West of Ifield
Non designated heritage assets
By Ian Mulcahy
(Page created on 26 Jun 2021, updated 30 Jun 2021 & 27 Nov - 18 Dec 2022)
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With the West of Ifield development looking increasingly likely to proceed and Kilnwood Vale due to fill the space between the Arun Valley railway and Kilnwood Lane, I thought a few visits to the area to look at the heritage assets that may be lost was in order. Four of the walks which yielded the photographs on this page also have their own photo diaries, with a broader range of more general pictures of the area. These can be viewed at: Brook Meadows | Brook Meadows/Ifield Wood/Golf Course | Stoneycroft Path & Hyde Hill | Kilnwood Vale/Kilnwood Lane/Hyde Hill Woods. There are plenty of other sets taken in the area, indexed on my Outings Home Page and several sets of aerial photos of the area are indexed on my Aerial Home Page which you may find of interest. The historic Parish of Ifield is home to two Scheduled Monuments, two grade 1 listed buildings two grade 2* listed buildings and plenty that are listed at grade 2, but this isn’t a history of Ifield or a look at well-known heritage assets. That will hopefully follow at a later date. This page is about the non designated heritage assets that are to be found across the land that is under threat of development. Old paths and river courses, field boundaries and mine pits and a fair few man-made features whose purposes are unknown. The monuments and listed buildings will, of course, be protected (though their immediate surrounding may be changed for ever). It is the hidden, low key assets that are more likely to be lost and it is those that I shall cover here. This article is a look back in time at the way our ancestors shaped the land and is an attempt to preserve the features they left behind through words and images.
PLEASE NOTE THAT MANY OF THE FEATURES EXAMINED HERE ARE ON PRIVATE
LAND.
The area has been subject to initial exploratory archaeological digs, but I am yet to see the reports, so this piece may well be updated in the future if they are ever made public (or I am able to obtain them through other means) and they reveal anything of interest. From my discussions with a handful of those working across the western part of the Brook Meadows (between Ifield Brook and the River Mole), nothing new was being found, bar ditches of varying ages. This isn’t an exhaustive look at recorded assets, but a look at assets that remain visible to the lay eye, some recorded and many not until this piece. I have grouped them into several maps. The first map covers the area enclosed by Rusper Road, to the south and the public footpath that runs from the Ifield Cricket Club to Ifield Wood, south west of Bonwycks place. The second is the area north of the same footpath, enclosed by Ifield Wood to the west, Charlwood Road to the north and Ifield Green to the east. The third map is the area south of the golf course down as far as the railway line at the eastern end of Kilnwood Lane and covers assets that, whilst they fall within the longer term development area, are not at immediate risk (bar those that will be in Kilnwood Vale when the estate is completed) or are already within the developed area of Ifield West. Map 4 looks either side of the western end of Kilnwood Lane, another area which is not under immediate threat and Map 5 looks at the golf course which very much is under immediate threat. Map 6 looks at Hyde Hill Woods; an area which is shown as remaining undeveloped in the long tern plans, but whose character will be changed beyond recognition when its three 'open' sides are filled with houses. For this update I have added an index of contents immediately below this introduction. Lidar is an imaging system based on the principles of radar which uses laser light to create 3d mapping of the earth’s surface enabling viewers to spot small changes in the topography of the earth, often indistinguishable to the naked eye due to their size or vegetation coverage. Expert eyes can spot features on this mapping such as old field boundaries, ditches & pits. Lidar surveys have been carried out across the area as part of a Gatwick related project and the results have been entered onto the West Sussex Historic Environment Record (HER). It is from here, via The Heritage Gateway, that most of my information has been collated from. Where an asset is logged on the HER, I will provide a link. The Lidar map snippets are taken from LIDAR Open Data Maps and Lidar Findar and where grid references are used, both in my text and on the HER records, you can find these using a grid reference finder and where the Grid reference in the title of the asset is hyperlinked, this will display a map with a pin showing the assets position. I also make reference to tithe maps. These were detailed maps of parishes published in 1841 and I have referenced those of both Ifield and Lower Beeding (Bewbush Tithing) in this piece. A final point of interest; Homes England applied to Horsham District Council to carry out an Environmental Impact scoping of the site in Sep 2020. The application is here and the attaching documents, which give an awful lot of detail about the plans and the site, can be found here This will not be a flowing narrative and each asset will be looked at and discussed individually, though links will be made to other assets where appropriate. If you have anything to add or correct, please do contact me via photos@iansapps.co.uk. All images are clickable for higher resolution versions which will open in a new tab CONTENTS
Map 2: Ifield Court and Ifield Wood Map 3: West of Ifield West (either side of the eastern end of Kilnwood Lane) Map 4: Western end of Kilnwood Lane (north and south)
01_01 The Maples Site (14857) (HER
record)
These are pretty common and of no interest, but in another, much older ditch a substantial amount of Romano-British pottery was recovered and this was dated to the 1st-4th century. Another ditch turned up iron slag, which remains undated. We know, for certain, that there was a substantial Iron Age and Romano-British iron working site one and a half miles to the south-east at Broadfield/Southgate West (see The Iron Industry In Crawley for full details). Was this a, probably smaller, iron working site contemporary with its near neighbour or was this slag perhaps linked to the one of the medieval iron working sites nearby, either the one a short distance north of the church (see below) or that which existed on the banks of the Brook where Ifield Mill Pond now is? Further finds tell us that the site has been one of human activity for far longer; A prehistoric flint blade and waste flint flakes were also found in a further ditch and, while they remain undated, the suggestion is that they are from the Bronze Age (3100 – 300 BC). We know, again with certainty, that humans were active in the area during the Bronze Age due to the barrow (a burial mound) in woods close to Cottesmore School besides the ancient ridgeway joining East Grinstead with Horsham and thanks to the 1952 discovery of a sword, dated to between 1000 and 700 BC, 2 miles to the north-east close to the River Mole a little east of Poles Lane. Are the flints contemporary with the sword, or possibly older? This site could have been one used by humans for 5,000 years and has been described as a probable large settlement site spanning the period between the Bronze Age and Roman period.
