of Jubilee Road there was a shopselling electrical goods and acar workshop in Jubilee Road.‘Catchpoles’ (now Loco), ownedby Roger Catchpole wasoriginally the village bakery.Roger expanded it to the size itis today and for a time after heretired it was rented to Secrettsof Milford. Beyond the bridge onthe right hand side, themotorcycle shop was once adairy, Victoria Farm Dairy, andthen a Spar shop. In BucksGreen the first house on theright was a post office andgeneral store, then a frozenfood shop and then a musicalshop ‘Morgan’s Organs’! In ‘TheYard’ on the south side of themain road, Bernard Hempstead,the coalman, parked his lorry;he lived in The Laurels, one ofthe cottages there. On the northside of the road was the Police House,where Paul Chuter was the village policeman

(the old police house was next to the SocialClub). Behind one of the cottages on thesouth side, The Halloa, Percy Naldrett theprinter worked in a tin shed. In another, MrsGibbs had a small shop attached to thecottage, Park View Stores (‘don’t forget totake your ration book for sweets’). In theLoxwood Road was John Clarke’s butcher’sshop (now The Vale); this was the localbutcher of choice for Keith and his mum.Further afield, in The Haven, at the righthand turn to the Blue Ship, is a house on theleft called the Old Post House, anotherformer post office and store.Keith finally left farming in December 1979for something completely different. He wentto work for British Aerospace (formerlyHawker-Siddeley Aviation) at Dunsfold as alabourer in the paint shop and after a fewyears became a paint sprayer. About 900people worked there working on HawkerHawks and Harriers; as the Weybridge andKingston factories were closed the work wasmoved to Dunsfold.Keith worked there for 20 years, enjoyingboth the work and the people. He was maderedundant in January 2000. By this time hismother was ailing and Keith became hercarer for some 4 years until she died in 2004.For a couple of years Keith did some lawnmowing until his retirement in 2006. His lifethen underwent a surprise change when hemet Shirley and her husband. They invitedhim to go to Zimbabwe with them whereShirley’s husband owned a farm which wasseized by the Mugabe regime; while therethe husband, who had been ill, died. Keithand Shirley married in 2007 and now Keithhas new step-families to visit, Shirley’schildren and grandchildren, in Australia andNew Zealand.

Keith Linscott:Born under a kitchen table in South Norwood,

a devoted son and noted RudgwickianReaders interested in the history of Brickkiln Farm maywish to look up articles in the 1995 and 1996 editions ofthe Newsletter, available on the RPS website

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The broadsheet below (text reprinted in the nextcolumn) was issued to Rudgwick village at thebeginning of the Second World War. The broadsheetattempts to quell public fears of enemy air raids andappears to have been tailored for each village,though the document was printed in Horsham. It wassigned by Colonel Hemsley, Head Air Raid Warden;It includes a list of the air raid wardens, theiraddresses and telephone numbers. Some of thetelephone extensions quoted may have been for theduration of the war only; one forgets how fewtelephones there were in the village even in the postwar years. The telephone exchange was manuallyoperated and was located within Rudgwick’s PostOffice and Stores, located at Church Gate Houseand the adjoining building. Note the very highnumber of road casualties when one considers thesmall number of motor vehicles on the roads in thepre-war year.Rudgwick did have a few bombs dropped on itduring the war. Often a German aircraft wouldjettison its bombs if it was trying to escape from aBritish fighter. A small stick of bombs fell across thevillage one landing close to Rudgwick brickworksand another very close to Rudgwick Chapel. A V1flying bomb, often known as a Doodlebug, detonatedin Cox Green on land where the steam fair is nowheld. (The warhead consisted of one ton of highexplosive). There was a certain amount of blastdamage to houses in Cox Green, including somestained glass windows within Holy Trinity church.There were several German aircraft shot down, oneclose to Roman Gate on the A281 and another alongKnowle lane. I understand that none of those crewssurvived. Two American B25 Mitchell bomber aircraftcollided over the village returning to Dunsfoldaerodrome, one of the aircraftcrashed at Pallingshurst (nowRikkyo School) with the loss of allthe crew; my mother witnessedthat tragedy from our familyhome in Lynwick Street. Theworst loss of life to civiliansoccurred when a German aircraftattacked the Guildford toHorsham passenger train closeto Bramley. Seven people werekilled and many injured, the trainwas full of people returning fromGuildford a few days beforeChristmas. Several Rudgwickpassengers among the seriouslyinjured.

Air Raid Precautions Notice Malcolm Francis

“Air Raid Precautions issued by the Home Office differ entirely fromUrban and Country areas….the main risk to the inhabitants of a ruralarea is a bomb dropped at random….with the chance of a village being

hit as a remote contingency.”“Typical conditions in a rural parish may be pictured as follows; there maybe a constable and two or three special constables…..there will be air raidwardens in possession of protective equipment and with a first aid box.Formal rescue parties, decontamination squads, etc will be at the markettown. A gas bomb is very unlikely, but the Government have provided a

gas mask or respirator. A hit by an incendiary bomb, although very remote,is a possibility, and therefore the authorities are providing 56 pounds of

sand per household.”“In parishes where public air raid warnings are not provided it is quiteunnecessary to warn people; it only perturbs nervous people uselessly. Ifgunfire is heard nearby, calmly take cover against our own Anti Aircraftshrapnel fragments. If in doubt, ask your warden to show Government

instructions. Don’t trust private opinion”“Have you got a fitted gas mask? Do you know how to deal with an

incendiary bomb? Do you know who is your warden, and where he lives?If you OK on these three points, there is no need to be a pale, worried,harassed or nervous. Let your own intelligence give you a feeling of

securityWhat is a worthwhile target for the enemy aeroplane? Ammunitionfactories and dumps? Aeroplane factories? Railway junctions? Docks orRudgwick village, your little cottage, or the fowls in your back yard, or

your little Albert?”“The war in Spain has given us useful information to provide precautionsagainst air raids; in two years bombing there were 7000 killed 11,000injured yet in one year’s motoring casualties in this country we have

roughly 6,600 killed and 227,000 injured.”West Sussex is regarded by the Authorities as a NON- VULNERABLE

area. That is why children are sent here. Do what you are told to do by theGovernment. Do for other people’s children what your own.

Don’t be a Jitterer

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It’s November and we’re all huddling closer to our fires (or cranking up the heating) keeping warm. As we do so, let’slook back on another good year of summer walks. The weather held (mostly), and it was wonderful to wander throughour village and the surrounding enjoying this countryside we’re privileged to live amongst. Rather than write asummary or our ramblings, we’ll leave it to Doug Betts’ photos to tell the story our adventures. Look out for details ofour 2017 walks in our Spring Newsletter. If you haven’t joined us before, do consider joining us next year, while westill have this wonderful countryside to enjoy.

A look back on our Summer Walks

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Rudgwick Preservation Societywww.rudgwick-rps.org.uk

Subscriptions:Please pay by Standing Order, subscriptions due 1st January. Cash accepted in advance at Autumn Meeting, or at the latest SpringMeeting. Membership automatically lapses after 2 years. Family £5, Individual £3, Over 60s £2. By Post: Membership Secretary,Weyhurst Copse, Tisman’s Common, RH12 3BJ. New members: please enquire via website

Newsletter:Editorial contributions welcome. Please contact via website for deadlines.

Chairman & Membership Secretary Secretary TreasurerRoger Nash Vanessa Sanderson John Newell

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We haven’t been able to dojustice to Doug’s photos in

print - to see these (and more)in all their glory, please visit

our website.