Pease Pottage
This article possibly contains original research. (June 2020) |
Pease Pottage | ||
---|---|---|
Shire county | ||
Region | ||
Country | England | |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom | |
Post town | Crawley | |
Postcode district | RH11 | |
Dialling code | 01293 | |
Police | Sussex | |
Fire | West Sussex | |
Ambulance | South East Coast | |
UK Parliament | ||
Pease Pottage is a village in the
The village has a motorway
The Church of the Ascension, a chapel of ease to St Mary's Church, Slaugham, opened in 1875, but is no longer in use.[1]
Pease Pottage Radar is about 1⁄2 mi (0.8 km) west of Pease Pottage and is visible from much of the village. It is an air traffic control radar for NATS and takes advantage of a position 460 feet (140 m) above sea level, some 250 feet (76 m) above the nearby Gatwick Airport.
Etymology
Pease Pottage is also an old name for pease pudding. It has been said that the village name came from serving this food to convicts either on their way from London to the South Coast or from East Grinstead to Horsham although this seems implausible and it is not clear why convicts would travel along either route. The name Peaspottage Gate first appears on Budgen's Map of Sussex made in 1724 at the southern end of a road from Crawley where it met the Ridgeway, and is on the border of the parishes of Slaugham and Worth. This is prior to the turnpikes (1771), and so was not a toll gate. It was probably a gate between St Leonard's Forest and Tilgate Forest (part of Worth Forest), and probably a reference to soft muddy ground.[2] Many local villages have Gate as part of the name (Tilgate, Colgate, Faygate etc.). The name is not on John Speed's map of 1610 (surveyed in the 1590s). Gate was dropped from the name when the tollgate was removed in 1877.
Geography and history
Pease Pottage is situated on the Forest Ridge of the
Pease Pottage lies on an ancient, pre-Roman trackway that ran in an east to west direction along the Forest Ridge from Ashdown Forest through West Hoathly, Turners Hill and Pease Pottage to Horsham. This pre-historic ridgeway pre-dated the predominantly north–south-oriented Roman roads built by the Romans to link the south coast of England to London, and to connect with the strategically important Wealden iron industry, such as the London to Brighton trunk road 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Pease Pottage and Stane Street further to the west. The ridgeway, running as it did in an east–west direction across the Weald, was probably of long-standing importance and of great antiquity. The route can be traced on Ordnance Survey maps and can be discerned on the ground in various places e.g. as an old sunken trackway running through Worth Forest east of Pease Pottage.[4][5]
The only evidence from
The first large scale map of Sussex by Christopher Saxton in 1575 shows Crawley and Slaugham churches, St. Leonard's Forest and Worth Forest, but just white space between them. Speed's map of 1610 (surveyed by John Nordon about 1595) also shows Slawgha and Crawley with the Rape border passing between Schelley Forest on the west and Tylgate Forest on the east. Neither map shows any roads. It is likely that the Ridgeway from Horsham was used as it is the only dry east–west route, but this went south to Handcross then east along High Street (round the headwaters of Standford Brook) to Turners Hill and onwards to East Grinstead. A shorter but wetter (probably impassable in the winter) shortcut developed along Parish Lane crossing Standford Brook at Cinder Banks. This is clearly shown on Budgen's 1724 map which indicates a few buildings at Pease Pottage Gate with Buchan Hill to the west and a road north through Broadfield and Hogs Hill to Crawley. The road south to Handcross is not shown.
Cinder Banks takes its name from a double
The main route between London and Brighton was further east (in 1756 the London-Brighton
In the early 19th century
"...CRAWLEY...go two miles along the road...to Brighton; then you turn to the right [at Pease Pottage] and go over six of the worst miles in England...The first two of these miserable miles go through the estate of Lord ERSKINE. It was a bare heath here and there, in the better parts of it, some scrubby birch. It has been, in part, planted with fir-trees, which are as ugly as the heath was; and, in short, it is a most villainous track."
In Reminiscences of Horsham by Henry Burstow he states that on 4 October 1837 he went to Pease Pottage to see Queen Victoria pass through on her way from London to Brighton. There was "a large archway made of evergreens, with VICTORIA REGINA worked on it in various coloured dahlias".
Pease Pottage would have benefited from the toll roads, but lost the Crawley-Horsham traffic in 1823 with the opening of the new McAdam road through Faygate, and the London and Brighton Railway completed in 1841 which skirted along the eastern boundary of Pease Pottage cutting through Tilgate Forest alongside Standford Brook and through a tunnel under High Street. The Pease Pottage tollgate was removed in 1877. In 1896 on the day after the red flag law expired, 25 cars left London for Brighton, but half had broken down by Crawley. This event is still celebrated in the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run which still goes past Pease Pottage on the first Sunday in November.