OS Map Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland Most people living in the Ifield area will be aware of the extant water mill, built in 1817, and the pond that supplied it with power. Some may be aware of the two previous mills of 1660 and 1663 and some will know of the forge which preceded the mill, processing the pig iron produced at the nearby Bewbush Furnace between 1569 and 1643, when Parliamentarian troops destroyed it during the Civil War. For more detailed information about Ifield Forge and Bewbush Furnace please visit Ifield Forge | Bewbush Furnace
Until the furnace and hammer ponds were created by the damming streams in
the late 1560s, the water run-off from modern day Broadfield, Bewbush,
Pease Pottage, Colgate and Faygate was not stored and simply flowed
along Ifield Brook, following broadly the route that it follows today,
before joining the Rover Mole a little south of Ifield Court. At some
point, possibly not until the first corn mill was constructed, though it
may have been contemporary with the forge in the 1560s, the stream known
as the mill race was created. The only certainty is that it existed
before 1795; the date of the earliest map in my possession that is
detailed enough to show it. At this point in time it is shown to be
joining the brook immediately west of the church. Without knowing what
it is, many of you will have seen
the mill race; it flows from the wheelpit at the mill, under Rusper Road
by the side of Brook Cottage and parallel with the brook through the
woods behind Rusper Road playing fields, forming a woodland island, of
sorts, before turning sharply west and joining the main flow.
The race was considerably longer than it is now as recently a century ago, not joining the brook until the field behind the Old Rectory and much of the course is still visible to the naked eye. From the point where it now joins the brook to roughly west of Ruspers Keep it could easily be mistaken for a shallow depression in the land, but from behind Aldingbourne Close to its original re-join point, it is still a deep ditch which is often holding water; a good example would be the footbridge behind the church which seems absolutely pointless to summer walkers, but those of you who walk there in the winter will know why it’s there. Further north there is an area that is almost permanently in water. The remnants of the race remain in situ as a reminder of the past. The eastern side of the brook is due to be left as a public green space when the bulldozers come. Hopefully Homes England won’t decide to ‘improve’ the area and level it, along with the ancient ant hills to the west of the church. The race may have had other uses further downstream; you will note from map 3 that a sluice existed just south-west of Rectory Farm in roughly the spot where the footbridge is now. Was this used to fill what appears to be a side and a half of a moat, which some may recall as being permanently in water 20 or 30 years ago, though it now dries in summer. Does this apparent partial moat denote the site of an important house close to the church? We already have two Medieval Moated Manors within the ancient Parish of Ifield and a further two very close to the boundaries, so why not a third? This is pure speculation on my part and I have found nothing documented that even suggests there was ever a moated site here. The width of this feature doesn’t compare with the complete moats at Ifield Court or Ewhurst Place, but it is on a par with the partial moat at Bewbush Manor. (26/6/2021) A correspondent has presented what I believe to be, a more than plausible, theory that the mill race was actually Ifield Brook until the 1560s when the millpond, a hammerpond as it was at the time, was created, by constructing a dam across the brook, to power the bellows of the forge being constructed where the mill now stands (please visit Ifield Forge for more details). The modern brook would have been dug to act as a spillway to the pond, with the banks in the woods behind Rusper Road playing field which separate the brook from the race, being the spoil from the project, built up to keep the two water courses separate and enable any excess water to leave the area quickly along the lengthy straight channel which I believe points to the brook being man made. You'll see from the more detailed maps above that the brook consists of mainly straight channels, with the odd change of direction (possibly due to the topography or geology of the land) all the way to the point where the race is shown as joining the brook on the 1909 Ordnance Survey, above, from which point it starts to meander in the same manner as the race. Thanks to Peter for presenting this very credible theory. This would also lead me to wonder if the point at which the race now joins the brook was artificially made soon after the mill ceased to be a working concern in 1925. Old pictures of Ifield Mill
HER record (only covers a small section in the field north-west of Old Rectory)
01_03 Site of Historic Outfarm East of Lower Barn (TQ 24272 37373) (HER record) OS Map Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland Having crossed the brook by the bridge to the west of the church, there is a straight track that leads to Pound Cottages and Lower Barn. Some people refer to this locally as ‘The Roman Quarter mile’, though there is no evidence whatsoever that this was a Roman Road. Whilst it’s true that major Roman routes (such as Stane Street, the London to Chichester road 7 miles to our west and the London to Brighton Way, 7 miles to our east) ARE straight, not all Roman roads are straight and not all straight roads are Roman! Ifields Roman Quarter Mile is actually just under half a mile in length and when the road from Pound Cottages to Granthams Bridge, which is a continuation of the route, is taken into account then you’ll see that it is actually over three quarters of a mile long. Whilst Roman origins can’t be discounted, especially given what we know of the Maples site, it is more likely that the route developed in the post Norman period as a direct track from Stumbleholm Farm, the land around which was being used for iron work (See medieval site 19 at The Iron Industry In Crawley and 01_05, below), to the Church and village at Ifield.
Half way along the southern side of the dirt track, at the point where
the wide sunken field boundary is, was a 19th century outfarm (a
shelter, normally brick built, for humans and animals set at a distance
from the main farm), though nothing of the building remains. In 1841,
and presumably for its entire existence, this particular outfarm was a
part of Ifield Court Farm (see 02_04 &
02_05).
