Nostalgic memories of Horley's local history
Share your own memories of Horley and read what others have said
For many years now, we've been inviting visitors to our web site to add their own memories to share their experiences of life as it was when the photographs in our archive were taken. From brief one-liners explaining a little bit more about the image depicted, to great, in-depth accounts of a childhood when things were rather different than today (and everything inbetween!). We've had many contributors recognising themselves or loved ones in our photographs.
Why not add your memory today and become part of our Memories Community to help others in the future delve back into their past.
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Displaying Memories 11 - 20 of 24 in total
Prompted many memories of growing up when Horley was a small market town , where cattle, pigs, and other creatures were bought and sold. When empty, it made a marvellous play ground. No doubt it would be out of bounds these days. I went to school in Albert and Lumley Road (s)? And went to secondary school in Reigate, and got married in St Bartholomew's. I then moved to London.
I returned ...see more
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.
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....
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.
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.
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 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.
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 ...see more
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.
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.