The pub dates back to the 19th century. A pond in front of it was filled in 1883. A smithy was next door, and later a shop and a Jet petrol station opposite, with the Busy Bee restaurant behind. The Grapes
To the south of Pease Pottage is Tilgate Forest Row which had three shops, a blacksmith and post office. The Pease Pottage cricket field was between here and Pease Pottage (now a car breakers yard). The cricket field was made in 1874, but was ploughed up in 1939 as part of the war effort. It had a London horse-drawn tram as a pavilion. The ground was up to county ground standards.
The next major change to Pease Pottage was the opening of the M23 motorway in 1975 which continued as the A23 road, a two lane dual carriageway south to Handcross with the houses of Tilgate Forest Row facing onto it. The service station was opened in about 1990. The road layout was changed again in the mid-1990s with the A23 moved a few yards west and widened to three lanes. The old southbound carriageway became a new road to Handcross, and another new road was built on the other side of the A23 to Woodhurst. Tilgate Forest Row is now separated from Pease Pottage by ten traffic lanes.
A large number of houses have been built since 1946 when Pease Pottage consisted of a few buildings near the crossroads and a few isolated buildings on the A23. The first development was west along Horsham Road, mainly
Commercial activities
There are a number of commercial activities in the village, including the large car breakers yard on Brighton Road. Just south of this was the
The site is now occupied by the controversial 'Cedars' UK Borders Agency Detention Centre,
There are also large warehouses next to the old crossroads, and two small industrial parks – one between Brighton Road and the A23, and the other along Parish Lane. Finally there are some units at the golf driving range on the west of the village and the old Met Office site next door (which is strictly in Colgate).
Country houses
There are two country houses just outside the borders of Pease Pottage, but which have it as a postal address, and are accessed from the village.
The original house at Buchan Hill was built in the early 19th century by Hon. Thomas Erskine (Lord Chancellor in 1806). His father was the Earl of Buchan from which it may have taken its name, although Buchan Hill is named on Richard Budgen's map of 1724, and its name may have attracted him. This house was built in a fork between two roads running north towards Bewbush and Gossops Green. Today the right of way descends along the west branch as far as the site of the old house, turns east across the front of it then north along the east branch. John Jervis Broadwood (a descendant of John Broadwood) occupied it in the 1860s.[citation needed]
The new Buchan House was built in 1883 by Philip Feril Renault Saillard who made his money from a new dye used for ostrich feathers.[citation needed] It was located NE of the original which was subsequently demolished, and had three drives – north, south and east. The latter linked it with the London-Brighton road, and runs along the border between Slaugham and Crawley. It cost £40000. It was designed by the London partnership of Ernest George and Harold Peto, and Sir Edwin Lutyens was also involved. The house was occupied by his daughter after his death in 1915 and subsequently was bought by Upland House School. It was occupied by the Pearl Assurance Company before the Second World War, then housed Canadian Army Officers (there was a Canadian Army Camp north of Horsham Road), since when it has been used by Cottesmore School.
Woodhurst was constructed as a country house in the early 19th century. It was just off the A23, but now is at the southern end of Old Brighton Road South, and is really in Handcross although it cannot be accessed from there. It was owned by Dame Margot Fonteyn and used as a ballet school.[citation needed] During World War 2 it was occupied by the Canadian army and was later used by the NHS as Woodhurst Hospital (there are several postcards of this taken in 1955[10]), and later 55 older people with learning difficulties living in residential care provided by Surrey Oaklands NHS Trust. This closed in 2003, and the site is being developed as a Diagnostic and Treatment Centre and Care Home by Sussex Health Care.[11]
In popular culture
Pease Pottage featured in the 1953 film Genevieve as a very remote village deep in the Sussex countryside.
The fictional
Notable people
- Albert Cordingley (1871-1939), first-class cricketer
- Edward Thornton (1893-1970), first-class cricketer and military officer
References
- ^ Allen, John (5 September 2011). "Slaugham – (1) St Mary, (2) All Saints, Handcross and (3) Ascension, Pease Pottage". Sussex Parish Churches website. Sussex Parish Churches (www.sussexparishchurches.org). Archived from the original on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
- ^ A.D. Mills (1998) A Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford University Press.
- ^ https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1317731/
- ^ Margary, Ivan (1965) Roman Ways in the Weald. London: JM Dent, p.265.
- ^ Mid-Sussex District Council (2005),A landscape character assessment for Mid-Sussex: 6, The High Weald., para 9.16, p.77.
- ISBN 0-85033-718-6.
- ^ "Crawley Forest School : Pease Pottage, West Sussex, Local Directory".
- ^ "UK Border Agency Detention Centre : Pease Pottage, West Sussex, Local Directory".
- ^ "UK opens new detention centre for children and families, 01/09/11 | London NoBorders".
- ^ "Pease Pottage Photos". Francis Frith. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
- ^ "Home". sussexhealthcare.org.
External links
- Pease Pottage by Mid Sussex District Council Retrieved 1 November 2012