01_04 Mound and ditch at TQ 24116 37722 350 metres to the north of the outfarm, on the banks of the Mole, is an interesting feature which doesn’t appear on the HER and has proved difficult to photograph in such a way that the feature is clear due to the extensive undergrowth. Back in the late 80s and early 90s my friends and I had a dug out here; a small underground room, built from timber, with a chimney, fireplace and a couple of bunk beds. It was somewhere to go and hang out. It wasn’t until I looked on a Lidar scan that I noticed it appears to be a manmade mound with a ditch surrounding it. Some, if not most, maps even show the ditch as being the River Mole, though it isn’t; the ditch is a good metre or two higher than the river bed. Is it possible that these are ancient earthworks? It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the ditch was once fed by the Mole, creating a moat and therefore a semi-defendable position, but what for? Perhaps it was to keep animals IN, rather than attackers out. The island is, at most, 15 metres in diameter so probably unsuitable for a permanent human settlement. This makes it less than half the size of a similar, but flatter, feature 600 metres to the north east (see 02_01, below). This one will remain a mystery, unless the feature was noticed and investigated by the archaeologists. (26/11/2022) The tithe map names the mound as ‘Orchard’ (see also 01_07 and 03_02, below). Further investigation has revealed that the maps actually reflect the path that the river used to take and are simply out of date. It appears that the current section of The Mole, at the top of the feature, is canalised and the river had an extreme bend here. This means that the 'defensive ditch' is actually a palaeochannel, higher than the extant river due to decades of leaf fall, and possible semi infill using the spoil from the canalisation.
Incidentally, the dark rectangle seen at the top of the feature on the
Lidar image is the remains of our collapsed dug out!
01_05 Mine Pits at The Grove (HER record) Just before Granthams Bridge, on the northern side of Rusper Road, is a small wood called The Grove and within the wood can be found several minepits. The Wealden Iron Research Group database (WIRG) does not date these, but I think it is a fair assumption that they are linked to the medieval bloomery at Stumbleholm, 200 metres to the south-west. Whilst there is no visible evidence of the bloomery (and so not featured in this article), it is said that there is bloomery slag in the river, though I have never managed to find any. The British Geological survey, notes that these are bell pits. A bell pit presents on the surface as a narrow shaft, but when the seam of ore is reached the miners enlarge the bottom of the shaft, digging sideways and downwards creating a sloping roof which makes the shaft look similar to bell when imagined in cross section. Once the pit becomes unsafe it is abandoned, a fresh shaft dug is nearby and the abandoned pit is backfilled, often using the spoil from the fresh shaft and other waste. Over the centuries the backfill settles which leaves the circular depressions we can see today at many sites around Crawley.
The woods at The Grove show as one on the Tithe Map, but the narrow
central section of the woodland has been cleared (sometime between 1894
and 1901, based on OS maps), splitting it into two parts, north and
south. This has left clear evidence of the pits in the woodland, but in
the meadow they are barely visible.
01_06 Field Boundary north-east of The Barn and south-west of the Old Rectory (HER record)
Dog walkers will know the entrance into the field behind the Old Rectory
via the Barn car park and will use the path that takes them northwards
towards the bridge over Ifield Brook behind Newstead Lodge. Crossing
this path, at about 45 degrees, is what the HER describes as a field
boundary, aligned from the Barn to the Old Rectory. However, the tithe
map appears to show this as a path so could the earthworks, which remain
just about visible to the naked eye (but didn’t show up very well on the
photographs), actually be a causeway, linking the Rectory to the Tithe
Barn (now The Barn Theatre) across an area of land which, as locals will
know, gets very soggy in the winter months?
01_07 A rectilinear enclosure North of The Barn and south west of Old Rectory (TQ 2462 3768) (HER record)
A rectilinear enclosure has been identified by Lidar, but is not really
visible to the naked eye. A larger enclosure, stretching all the way to
the extant pond, south west of the barn, appears in this position on the
tithe map and is described as an orchard and a garden. The Ifield Tithe
Map notes this as being an orchard. See also
01_04, above, and
03_02, below)
01_08 Palaeochannel (HER record) and a field boundary (HER record) in field behind the Barn and west of the Old Rectory These were both identified by Lidar, but are visible to the naked eye if
you look in the right places. A Palaeochannel is described as a ‘remnant
of an inactive river or stream channel that has been filled or buried by
younger sediment’ There is
a dead straight channel running to the hairpin bend in the brook to its
immediate north and to the west of the channel is a field boundary which
manifests as a ridge and ditch, marked by a line of well-spaced trees
and bushes and almost follows the route of the public footpath back to
asset 01_07. It is possible that the Palaeochannel is linked to the iron
working evidenced by 01_09
01_09 Medieval bloomery (TQ 2460 3780) (HER record) Close by, in the banks of the brook at a depth of about 1.2m, is a small amount of bloomery slag and a bloomery bottom, believed to be the remnants of a medieval bloomery. The WIRG database also states that slag is to be found scattered in the field to the north, though I am yet to find any. I am also yet to photograph this asset, despite an attempt during the summer of 2022 when my wade along the brook was halted by thick overhanging brambles which my beating stick was unable to deal with. A further attempt will be made in 2023, this time before the brambles grow too much.
02_01 A circular mound and ditch in the field west of the brook and south of the Mole, just before they meet (TQ 2462 3803) (HER record) and a drainage ditch (TQ 2462 3794) (HER record)
In the field crossed by the footpath to Druids and Ifield Court, to the
south west of where Ifield Brook joins the River Mole, is a shallow
circular mound of 42m in diameter, surrounded by a 13m wide ditch. The
whole feature is visible as a raised area of ground and a possible
entrance through the ditch is located on the west side. Running
southwards from the circular ditch, is a shallow drainage channel which
isn’t visible to the naked eye. On Lidar, the two features combined
resemble a lollipop.
