Oxted

 

Oxted

Means ‘place of the oaks’. The town has been bypassed so we can see it in peace, and it makes a good picture with a number of colour-washed cottages dating from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, and separated from the traffic by a causeway

Plaza cinema

Church Lane.

The street is rather infested by antique shops, but you can try and ignore their presence

Old Bell Inn sixteenth-century. Has a restaurant and serves Truman's ale

St.Mary’s Church.  .  Slow growth medieval church over-restored. Short tower in Bargate stone.  Glass, plate. The church, partly rebuilt after a fire in 1719 and restored in 1877. The low but stout 13th-century tower has a 15th-century doorway and modem battlements. The south porch and doorway are 15th- century work, as are the nave arcades and the octagonal font. The tower is approached inside by a quaint 18th-century staircase. At the east end of the south aisle are seen the stairs that climbed to the rood-loft. The chancel, which has a 13th-century piscina and priest's door, and a 14th-century chancel arch and windows, is connected with the north aisle by a curious passage in the wall. On the south wall of the chancel are several small brasses of the Hoskins family who lived at Barrowgreen House.

Congregational church of the Peace of God.  Brick building modern 1825 by Lawrence.

Roman Catholic Church of all saints 1914-20 by Williams with chancel by Geoffrey Webb.

Barn Theatre.  Picturesque half-timbered barn.

Station Road West

George Inn,

Crown seventeenth-century

Wildest blocks of outrageous over timbering in the county, which is saying something

Station Road

The Oxted Line In 1877 companies, independent of the two major companies competing in the area, obtained acts allowing the construction of lines from Lewes to East Grinstead and from Haywards Heath to East Grinstead. In 1878 the Brighton Company obtained powers to connect East Grinstead to Croydon. From Croydon to Oxted the line followed the old Surrey & Sussex Junction Railway. Joseph Firbank was the contractor for all these works. The completion of Oxted Tunnel, the stations, the lattice girder bridges and the branch lines to the chalk pits and brick works date to Firbank's time and later.

Oxted Station. 1880s

Coal and delivery sidings were removed from the up side in 1969. 

Rail line

Oxted Viaduct pit wrought-iron lattice girder viaducts were constructed utilising elegant brick piers. It is likely that some of the brickwork was started in the time of the Surrey & Sussex Junction Railway.

Oxted tunnel is 2,087 metres long, curves, and was dug by sinking shafts along its length from the surface at intervals of 200 yards. The shafts were sunk in the time of the Surrey and Sussex Junction Railway (1865-7) but the tunnel was completed by Joseph Firbank between 1878-84. It was the longest tunnel built by Firbank and heavy springs were encountered at the base of the chalk. There was a roof fall on 15 June 1917. The tunnel slopes downwards to the south, and therefore discharges a significant quantity of River Wandle catchment basin water out into the catchment area of the Eden.