1837 – 1901 Queen Victoria – Loxwood in the Victorian period

The choice of Tooley Street placed Josiah near an expanding route for moving meat and other food into London. Butchers needed reliable suppliers, slaughtering and storage arrangements, carts, market contacts and customers able to pay for regular deliveries. Josiah’s son learned the family trade and later made a substantial fortune in the London meat business. John had attended Sunday school at Alfold and had won a Bible shortly before the family left Sussex. Schools that met on Sundays offered reading, religious instruction and sometimes writing or arithmetic to children whose weekday labour kept them occupied elsewhere.

Uniform Penny Postage Reaches the Countryside, 1840

On 10 January 1840 the government introduced uniform penny postage for ordinary letters throughout the United Kingdom, and prepaid adhesive postage stamps followed in May. A person writing from Loxwood to London could place a letter into the postal system without paying a distance-based charge of the kind previously demanded for many deliveries.

Postmasters handled stamped mail and new correspondence reached farms and cottages through the district’s postal routes. The Garton family, who had moved from Loxwood to Tooley Street near London Bridge in 1839, belonged to the growing number of households with relatives and business contacts in other counties. Local postal workers delivered letters to farms and cottages on foot or by horse.

The New Census and the Brewhurst Household, 1841

The British government had taken national population censuses every ten years since 1801. The census of 1841 recorded the names of individuals in each household and allowed the people occupying individual farms and cottages to be followed through the reign. Enumerators divided parishes into districts, visited households and compiled schedules giving names, sex, occupations and limited birthplace information. Adults’ ages were commonly rounded down to the nearest five years, so an age in the 1841 return requires care when compared with the more exact returns from 1851 onwards.

Loxwood appeared within the larger Wisborough Green parish in the administrative records. A household at Brewhurst, one beside the chapel and another along the road to Alfold might belong to one parish while standing several miles apart. The enumerator moved between farmsteads, small cottages, roadside shops and workplaces, meeting families whose occupations were connected by milling, agriculture and transport.

At Spy Farm, Samuel Woods lived with his wife Mary and their children Thomas, Catherine, Harriott and Samuel. Samuel worked as an agricultural labourer. The family’s home stood within an older group of buildings beside Spy Lane, where fields and small wooded plots provided seasonal work. Another household had been established at Fletchings, the old timber-framed cottage associated with the Brewhurst estate. William Steer, his wife Mary, their children and the young labourer Thomas Tickner occupied the house. The older sons were approaching the age at which they could earn wages or learn a trade. The 1841 census also named James Puttock as a grocer in the village, and Jacob Hoar as the victualler at the Onslow Arms. Their trades drew different customers: Puttock sold household provisions and small goods, while Hoar provided drink and hospitality near the river crossing.

Henry Botting had taken a lease of Brewhurst during the later years of George IV’s reign and was established as farmer and miller by Victoria’s accession. In 1841 he occupied Brewhurst with his wife Mary, their daughters Ann and Emily, the young miller’s apprentice William Sturt, three agricultural labourers, two female servants and another miller, William Cooper. The mill’s machinery depended on a managed supply of water. Around 1840 workers installed an overshot wheel approximately twelve feet across and more than seven feet wide, equipped with fifty-six curved wrought-iron buckets. Its gearing turned millstones on the floors above. Millstones, shafts and hoists processed grain brought by surrounding farmers.

A miller’s apprentice learned to handle sacks, assist with the stones, maintain cleanliness and take part in the work of keeping the machinery in order. Servants prepared meals and maintained the house, while labourers worked the fields and attended animals. The estate’s owners, the Napper and Seward family, held other property at Ifold and in neighbouring villages. Henry Botting’s sons established their own farming and milling careers. One son, also Henry, later farmed Headsfoldwood and took a prominent part in the new parish of Loxwood. Other members of the family managed Brewhurst and Wanford mills in the following decades.

The Tithe Map and the Geography of Property, 1842

The tithe surveys of the 1840s placed fields, houses, roads and their occupiers onto detailed parish maps. Surveyors measured land and prepared schedules of ownership, tenancy, use and acreage. Many payments of tithe in kind had been replaced by a rentcharge under the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. A farmer whose earlier duty had involved handing over a share of produce now faced an assessment calculated under the statutory scheme, with the local apportionment tying the charge to particular plots.

At Loxwood the 1842 map set out houses on the road between the chapel and the river, fields beside Brewhurst and Loxwood Place, and the line of the canal with its bridges. It also placed the Onslow Arms and its garden under the ownership of Denzil Onslow and the occupation of John Sopp. The adjoining roads showed where the old turnpike, newer lanes and access to the wharf crossed the holdings of several owners. An estate purchaser could identify the acreage that went with a farmhouse; a tenant could see a meadow distinguished from an arable field; and a highway surveyor could locate a road or drainage crossing.

The apportionment also supplies a different kind of historical information from the census. Where the census names the people sleeping in a dwelling, the tithe papers name the owners and occupiers of land, including some landlords who lived elsewhere. At Loxwood Place, the surrounding fields had already been affected by enclosure and road changes. Spy Lane followed the route created from Pawlies towards Pancake Lane, while old paths between Fletchings, the chapel and the river continued to serve local journeys.