It is not known what this feature is, or was. Suggestions include a barrow, which would tie in with the Bronze Age activity at the Maples site (discussed in 01_01, above) as the vast majority of round barrows date to this period. It could be a small late Saxon or early Norman moated motte; perhaps a predecessor to the nearby Ifield Court, though this seems most unlikely. A windmill mound has also been suggested. (26/11/2022) A further suggestion has recently been put forward that this may be a medieval 'ringwork'. Historic England describe a ringwork as "medieval fortifications built and occupied from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the later 12th century. They comprised a small defended area containing buildings which was surrounded or partly surrounded by a substantial ditch and a bank surmounted by a timber palisade or, rarely, a stone wall. Occasionally a more lightly defended embanked enclosure, the bailey, adjoined the ringwork. Ringworks acted as strongholds for military operations and in some cases as defended aristocratic or manorial settlements." There is a very well preserved ringwork near Heathfield in East Sussex and the comparison, both in shape and size, with this feature is striking. Given the location of the mound, some 350 metres south of the moated Ifield Court, was this the pre-conquest home of the lord of Ifield Manor?
Hopefully this feature of our landscape will receive detailed
archaeological attention, if it hasn’t already, to give us a better
understanding of what it might have been.
02_02 Oxbow Pond south of Ifield Court (TQ 2473 3821) (HER record)
To the north of the River Mole and south of Ifield Court is a small oxbow
pond. An oxbow pond is formed when the path of a river changes, leaving
behind a stranded section of water with nowhere to flow. This pond was a
part of the River Mole in the past and this is explored further in
02_03, below.
02_03 Former path of the River Mole to the south of Ifield Court (HER record) The oxbow pond mentioned in 02_02 (above) is the most obvious section of the former path of the River Mole which actually extends to around half a mile, winding its way across the field to the north of its current path from just downstream of the bridge on the footpath to Ifield Court and Druids before re-joining the brook close to the bridge on Ifield Green (the road).
Visually, the former channel varies from barely noticeable to a few feet
deep and often in water, particularly at the eastern end and, of
course, at the oxbow pond. This is clearly illustrated by the Lidar
image.
It is not known exactly when the path of the river changed or whether it was a natural transition. In my opinion, the map of 1795 shows the river taking its old course and the change of course was a man-made event and a relatively modern one at that too, when examined in the context of the age of the river, which most likely dates to at least the end of the last Ice Age. I will explain why I think this, using the 1795 map, the Lidar image, the tithe map and bullet points. Underneath the ‘ie’ of ‘Ifield Court’ on the 1795 map is a shallow u shape in the river and this appears on the Lidar image on the old path, but not the current path. At the point at which the river passes under the road in Ifield Green, the 1795 map shows a relatively straight west to east approach, in line with the old path, whereas the current path runs to the bridge from the south before taking a sharp turn just before the bridge. On the Lidar, immediately after the diversion, is a fairly straight section to where Ifield Brook joins running east-south-east. Beyond Ifield Brook is another, longer, straight section running a couple of degrees south of east. Compare this to the 1795 map, where the river is constantly running to the north of east until the shallow u bend. These two straight sections are suggestive of a man made channel. On the 1795 map, a pool is shown where Ifield Brook joins the Mole. This isn’t the standard illustration of a river confluence which suggests that a pool actually existed. On the Lidar there seems to be a shallow depression at the point where the brook would have joined the former path and this is visible on site and was part in water when I visited. This would also mean that, for 30-40 metres, the current path of the Mole uses a channel that was, within the last 200 years, exclusively Ifield Brook Published 45 years later, the tithe map shows the river taking its current course as does a map of the East Grinstead area dating to 1808, so, on the basis my above assumptions are correct, we can date the change reasonably accurately to between 1795 & 1808. The question which remains unanswered, is why? Why would the landowner go to the effort of re-channelling half a mile of river? The only explanation that I can think of is in order to add several acres to, what was, the park of the Manor of Ifield. The current high level Homes England plan for West of Ifield appears to show the relief road cutting straight across this field, most likely destroying the visual reminder of the historic path of the River Mole.
02_04 Ifield Court (HER record 1) (HER record 2) (HER record 3) (HER record 4) Ifield Court is a moated site and Scheduled Monument to the north of the River Mole that was the home of Ifield Manor. It is first documented in 1387 in the will of Sir Richard Poynings, though undoubtedly existed before this and an Ifield Manor was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. Buildings are shown on the island on the tithe map but had gone by the time the OS map of 1870 was surveyed. The site is covered in more detail, including photographs, at The Six Moated Manors of Crawley
02_05 Ifield Court Farm Buildings (HER record 1) (HER record2 ) (HER record 3 ) (HER record 4 ) (HER record 5)
To the north of the moated site is Ifield Court Farm and buildings here
include a late 16th century barn, an early 20th century dairy, a barn of
1842, a shelter shed that existed by 1841 and a late 18th century hovel.
It is likely that this farmstead co-existed with the Manor and that the
farm buildings have been built, demolished and rebuilt, possibly
multiple times, over the course of the last 1,000+ years.
02_06 Field Boundaries west of Ifield Court (HER record) In the field to the west of the farmhouse two slight ridges, barely visible to the naked eye, denote ancient field boundaries, marked on the tithe map (separating field 133 from field 131 to the north and field 337 to the south). Both are visible as crop marks on aerial photographs The diagonal line across the middle of the field is the bridleway from Druids to Ifield Court Farm. Ridge and furrow field systems have also been identified by Lidar in this field and the one to the south, formerly part of the park of the Manor of Ifield (mentioned in 02_03), but these are not visible to the naked eye.
02_07 Mine Pits in Ifield Wood, west of Druids
The woods to the west of Druids, which remain common land, are littered
with shallow, mostly water filled, minepits, probably of medieval date.
Where did the ore taken from these pits go to be smelted into iron? A
third of a mile to the south east of these woods, evidence of a medieval
bloomery has been found beside Ifield Brook (see
01_09, above). It is
likely that this bloomery did not operate in isolation and it is also
likely that this was the destination of the ore that was sourced here.
