Childhood

A Memory of Three Bridges.

My mum's aunt and uncle, Tom and Polly Stepney, lived in Three Bridges on what was always referred to as "the farm". A couple of years ago I visited with my husband and we tried to find where it was. After lot of searching we believe it was in Woolborough Road (before it was obliterated by the sprawl of Crawley.) Uncle was an agricultural labourer. He worked on a nearby farm, I think, and had two large cart horses who were always putting their heads through the kitchen window and eating the vegetable peelings from the sink! Auntie Polly churned butter and after doing the washing (so white!) in the wash house would throw the lot onto the hedge to dry. We went from Redhill station to Three Bridges, crossed over the line via the footbridge and, to the best of my memory walked through the fields to approach the back of their bungalow. One of the fields was always called a brick field, but I could never find any bricks growing!! In the "farmyard" outside of the back door was a large pit in which ran a very large, circular saw where Uncle Tom and Uncle Bill used to cut up trunks of trees. Uncle Bill I assumed was their son but looking into censuses and birth records etc I have found that they were childless. I think he was either a relative or just someone who helped out. There was also Auntie Carrie, who helped Auntie Polly, who I now believe must have been a niece of Auntie Polly. If any on out there knows any more about them I would love to know. I know that they were there throughout the war years and that Auntie Polly died about 1950. Uncle Tom had a brother Ned who lived in one of a row of very primitive cottages in Ifield and, I think, worked as a thatcher. The cottages were condemned in the early 50's and pulled down.