Thames Tributary Redhill Brook - Redhill

Thames Tributary Redhill Brook
The brook flows southwards, partly culverted. It is also called Gurney’s Brook in this area


Post to the west Redhill
Post to the north Redhill
Post to the south Earlswood


Cavendish Road
Copyhold cottages were by the stream here in the 17th
9 Home Cottage pub, Young’s brewers. The pub dates from pre 1860 and was at one time a wooden building.

Ladbroke Grove
Cottages were built here in the 1860s by the Redhill and Reigate Cottage Improvement Society.

Ladbroke Road
The road was built in 1860 by James Ladbroke so that he could get from his home at Frenches to the railway
1-10 houses straight from Brixton or Camberwell.
Locomotive Pub, demolished 1980s. The original brewer were the Croydon based Page and Overton. The pub was frequently flooded.

London Road
Sports ground. This was a boggy area with several streams running through it. Once home to Redhill Football Club it is now a park

Noke Drive
The Redhill Brook runs down parallel to the road. It goes into a culvert at the junction with St.Anne’ Drive
Warwick school. A large mixed comprehensive school with more boys than girls. It has been designated as a specialist college for mathematics, science and technology,
St Anne’s. Standing in grounds of about 18 acres were the buildings of the Royal Asylum of St.Anne’s for 400 pupils and a large staff. This institution, founded in 1739, moved from the City of London to Streatham and hence to Redhill the 1880s. It had been founded in connection with the City Church of St.Agnes and St. Anne. The buildings were erected, at a cost of £60,000and designed by Messrs Hickmay and Sons. It was four storeys in red brick with a central clock tower 125 feet high. The school rooms were for 240 boys and 160 girls. There was also a laundry, wash house, gymnasium and a swimming bath to which water was supplied from a well on the premises. There was a cricket pitch, a chapel, two infirmaries, and a porter's lodge. It closed and was sold in 1919 to the Foundling Hospital. In 1936 the Foundling Hospital School moved to Berkhampstead and the building was sold to Surrey County Council who used it as an old people’s home, and then for the homeless. A serious fire in 1975 led to closure and eventual demolition. The clock from the clock tower is in the Belfry Centre

Nutfield Road
Copyhold Farm was between Nutfield and Redhill. This included the Fulling Earth Field first mentioned in 1583. Eventually the operators became the Fulling Earth Union Ltd.. Fuller's earth (calcium montmorillonite) is a clay mineral with water sealing and bonding properties. Originally used for cleaning or 'fulling' woollen cloth. In the 20th century it has been used as a bonding agent in industrial applications and in refining edible oils and fats. 65% of national production has come from the deposits in this area. The Fuller's Earth Union Limited was formed in 1890 by bringing together small firms locally and included the Copyhold Works, as well as Nutfield, and others. In 1954 they were taken over by Laporte and in the early 1990s the Surrey factories were closed, as earth reserves were worked out, ending 1998. Laporte was bought out by Degussa, in 201.
Kennedys wood

Princess Way
Named after that woman who used to be married to Prince Charles. It was previously Clarendon Road South
Memorial park
3 Lombard offices
Quadrant House. Built 1987 on the site of the Surrey Mirror building
Bus station. Refurbished and reopened in 2008
Redhill Station. Opened April 1844 as Reigate Junction. It now stands Between Merstham and Earlswood and also Reigate on Southern Trains; Between Merstham and Nutfield on South Eastern Trains; Between Nutfield and Earlswood on South Eastern Trains; Between East Croydon and Gatwick on Thameslink; Between Reigate and Gatwick on First Great Western and Between East Croydon and Main Line destinations. In 1842 the South Eastern Company station, Redstone Hill and Reigate was to the south of here on Hooley Lane. So once the line to Edenbridge was built there were stations on two separate sites, which was inconvenient for passengers changing trains and both were named Reigate. In 1849 extension to Reading was opened and it was to prove useful for army camps near Aldershot and for holiday makers from the Midlands to the resorts of Kent. In 1858 the station was rebuilt on which is now the southern part of the east side platform which included an old booking office. The name was then changed to Red Hill Junction – an important milestone in the evolution of the name ‘red hill’. The Old entrance to tunnels was through a now bricked up tunnel and North of main booking office. In 1898 and the line came under the control of the South Eastern and Chatham railway and Edward Watkin, rebuilding in 1929. Now the principal feature of the station is the tall drum of its ticket hall – which is clearly a motif taken from the work of Charles Holden and the glazed facade, steelwork and overhang make for a striking image. In 1993, the Channel Tunnel was completed and upgrading of the Tonbridge line was underway.