On the tithe map these woods are named as
the Ifield Wood, stretching
almost as far as what we now know as the Bikers Café on Charlwood Road,
opposite Browns Yard. This area sits on a band of ore rich clay
ironstone.
02_08 Ifield Wood Farm (TQ 2410 3830) (HER record)
Not to be confused with the Ifield Wood Farm that is now known as Red
Gables, located on the eastern side of Charlwood Road close to Prestwood
Lane, Ifield Wood Farm was a 19th century farmstead to the north of
the Ifield Wood, covered in
02_07. All that remains today is the level ground where the buildings
once stood. Using old maps for reference, it appears to have been
demolished sometime in the late 1950s
The following assets are outside of the proposed ‘first phase’ of the
West of Ifield development area, but are at long term risk from the
wider West of Ifield Proposals as well as Kilnwood Vale when it
expands to the north of the railway.
03_01 Quarry or pit at TQ 2339 3610 (HER record) The asset sits directly on the same narrow seam of sandstone (mined for building stone and ore) as 03_04, so this would have been a minepit and most likely connected with the furnace at Bewbush.
03_02 Square Enclosure (TQ 2305 3599) (HER record) Adjacent to the footpath between Ifield West and Lambs Green, on the northern side just before it diagonally crosses the crop fields, is a small square enclosure, raised above the level of the surrounding ground and encircled by a ditch of varying depths. It is also possible that this marks the site of a lost structure, though no thorough investigations have been undertaken and the age and purpose of the feature remains unknown at present.
(26/11/2022) On the Lower Beeding (Bewbush Tithing), the parish in which
this feature resided at the time, Tithe Map dated 19 July 1841, this
enclosure is recorded as being an orchard (see also
01_04 &
01_07, above). Were orchards enclosed,
or was the enclosure re-purposed by the orchard? I have discovered
that cherries and plums were generally grown within walled
enclosures so maybe that is the explanation and there will be some
substructure to be found within the mounds. The shape of the
enclosure is visible in aerial photographs taken in 1945/6 and
aerial photos from 1966 show it too, but overgrown. Further research
is needed, but it seems that Ifield has a prevalence of enclosed
areas that were being used as orchards in 1841.
03_03 Site of historic outfarm at TQ 2284 3629 (HER record) A now demolished 19th century outfarm, possibly to Stumbleholm, was located 250 metres to the north of the enclosure. Unlike the outfarm in Ifield Brook Meadows (see 01_03), evidence remains in the form of low lying walls in the undergrowth and, amazingly, the rotten and collapsed floor joists are extant in parts. The remains are in deep undergrowth and would not be visible once the spring growth has started in earnest.
(26/11/2022) This structure does not
appear on the tithe map of 1841, but it does appear on an Ordnance
Survey of 1909 and also shows on aerial photos of the area taken in
1945/6 and again in 1966 which helps us date it's construction and
destruction.
03_04 Circular pond at TQ 22801 35977 (See also 03_01) A little way south of the footpath between Ifield West and Lambs Green,
on fairly high ground, is a pond of perhaps 25m in diameter which is an
almost perfect circle. The pit is surrounded by trees and is in water.
The asset sits directly on a narrow seam of sandstone, used for building
and ore, so this would have been a minepit.
03_05 Kilnwood Historic Farmstead (TQ 2267 3557) (HER record)
Kilnwood Farm, opposite ‘Kilnwood’, is a 19th century, unlisted,
farmstead.
03_06 Upper Bewbush Historic Farmstead (TQ 2314 3580) (HER record)
Upper Bewbush is a 19th century, unlisted, farmstead at the eastern end of the driveable part of Kilnwood Lane
where it narrows into a track, Mill Lane, before descending the ridge to the
railway foot crossing close to the site of Bewbush Mill. Just east of
the farmhouse is an apparent pit which sits right on the edge of a seam
of Limestone which runs along the peak of the ridge.
03_07 Pit in field at TQ 23388 35682, south east of Upper Bewbush Farm
South-east of Upper Bewbush in the middle of a field half way down the
hill to the railway, is another large circular pit of around 25m
diameter surrounded by trees. This one is dry, but very deep, especially
on the on the northern side, relative to the ground. It is said that a
covered well exists on the floor of the crater, possibly one sunk as a
repurposing when Upper Bewbush farm was built. On the tithe map, the
field in which this asset is found is named ‘Pit Field’.
03_08 Stoneycroft Walk Pit (TQ 23754 36005)
A feature that will be familiar to many is the shallow pit to the north
of Stoneycroft Walk, between Sandpiper Close and Kittiwake Close which
was retained as an open space when Ifield West was designed. The
Ordnance Survey map of 1909, displayed below with a modern aerial image
overlaid, shows two further pits (circled in blue) to the immediate west
of here and all are shown as being in water on the tithe map; the first
is now buried under numbers 12-22 in Fairway and the second, showing as
a small pond close to the entrance to ‘the football field’ on
Stoneycroft Path, is now filled in. In common with
03_07, and rather
confusingly, the tithe map also names the field in which this asset is
found as ‘Pit Field’. The two blue circled pits and the pit in
Stoneycroft walk sit on a limestone seam so their excavation can be
dated to somewhere between 1567 and 1643 (see assets 05_01 to 05_10 on
Map 5 for further details of what
limestone was used for)
03_09 Stackfield Road Kiln (TQ 24054 36014) The final feature is another that will be familiar to many and that is the shallow pit with trees growing in and around it in Stackfield Road. This has an unusual symbol on the OS map of 1909 and, despite my best efforts, I have been unable to ascertain with 100% confidence what it shows, but the general consensus is that it symbolises a man-made feature, so a best guess would be that it was repurposed from its previous use, whatever that may have been (see 03_01), as an ornamental pond, probably by the owners of nearby Whitehall. A possible clue to the purpose of this pit is given on the tithe map, which shows the field where it resides as being 'Kiln Field'. A kiln, incidentally, was a suggestion made by more the one person when I asked the members of a mapping group on Facebook what the symbol may mean. The feature is not detailed on the tithe map which suggests that it was out of use by 1841.
