Poles Apart
Underwear. That’s how the latest wander to find historic Crawley buildings started this time. Helen had an order to pick up from Next, so I thought that County Oak would be a good place to park up and start to explore from. Of course it is a different County Oak from the one that appeared on the map at the turn of the twentieth century.
We got out on County Oak Way and headed into the mish mashed styles of the industrial units taking a somewhat overgrown and almost hidden path between office buildings and storage units where high barbed wire fences, metal grilles and occasional fire exits lined either side until we come out into a car park and turn a corner to be faced with this.
County Oak Cottage is hidden away at the very end of the industrial estate, dating from 1705, it is thought to have been a conversion of an even older barn, and is a Grade II listed building, converted to offices, with a somewhat sympathetic extension to the west side of it. Peeking around the corner of the picture above is a more modern, but also Grade II listed building.
Oak Cottage has been much modernised, but originally dates from the later half of the eighteenth century. Both sat on the edge of what is Lowfield Heath, all open land when they were built.
The more modern map I have in my pocket shows there is a footpath north from these buildings up to Poles Lane. And it is true, there is a gap in the fence and what must be a pleasant path to walk across the adjacent field in the summer. Only it isn’t summer, and with the most recent thaw and rains, the path is more stream that anything else. The whole field is like a marsh with tuffets of grass offering points of apparent solid ground amongst the surrounding quagmire. Only there is no substance to the grass and soon I am ankle deep in shockingly icy water. It will take an hour after I escape from the swamp for my feet to return to having any real sense of feeling. One of the pitfalls of not being able to get on with walking boots and only feeling comfortable walking anywhere in trainers.
Once across the field we join a more substantial path that comes across from London Road to Poles Lane, one where there are at least some solid parts to use to avoid the puddles. There is only open land to the north of this path and that whole parcel of land between London Road in the east, Poles Lane in the west, north of the footpath and south of Charlwood Road used to be Cheals’ Nurseries.
And this footpath we walk on had used to form the border between West Sussex and Surrey, with Lowfield Heath being in Surrey until the reorganisation of borders in 1990, bringing it under Crawley Borough Council’s control.
Poles Lane is a much wider track, which it needs to be for the stream of cars to be able to get to and from the houses along it. It is surprisingly busy for a road to nowhere with only ten houses along its length. We head north along Poles Lane first passing first Poles Farm.
Which can only be seen from a distance between the trees. The barn in the grounds in a Grade II listed building from the seventeenth century.
Closer to the road (well lane) is a more modern, but dilapidated brick structure, overgrown and better hidden despite being almost next to us.
Next along, at the end of its own drive and small field is Spikemead Farmhouse,
which dates from 1604. The run of lovely old buildings is somewhat spoiled by the utilitarian Thames Water building with a ramshackle tourer sat in its car park. A couple of later period cottages are right on the lane just before getting to Charlwood Road, but the building that is the most interesting is mainly hidden from the rear,
and it requires a short walk along Charlwood Road to get to it.
Charlwood House is a huge building, Grade II* listed, dating from the early seventeenth century.
And although it has a car park and openings to the west side of it, pictures were taken of the higher levels only, seeing as it now houses a day nursery.
To the south side and behind a fence is Lowfield Hall.
Originally built as a barn in the early seventeenth century to serve Charlwood House it was extended in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries converting the original timber build to brick panelled walls, it became a residential property in the 1960s/70s.
We turned around to get back to Poles Lane and the follow it out at the other end. There is only a short stretch of Charlwood Road to negotiate, but it has no footpaths, and there was a sudden influx of traffic. None of which bothered to slow down in the slightest, and most didn’t even move over to the middle of the road to pass us, instead flying past with wing mirrors only millimetres away from us. Forgetting the highway code entirely in that pedestrians are listed first and have right of way.
As we passed Spikemead Farmhouse a car turned in and buzzed at the gate. I’m not sure what was being said but somehow have an imagined conversation in my head now.
“Hello, who is it?”
“It’s me Tarquin, open the gate.”
“Who’s me?”
“Don’t be such a prat, it’s Jemima, your wife.”
“Can you prove that?”
“What do you mean can I prove that?”
“Have you got an ID?”
“What do I need ID for, I live here.”
“If that were true you wouldn’t have needed to buzz to get in.”
“Tarquin, stop pratting around and open the damn gate before I get cross.”
“Sorry, no ID, no entry, thanks for passing by.”
“Tarquin? Tarquin? I’m going to bloody well kill you when I get in.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m not opening the gate.”
After my little imagination detour, we get to the point where the tarmacked road stops and it becomes a pot holed track. At the end of the straight just after the footpath we had originally come in from, Poles Lane turns right and meanders for a bit, on the next corner is another Grade II listed building.
Originally from the late Tudor period, it was extended in the mid nineteenth century is similar materials to the original. Poles Lane comes to a halt for us with the sharp turn into the entrance to Amberley Farm.
There are two footpaths either side of a stream, and not sure which to follow we took the left one as a group of teenage boys on bikes had taken it. It wasn’t a great choice, and I’m not sure how they managed to get through the thick mud, over the pronounced roots of the surrounding trees and under their low hanging branches, as they were all difficult enough for us walking.
The path popped out at the back of the Cherry Lane playing fields, somewhat waterlogged themselves. We crossed the field and turned in Langley Walk, passing as we did Langley Green Farmhouse.
An eighteenth century brick cottage, which is yet another Grade II listed building.
As is Langley Grange which sits further west along Langley Lane, and which dates from the early seventeenth century.
Back in relative civilisation I took a number of pictures of road signs on various themes, but without completing any set (this will require another trip), as we made our way to Langley Green Parade.
And as Helen got some soft drinks, I had a quick scoot around to add to my picture collections of pubs.
With the Dr Samuel Johnson, which I will forever misname since someone told me they called it the Samuel L Jackson.
Then on to places of worship,
The snappily titled Voice of Deliverance Full Gospel Church of God, which had used to be the Church of England parish church of St Leonard’s. It also runs with the name of Igreja de Deus for its Pentacostal congregation.
Next to it in the Anderson Shelter lookalike former church hall of St Leonards.
Is the Sri Lankan Muslim Welfare Association Crawley.
As we made our way up Martyrs Avenue on the way back to County Oak it would have been remiss not to take a short detour in to Old Martyrs, as Helen hadn’t seen it before.
And then it was back to the car, food shopping and home.
Acknowledgements for maps.
Godfrey Edition Old Ordnance Survey Maps — Horsham, Crawley & St Leonard’s Forest 1901. Alan Godfrey Maps, 2004.
Lowfield Heath Remembered. Jean Shelley. Horley Press Limited, 1984.
Cheals of Crawley — The Family Firm at Lowfield Nurseries 1860s — 1960s. Alison M. Benton. Moira Publications, 2002.
