Horley memories
Here are memories of Horley and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Horley or a Horley photo.
My Hometown
I was born in Redhill but grew up in Horley in Surrey. I had two brothers and one sister. My maiden name was Rose McKeon and my brothers were Tom, Franklyn and I had a sister Jo. I would love to hear from anyone that knew the family in those times. I am living in Az. Horley is still a very special place to me.
The Church
I remember the church very well.... I had to walk there in a crocodile with other girls from Kingsley School for Girls in Horley Row .... we had to walk two by two in our school uniform for church every Sunday! The school was a lovely old building with an ancient tythe barn for a gym.... both the school and barn were pulled down in the 60's or 70's to make way for a housing estate....
The Constitutional Club
This view looks back along High Street. The two buildings either side of the turning into Albert Road have long gone, to be replaced by new offices. The building on the left was the Constitutional Club; it was built in a Bedford Park Domestic Revival style around 1890 with steep tiled roofs and much use of brick banding.
Station Road
The railway is now behind the photographer, who is looking down High Street at the height of its Victorian expansion with the street dominated by tall telegraph poles. Thorley’s, the cattle feed merchants, has gone, to be replaced by 1970s shops and offices, while all the old shop fronts have been replaced on the other terraces. Most of these buildings date from the 1860s to 1880s.
Horley, Station Road
Horley is on the old main London to Brighton road before it was diverted around the area of new Gatwick airport. Single and two-horse traps wait by the roadside. Corn and coal merchants sell proprietary animal feeds. We can also see London House, a draper’s, Branch’s shop, a dairy and a game and poultry shop. A line of very tall telegraph poles are topped with pointed finials. A gas street lamp is at the kerbside outside a shop with advertising boards on the pavement. Sunblinds are extended on the side of the street facing the sunlight.
The Chequers Pond
Further north was the hamlet of Horley Row, with the Chequers Inn at its east end. This is now a busy road junction of the A23 and B2036 Balcombe road. The pond has long been filled in, and the pub is now the Chequers Thistle Hotel, much used by Gatwick airport business travellers. The buildings survive, but they were Tudorised and given leaded light windows and applied timber-framing: you could be forgiven for driving past and thinking it a 1920s period-style road house pub.
The Chequers
The left-hand elm survives as a 15ft stump draped in creeper, but the right-hand one has gone. Here the architectural revolution can be seen: the older inn buildings are to the right with early 19th-century sash windows, and the taller gabled rear wings of the 1860s are behind at the left. The portico at the right with the girl leaning on the column is now a Tudor-style oriel window.
The Six Bells
Virtually unchanged since this view was taken, apart from the loss of the central chimney stacks, the Six Bells is in the old village of Horley near the parish church of St Bartholomew, whose churchyard wall can be seen on the left. The pub is 15th-century with later additions, and has a Horsham stone roof. The church suffered Victorian restoration and correction of ‘incorrect’ window tracery at the hands of Arthur Blomfield in 1881, but fortunately the 14th-century timber-framed and shingled tower and belfry escaped.
On The River Mole
The River Mole forms the county boundary here, south-west of the church, so the right bank in the view is in Sussex. This is Long Bridge, seen from Church Meadow, now a more manicured space. The bridge carried the London to Brighton road for many years; it was rebuilt in the 1970s.
Station Road
Horley was a series of hamlets on the London to Brighton Road which only began to expand when the London to Brighton railway arrived in 1841. This view of Station Road is taken from the railway footbridge looking north-east.
The Six Bells Inn
An old coaching inn on the main road. The upper storey is hung with ornate tiles, and the building has a Horsham stone roof. Horses pulling stagecoaches needed to be changed every ten miles or so. This provided business for plenty of inns with stables, which were spaced along trunk roads.
The View From The River
It is wintertime with bare trees and lots of water in the River Mole. The church has a modernised tower and a shingled broach spire.
Memories of Surrey
Ryders Folklore
These cottages are now known as Ryders, but it appears that in Edwardian times the place (or maybe this corner) may also have been known as "Seven Trees Well": I have a postcard with this picture on it sent on 7th May 1906 to a Mr. Jackson in Victoria Street, London; written on the reverse is "do you remember this place (7 tree well)..."
There is indeed a well here - just out of shot to the right.
It is said that there is also a connection with the 1963 Great Train Robbery - a picture of some of the robbers standing in the garden once hung in the Punchbowl Inn up the road. (The area does have evidenced Train Robbery connections - £100,000 from the Robbery was found in Coldharbour Woods a few miles away.)
The property was once owned by Rex Alston, a legendary BBC commentator in the 1950's and 60's. He co-presented some of the BBC coverage of the Coronation.
The property also includes the old village... Read more
The Punchbowl Inn
The village is also known as Okewood Hill (or Okewoodhill). The name derives from a local stream called the Oke.
This photo is of the Punchbowl Inn - the location of the Boxing Day Meet of the Surrey Union Hunt.
My Days at Salfords School
I was at the old Salfords school from 1951 to 1957 just before it moved to the new site in Copsleigh Avenue.
We started in Miss License's class where I remember playing in sand trays and writing on slates. She was a very kind teacher.
The playground was small but we used to play all sorts of games there; conkers, marbles, making house layouts from leaves and racing cars. I remember one very icy day we made a slide from the top of the playgound to the bottom and one lad hit the air raid shelter and had to be taken to hospital.
The teaching was very traditional; learning tables by rote and copying letters, but there was always football on the common to enliven the day.
The big event in the final year was the 11+ exam and the results for the school were quite impressive, I think about 8 of us from a class of 25 gained a place at grammar school.
The worst job in... Read more
Salfords School
I too have some memories of Salfords school, namely Stephen Ford my buddie who cut his knee on a tent peg, my first sight of blood!(Any relation to Richard Ford?) My mum went to this school, her name was Audrey and we lived in Copsliegh Avenue. I had a crush on Valerie Chatten or Chattden who lived three doors away. Myself and brother Alan played in the woods half way up the avenue,including the large field at the back. I was born in 1949 so I cannot remember what year the school moved to Copsliegh Avenue.
Salfords School 1939 to 1946
I well remember going to Salfords School at the age of 5. Miss Licence was my first teacher, after the roll call every morning we would start most days by singing 'All Things Bright and Beautiful'. Miss Atherton was the head mistress, I remember her coming to school every day in her Black Austin 7 car, she would drive across the playground and park in the open fronted building on the A23 side. The school was just as others have already said, the sliding partitions dividing the main classrooms, all the cloths pegs for coats etc, the basins for washing your hands, the upstairs area which was rather small. Outside, the playground and the green area with trees on both sides, the air raid shelters and of course the outside toilets at the back. I'm not too sure but I think we used to walk to the Village Hall in Salfords every day for our school dinners. I remember all the shops, especially Mr Kennedy in the butchers and Mrs Pratt... Read more
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