(26/11/2022) What type of Kiln was it though? The Iron Industry of The Weald
(1985) suggests that ore roasting - a process performed to remove
moisture and sulphur from the ore before it was loaded into the
furnace - in The Weald was generally performed by way of it being
piled into heaps with charcoal rather than be roasted in a kiln, but
a lack of discovered sites doesn't mean it didn't happen. Bewbush
Furnace was less than a quarter of a mile away, so this possibility
can't be discounted. Other possibilities include a lime kiln or a
kiln for baking forge moulds (perhaps for cannons; Ifield was
forging ordnance) or maybe it was a brick kiln used in the
construction of any one of a number of local buildings - maybe
nearby Whitehall, or one of the mills at Ifield and Bewbush.
03_10 Pit in Woods at TQ 23506 35565
(3/12/2022) This is another pit sat on the Horsham Stone seam (see
assets 04_04 to 04_08 in and around Fullers Shaw on
Map 4, below) and was a stones through away from Bewbush Furnace
pond.
It's probable that the entire seam from here to Fullers Shaw was mined over the life of the furnace, but most
pits were backfilled and all traces have been ploughed out over the course of the last 350 years.
The pits we see today are either those for which there was insufficient spoil to backfill or they have collapsed/settled beyond the reach of the plough and so stand as small oasis'
in uncultivated copses and shaws.
03_11 Site of Pondside Farm at TQ 23627 35630 (3/12/2022) Pondside Farm was demolished in the early 1840s to make way for the Arun Valley railway line. The original railway plans of 1838 (see The original plans for the Arun Valley railway line to Horsham) showed the track as being a few yards further north than than those drawn up in 1844, which were implemented and gave us the railway we have today, and would have gone right through the farmhouse and the pit shown in 03_10, above. Perhaps the pit was the cause of the shift southwards. Interestingly, both the 1838 & 1844 railway plans show Pondside Farm, but the 1841 Tithe Map names it 'Little Bewbush Farm' (we've already seen Upper Bewbush farm in 03_06 and Bewbush Manor was known as Bewbush Farm).
The farmhouse itself was just to the east of the shaw which these
days acts as a field boundary and will be familar to those who walk
their dogs in the area, but little evidence of the farm remains. Part of
the field boundary to the west of the yard and garden is visible on Lidar scans, presenting as a raised L shape,
there is a scattering of well weathered plough damaged bricks where
the farmhouse once stood and, if you look carefully, you will also
find some blast furnace slag in the mud. As blast furnace slag was
often recycled as hardcore and was used to metal tracks and hard
standing areas it's reasonable to assume this was brought from
Bewbush Furnace for this purpose.
(26/11/0222) This area of our landscape is littered with pits, the majority of which are almost certainly minepits though quarries are a possibility in some cases.
04_00 Quarries or pits at TQ 2232 3562
A pair of unrecorded pits or quarries, one of considerable size.
04_01 Pit or quarry in Burnt Stubbs at TQ 2229 3584 (HER record)
A pit or quarry on the edge of the woodland known as Burnt Stubbs, named as a nod to the coppicing carried out here in order to produce charcoal.
04_02 Pit or quarry in Burn Stubbs at TQ 2192 3582 (HER record)
A pit or quarry dug into the side of an incline at the western side of Burnt Stubbs.
04_03 Pit or quarry in Furze Field at TQ 2196 3567 (HER record)
A pit or quarry in the northern area of the woodland known as Furze Field, adjoining Burnt Stubbs to the south.
Assets 04_04 to 04_08, below (and as seen on the Lidar scan, above), all sit on a narrow band of Horsham stone which runs from The Hawth in Furnace Green to Warnham before opening out into a wider bed as it continues westwards before turning south to Southwater. A Horsham Stone bed is generally between one to three metres deep and was most commonly used for roofing, particularly during the late Medieval and Tudor periods - see the Ancient Priors in Crawley High Street (below, built c.1450) for a local example. Whilst the Horsham Stone is useful, the principal purpose of these pits was to extract the Weald clay ironstone that sat below and is particularly rich under the Horsham Stone beds. It is a fair assumption that these pits served Bewbush Furnace, a mile to the east so can be dated to between 1567 & 1643 (see Bewbush Furnace and The Hidden History of Bewbush for more details)..
04_04 Minepit in Fullers Shaw at TQ 2213 3478
A minepit in Fullers Shaw right next to the footpath as you enter the woods from the fields to the north.
04_05 Minepit in Fullers Shaw at TQ 2207 3482
Another minepit in Fullers Shaw.
04_06 Minepit in Fullers Shaw at TQ 2211 3486 (HER record)
The final and largest minepit in Fullers Shaw.
04_06a A scattering of smaller minepits in Fullers Shaw
There are also a series of smaller pits scattered throughout Fullers Shaw.
04_07 Minepit at TQ 2239 3487 at the eastern end of Fullers Shaw
A large pit at the eastern end of Fullers Shaw and a smaller example close by. The eastern segment of the shaw is pockmarked with small shallow pits
04_08 Pit or quarry at TQ 2250 3502, east of Fullers Shaw
This large pit is found at the eastern side of the first field east of Fullers Shaw
04_09 Possible pit or quarry south east of Kilnwood Farm at TQ 2288 3548
This huge pit or quarry has been dug out of the hill side to the south east of Kilnwood Farm
(3/12/2022)
05_00 Pit at TQ 23145 36209
This shallow pit is hidden a
wide hedgerow or copse between fields south of Ifield Golf course
and is shown on the Bewbush Tithe Map.