Redstone Manor
Redstone Manor itself was a sub manor of Reigate. The earliest reference is 1583 where local fullers’ earth is also mentioned.

Redstone Hill
This was a farm track until after the railway station was opened when it was turned into a road for access from the east and joined to the road from Reigate
2 Lakers. This was originally the Railway Hotel or the Reigate Junction Hotel and dates from the coming of the railway here in the 1840s. It was at one time owned by the Laker family. It is now a Toby Carvery and as such is a bit shy at owning to a name.
Redstone. Linnell the painter built a house of this name for himself in the early 1850s. It was demolished in the 1950s
Hillsbrow. This was a house which Linnell built for his son, William, which in the 1920s became a private boys' school. It was demolished following a fire in the 1960s. A lodge remains.
Odeon Cinema. Built 1938 by architect Andrew Mather for the Oscar Deutsch chain of Odeon Theatres Ltd. There were 1,474 seats. In the Second World War it was bombed with a cannon shell. It closed in 1975 and was converted and since then has had a number of different names - Since 2002, it has been Liquid/Envy.

Redhill Sand Caves

In a large quarry half a mile east of Redhill Station. It is a very substantial hole in the ground, with a sloping entrance for lorries and earth moving equipment at the eastern end. It is over 200 ft. deep. The overburden is 100 ft. of Folkestone Bed sand, which is compact but decomposes into loose sand when disturbed. Beneath this is a thin band of stone, less than a foot thick. Underneath this is an unknown depth of Fullers Earth, and this is the main objective of the quarrying operation. There is a large opening halfway down the north face of the quarry and subsequent exploration showed it to be natural and formed by a very active stream. A pipe runs from the lip to the floor of the quarry to ump out a lake at the bottom and the cave is close to this. An ironstone horizon forms the floor of the cave.  The entrance to the cave is of double-decker bus size being some 15 ft. wide and 20 ft. high. The roof is a natural arch of sandstone. The passage is never less than walking height and continued round a few shallow meanders until it closes down suddenly into a wet crawl some 12 inches high.  The stream emerges from the crawl. The geomorphology of the cave can best be described as dynamic. It is visibly changing shape. The stream exits the cave and flows a short distance along a gulley, then over the edge of the ironstone band which is undercut, down a 2m. waterfall and then finds its way down to the bottom of the quarry, where it forms a greenish-hued lake. This lake threatened to cover the working surface of Fullers' Earth and an elaborate pipe system was in operation to take water out of the lake and all the way backing to the surface, for eventual discharge into the stream. The volume of water was particularly impressive And water also oozes out of the top of the ironstone band in several other places and there are several dry mini-caves in the vicinity. There is a low arch at the foot of the sandstone cliff some 150 metres distant. . This leads to another wide chamber. The floor at the lowest point is covered with a static pool of unknown depth. There is then a second standing height chamber of the same dimensions, ending at a blank wall dipping into the pool. Following winter rains the whole area turned into a quicksand, with no sign of any caves.


Sources

It would not be possible to write anything about Redhill without the books and ubiquitous web sites of Alan Moore. I am very impressed!

Allinson and Thornton. Modern Architecture
Cinema Theatre Association. Newletter
Croydon. 100 Years
Lucas. London
Moore. History of  Redhill
Pevsner. Surrey
 

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