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Oakwood Hill
Oakwood Hill photos
Displaying the first of 3 old photos of Oakwood Hill. View all Oakwood Hill photos
Oakwood Hill maps
Historic maps of Oakwood Hill and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Oakwood Hill maps
Oakwood Hill area books
Displaying 1 of 16 books about Oakwood Hill and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Oakwood Hill
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Oakwood Hill.
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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.
Surrey memories
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.