(30/11/0222) Like the western end of Kilnwood Lane, this area is also littered with pits, though to the casual observer they will be ponds, dips and bumpy ground. You'll note from the map, above, and Lidar scan, below, that those which survive (1-10) are arranged in an east/west line and these follow a narrow ridge of limestone with iron rich Weald Clay mudstone either side. You may wonder what relevance this has, but the geology actually enables us to date the limestone pits. The blast furnace arrived in The Weald from France in the late 15th century and such a furnace was operating half a mile to the south at Bewbush by 1567 (see Bewbush Furnace and The Hidden History of Bewbush for more details). With the advent of blast furnaces iron masters were searching for ways to increase the purity of the iron by reducing the viscosity of the slag; a mixture of charcoal, ash, flux and molten non-iron elements of the ore which rose to the top of the furnace as a result of the heavier molten iron sinking to the bottom, where it would flow into casting channels The solution was to add a different flux; limestone. This means we can date the limestone pits with a high degree of certainty to somewhere between 1567 and 1643 and, given the size of the quarries outside of the limestone seam, it is a fair assumption that these would have supplied Bewbush furnace with ore.
05_01 Pit at TQ 22841 36497
A rather stagnant water filled pit, and the westernmost example on the
limestone ridge. The algae covering is a feature of the shaded pits
which stay in water all year round.
05_02 Quarry at TQ 23087 36492
Large enough to appear as a pond on the Ifield Tithe Map, this huge pit is in
(stagnant) water for a small portion of the northern end and dry for the rest of its 100m+ length.
05_03 Pit at TQ 23164 36530
This pit is right on the boundary of the golf course, which can be seen to the right of the first image.
05_04 Shallow pit remains at TQ 23363 36591
To the casual observer this is merely bumpy ground, and I too had failed to notice them for many years. They are actually a series of
small, very closely spaced pits. The reason why these are smaller than
the others along this ridge requires further research, but it's possible
these are older bell pits,
perhaps dating to the medieval period. Bell pits
took the form of narrow shafts which opened up into a cavern, in a bell
shape, when the
ore was reached. They would have then been backfilled with the spoil
from the next pit which, after centuries of the backfill settling, results in these
shallow dips. See also The Grove (01_05).
It's equally possible that these were a series of larger ore pits
which were backfilled and have settled unevenly giving the illusion of
several smaller pits. These pit remains can be seen across two fairways at the western end of
the golf course.
05_05 Pit or quarry at TQ 23402 36641
This has the appearance of an open cast quarry, with tiers visible
05_06 Pit or quarry at TQ 23509 36595
This also has the appearance of an open cast quarry with tiers visible, some of which have apparent spoil piles on them. There is also
what appears to be a ramp at the western end. Are these features contemporary with
the quarry or have they been added at a later date, either by those
farming the fields or by the golf club? Could the spoil piles actually
be ore waiting to be carted up the ramp and taken to Bewbush at
the moment William Waller's Parliamentarian forces destroyed the Forge at
Ifield and Furnace at Bewbush in 1643? Did the workers abandon
the quarry in a hurry to go and fight in the Brook Meadows, where Civil War era musket shot has been found (see The Hidden History of Bewbush
for more details) in order to protect their livelihoods? On the Tithe
Map, the field in which this quarry resides is called Pit Field (which
is a bit of a theme) and the area of the pit is shown as being a copse.
05_07 Pit at TQ 23584 36573
A smaller pit, just to the east of the open cast quarry.
The Ifield Tithe map shows this pit as being in water, but as you can
see it is dry now. This is on the limestone seam.
05_08 Pit at TQ 23781 36588
A another smaller pit,
also on the limestone seam, hidden in one of the many areas of copse across the golf course
05_09 Pit at TQ 23926 36508
Another smaller pit hidden in a copse, this one is in water and was
probably an ore pit.
05_10 Pit or quarry at TQ 24037 36585
Being on the edge of the ridge, this feature suggests another open cast quarry, despite now presenting as a pond.
I think it is likely that the northern edge of the quarry, on the down
slope, was built up in order to create a pond for irrigation (this area
was farmland before the golf course was opened in 1927) or to water
livestock and, maybe, even humans. Some older OS maps show a windpump here.
(9/12/2022)
Hyde Hill woods is an interesting site with an awful lot of earthworks, many of which you could quite easily walk past without giving them second glance, but once you know they're there you can't miss them. Whether they are linked or just a collection of unrelated features is unknown. As well as the features shown in this section there is also a sandstone pit at the southern end of the woods that appears on map 3. See 03_01. 06_01a Pond Bay at TQ 23665 36358 (Historic England Link) The first feature that you will come across when approaching on the path that runs alongside along Hyde Hill Brook from the east, is a large pond bay (dam). The bay is 34 metres long, up to 9 metres wide at the base, 1.6 metres wide at the top and 1.7 metres high. This is one of four connected features, the others being the spillway, a possible working area and the pond itself, which was of course created by the construction of the bay. The bay has been breached by the stream close to it's northern end and the dry remains of the spillway loop round the northern end of the bay and join the brook some 20 metres downstream. The pond bed is to the west of the bay and is around 85 metres long, 20 metres wide and 1.6 metres deep. The features are very well preserved, so it is quite surprising that the site was unknown until 1986, when an Ordnance Survey cartographer mapping out the newly built Ifield West estate discovered it. The level of preservation would normally suggest a recent site, but the depth of the erosion through the pond bed points to a much earlier date. It has been speculatively dated by archaeologists as Early Medieval (c6 to c10) or Medieval (c10 to c15). The pond appears on no maps of any detail and, of course, by 1841 we had maps of incredible detail. The Tithe map shows the field to the immediate north of the pond as being called 'Pond Field' and this is the only piece of documentary evidence for Hyde Hill Pond.
