Another Crawley Stroll
It’s another Saturday afternoon in lockdown v3. For once it isn’t pouring down with rain and there appears to be some bright little yellow thing in the sky. It’s time for a walk, and it’s a little bit further afield than bordering Southgate. I’ve got a little loop of Pound Hill and Worth in mind.
I used to live in Pound Hill for six years or so, and during these years, on the whole, it would appear that I walked around with my eyes closed, blind to the kind of buildings there were dotted around and the history that is around if only I’d open them. It’s bizarre that until about three years ago I was completely blind to Crawley’s history, even after twelve or so years living here. Especially as someone who trained up to be a blue badge guide in Leicester when I lived there.
And so we’re at Pound Hill parade to start a wander. We head out the side between the Co-op and launderette onto Crawley Lane. So obviously the original road out to Turner’s Hill when you look on the map, and that can be picked up by looking at the buildings along its length. A number of them are so much older than the parade behind them, and the estate to the south of it. I had done some wandering in the summer, taking pictures of churches, pubs and road signs in this area, but I’d ignored the houses on Crawley Lane.
Two in particular are on the list of locally listed buildings. Numbers 6–8 are a couple of weatherboarded cottages from the 1870s.
And Woodcote Cottage further up the slight incline is again weatherboarded, and is older, being from the 1840s.
I couldn’t help myself and took a detour onto Mount Close, doing a lap of the triangle. This was the only place in Pound Hill I ever used to take any notice of when I lived in Wakehams Green. I would deliberately detour through it from Crawley Lane to the far corner and the narrow path onto the Balcombe Road just below The Hillside. It is full of a glorious array of beautiful houses. It is my aspirational place to live in Crawley if I ever win the lottery; ideally one of the four houses that back on to the moat on the far side of it. It is a wonderful oasis away from the more modern builds across most of the town.
We complete the loop and carry on up Crawley Lane, popping out on the Balcombe Road opposite the multi listed Worth Training Centre complex, and head up Turners Hill Road. I had noted this area back in the Autumn, and wasn’t going to rehash this stretch, and so turned into Ashurst Drive and into the battle ground where road signs are concerned. This triangle with Turners Hill Road to the North, Balcombe Road to the west and the motorway to the east has road signs that show the battle between the council and residents for how the road signs should be named.
The Worth Way cuts through the middle, with the streets to the north having the yellow signs of Pound Hill, and those to the south having the dark blue of Maidenbower. Yet most have or have had stickers over the top of the original areas with Worth printed on them, with some of them showing the signs where attempts have been made to peel them off.
Crossing the Worth Way, which is currently showing signs of looking more like a river than a railway, we head to the Worth Conservation Area, and the stretch down from Church Road to St Nicholas’ Church, where there are more listed buildings than not.
On the corner is the Toll House (which was Worth’s toll house), and next to it is the Rectory.
Straight in front of us as we walk along is Street House, a former inn from the seventeenth century.
And as we draw closer to it the lychgate to the churchyard appears,
itself a listed building, and the entrance in to the church itself, one of only three Grade 1 listed buildings in Crawley.
I have passed the church quite a few times on walks, but this is only the second time I’ve been through the Lychgate. Part of me regrets not having brought a camera on that previous visit, as the spire is scaffolded with blue netting around it, and the wonderful inside is not open to visitors in these covid times.
There is a new (well to me anyway) area laid out to the back of the churchyard which looks like it would be a great place for quiet and reflection, especially on a sunny afternoon.
After taking photographs of the outside of the church from every angle, and vistas of the gravestones, which have a higher than expected incidence of Celtic crosses, and only a lone Victorian era angel, we walk across the front of Street House and onto the Worth Way, not making it across the motorway, but instead heading on the narrow and muddy footpath through to Saxon Road, where it is time for some more street sign snapping, getting the Saxon kings named in this little area.
The little sub estate is full of large modern builds, but somehow they feel dark and it is noisy; the wooden fences on the raised bank do little to reduce the constant hum of vehicles speeding along the motorway behind it.
From here we cross the Worth Way, although the railway would have headed on across the motorway in days gone by, the footpath doesn’t, and steps up to the now ground level mark the end of where the council want you to walk. The other side towards the railway really is a stream at the moment.
We are back into Pound Hill now and a little cluster of “Hurst” roads, with two of them leading to the very infrequently used suffix of Keeps.
On Turners Hill Road we head back towards town, passing Caxtons before the pavement runs out and forces us to cross the road. We cross back again at the old school building, with it being closed and a weekend I take a couple of photos of it, the only safe time to take photos of school buildings in these accusatory times.
Back on to Church Road we head along to just before the Worth Way and head along Green Lane, where another listed building (the imaginatively named) Green Lane Old Cottage, from the seventeenth century it is one of only two thatched cottages in Crawley.
Crossing back over Balcombe Road we take the footpath in front of us through to Blackwater Lane, another road with large impressive houses, carrying on to Banks Road and onto The Bower. We can see the footpath that is the Worth Way in front of us, but it is another listed building I came here to see.
Blackwater Cottage from the late seventeenth / early eighteenth century is just about visible through the trees and bushes at this time of year (I’d imagine it wouldn’t be visible much at all during the full bloom of summer).
On the other side of The Bower are two more large modern houses, ones that I remember from passing lots of times, they had always taken my attention from the older and more impressive building behind the trees. They seem darker than I remember, and the dream of living in one of these is perhaps one I’m glad didn’t come true.
It’s time to head home, and so we turn and wander back to Pound Hill parade through the streets named after Sussex castles. On the parade the last thing I note is that the old hardware store is gone, but on the plus side the new store there still deals with nails.