So what was it for? The obvious answer, given the industry of the
Crawley area over the course of 2,000 years, would be that it was an early water
powered iron site, perhaps from the 14th or 15th century when water
powered forges started to appear in The Weald. It is, after all,
surrounded by features connected to the iron industry, as we have
already seen (and will continue to see below), but it has never been
documented as such (the vast majority of iron sites from this period
were documented while they were in use by way of production and sales
records) and more pertinently there is zero evidence on the ground.
Point your eyes downwards at the c16 & c17 sites at Bewbush, Ifield & Worth or the Roman era
site at Broadfield and the streams and nearby ground are littered with
evidence by way of slag, but the Hyde Hill site has none that is
apparent. While this doesn't discount Hyde Hill as an iron site; after
all the evidence could be buried and not visible, particularly if the
brook now follows a different path, it makes it unlikely.
So was the site used to power a mill of some kind? An entry in the Nona Returna, a Doomsday style document produced in 1341, mentions a mill in Ifield; Belonging to the rector there is the tithe of flax and hemp, valued at 8s., the tithe of a mill at 6s. 8d., the tithe of lambs and wool this year at 10s. It is possible that this mill was at Hyde Hill (and equally as possible that it wasn't!). With the mill being mentioned in the company of textiles, could it have been a Fulling Mill (Fulling, which is also known as tucking or walking, being a cleansing process in the production of woolen cloth which gives us the surnames Fuller, Tucker and Walker) which were certainly in use during the relevant time period. With ordnance for the Crown being produced at Ifield and the mill also being mentioned in the company of hemp and surrounded by farmland, perhaps Hyde Hill was host to a hemp mill. Hemp was certainly in demand from the Royal Navy for making ropes and sails. Indeed, whilst being 200 years after the return was authored, it was compulsory during the reign of Henry VIII to produce a quarter an acre of hemp for every 60 acres under cultivation. It could have even been a regular flour mill. If this pond did power a mill (or an early forge), then where was the wheelpit and the race? The logical answer would be where the current breach is; the pond isn't wide enough to present too many options for siting, but there are no obvious earthworks down stream from the bay, though a possible working area is evident. If not a working pond, then what? It is far too elaborate to be ornamental or a fishpond, and no house of the kind that would have such a pond has ever been close by anyway. Could it have been used to store water which was then used to flood Hyde Hill Brook in order to transport sandstone/ore from the pits at 03_01 or 06_03 downstream? Ifield Church is c13 and built of sandstone, though it is more likely this came from St Leonards Forest, and there were iron bloomeries along the banks of Ifield Brook before it was dammed to create Ifield Millpond. This seems a bit excessive for the sake of transporting it no more than a mile as the crow flies in the case of the church and far less in the case of the bloomeries. This site still has a lot of secrets to give up. 06_01b Spillway at TQ 23676 36380
06_01c Pond Bed at TQ 2362 3636
06_01d Possible working area and protection at TQ 23676 36369 There is a small flat area north of the brook and immediately down stream from the bay which is protected from the spillway by banking. Might this have been the working area?
06_02 Small enclosure by golf course at TQ 23429 36395 Having originally thought that this feature marked some kind of ancient structure or enclosure I now believe, having studied old maps closely, that it is nothing more complex than the western and southern boundaries of a former agricultural field joining and that the foliage covered 'bump' on the northern side is contemporary with the golf course. Most of the original field boundaries on what is now the golf course are still visible on the Lidar scans, hidden in hedgerows and copses across the course and I will cover these at a later date, but you can see some of these for yourself on the Lidar scan reproduced under 05_00, above.
06_03 Minepits centered around TQ 23300 36370 (Historic England Link) Towards the western end of Hyde Hill Woods, close to the brook, are a collection of dips in the ground, water filled in the wetter months, which are small minepit remains; a little like Hawth Woods, but there are far less of them. These pits all sit on a narrow seam of sandstone so could have been dug for building materials, but it's more likely that these were ore pits.
06_03a Minepits centered around TQ 232 364 (HER Record) A couple of hundred metres to the west are another couple of larger, but very shallow, pits that are barely visible to the naked eye and were certainly hard to capture on camera.
06_04 Sandstone/ore in brook and bank at TQ 23363 36383 Close to the pits seen in 06_03 there are nodules of sandstone visible in the bank, with plenty of pieces also on the bed of the brook (these can be seen in many stretches of the brook, but are more prevalent here)
06_05 Quarry at TQ 23337 36252 On the western edge of the woods is another large quarry with two 'faces' at the southern end and a large, dry circular pit at the northern end. The centre area of the quarry is rarely out of water; even during the dry summer of 2022 it remained boggy. This appears to be another mudstone quarry and probably provided raw material for Bewbush Furnace.
06_06 Field boundary from TQ 23353 36272 to TQ 23624 36222 Running from the northern tip of the quarry in 06_05 to the edge of the Ifield West housing estate (and indeed beyond - it can be traced all the way to Puffin Road, presenting as a line of trees in modern aerial photos, including the narrow strip of land between St Andrews Road and Moor Park Crescent). Hyde Hill Woods has many ancient field boundaries (as we have seen in 06_02, above, and will see below in 06_07), but most of them present as thin mounds of earth of varying heights which would have had hedgerows atop at some point. This boundary is unusual as, for a lot of its length, the ground to the south retains the height of the mound, though this tapers off somewhat as we head west.
06_07 Further field boundaries in Hyde Hill Woods There are many other field boundaries within the woods, a remnant from when this was agricultural land, and it is possible that they pre-date the industrial workings of the 1500s and 1600s that scar these woods as many field systems in The Weald date from the Medieval Period. They mainly present as a mound, some with a shallow ditch. They all appear on the tithe map and can also be seen on the Lidar scans. Three of them appear below and I hope to add some more in the future.
06_08 Quarry or pit at TQ 23623 36265 This cut into the land just west of St Andrews Road has the appearance of another open cast quarry, though it is somewhat smaller and shallower than the previous 4.
Sources
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