Corn, Taxes and Farm Work, 1842–1846

Sir Robert Peel replaced Melbourne as prime minister in 1841. In 1842 Peel reintroduced income tax on higher incomes and began changing the duties that governed international trade. Parliament considered the cost of imported food as industrial workers demanded cheaper bread and manufacturers sought wider markets. Agriculture remained central to western Sussex, so grain prices mattered to landowners, tenant farmers, millers and the families buying flour from shops.

The Corn Laws placed duties on imported grain and had been designed to protect domestic producers. Campaigners organised nationally for their repeal, and Parliament ended the main restrictions in 1846. Farmers in the Weald sold wheat, oats, hay and livestock through local markets and merchants. The price received after harvest helped determine what a tenant could pay in rent, whether a farmer employed an additional labourer and how much cash a household had available for other goods. A farm worker’s income was usually made up of wages and whatever a household could grow, keep or receive through local custom and employment. Families needed flour, fuel, clothing and rent money throughout the year. Rain could delay harvest, and winter shortened the working day. A miller required a steady flow of grain to keep business moving.

Drungewick and Loxwood Place Are Advertised, 1848

An estate advertisement in 1848 offered the manors of Drungewick and Loxwood, together with a substantial group of farms and land extending through Wisborough Green, Alfold and Rudgwick. The sale particulars described approximately 1,400 acres and named Drungewick House, occupied by James Wood, and Loxwood Place, then occupied by Mr Chapman. Drungewick carried an older history as a manor once used by the bishops of Chichester.

A purchaser could take over a mansion, farms and rent-producing property, arrange new tenancies or continue the existing ones. Estate agents measured acreage, described buildings, prepared plans and advertised for buyers able to manage substantial investments. Loxwood Place stood almost opposite the chapel beside the village pond. Its timber-framed farmhouse and associated buildings occupied part of an older moated site, with fields stretching away from the high ground.

Chartism, News and the Western Weald, 1848–1849

Across Britain, the revolutions of 1848 in continental Europe, renewed Chartist petitions and disputes over employment received wide newspaper coverage. The Chartists demanded parliamentary reform, including votes for working men, paid members of Parliament and more frequent elections. In England the government mobilised special constables during the largest demonstrations. Rural Sussex was linked to these debates through the national press, local elections, the price of food and the position of its wage-earning population.

Improved printing and postal services increased the amount of information available beyond the larger towns. Letters moved through established postal routes, and newspapers could be read in inns or passed between households. The railway expansion from London into the southern counties made correspondence, newspapers and trade goods faster to distribute even before a railway station opened near Loxwood. Families with relatives working in London also carried news and money back into the Weald. Village life retained an uneven distribution of opportunity. A farmer with several hundred acres employed many labourers and could invest in stock and equipment. A blacksmith or miller possessed a trade and sometimes occupied a business property. Other households relied upon agricultural work and domestic service.

A Smithy and New Buildings along the Loxwood Road, July 1849

By the late 1840s the houses along the Guildford road contained occupations far removed from simple crop production. An advertisement in July 1849 offered the property later known as Penlands or Linden House, described as a substantial brick dwelling with four bedchambers, gardens and a second residence. The grounds included a recently built brick smith’s shop with an established trade. The purchaser would acquire a large home, productive gardens, a well and premises already generating rent from a working craft business.

The blacksmith was indispensable to local transport. Horses required shoes and adjustments, iron tyres had to be fitted to wooden wheels, agricultural implements needed repairs and gates or hinges were often made to order. A shop on the turnpike could serve people arriving from Alfold, Rudgwick and Loxwood as well as neighbouring farms. Its fire, anvil, bellows and stores of iron added the sound of hammering to a road used by carts, livestock and canal workers. Carpenters, bricklayers, painters and glaziers enlarged houses and replaced damaged timber, plaster and thatch with new brickwork, windows and roofs. Domestic windows, interior finishes and roof coverings were all traded goods. A builder needed timber, sand, clay products, lime, iron and skilled labour, much of it transported by road or canal. The houses later called Linden House, Cherry Villa, Hill Top Stores and the Combination Stores occupied older plots that gradually acquired new shopfronts, workshops and outbuildings.

John Sirgood Comes into the District, 1850

John Sirgood had been born in 1821 at Avening in Gloucestershire, where his family worked in weaving. He later lived in London, worked as a shoemaker and preached among Protestant dissenters, including people associated with the Peculiar People. In 1845 he married Harriet Coxhead at St Mary-at-Lambeth. Harriet had connections with the Surrey countryside, and the couple began preaching in Surrey and Sussex during the middle of the century. A later local story places their arrival in the district around 1850 and describes a handcart carrying their possessions. The story became part of the community’s recollection of its founder; the household evidence for their actual place of residence becomes especially clear in the 1861 census.

During the intervening years Sirgood travelled, preached, worked and made acquaintances among farm labourers, smallholders and tradespeople. His teaching stressed dependence upon God, close fellowship, simple living and the obligation to support others in the congregation. Members who accepted the message called themselves Dependants or Dependant Brethren. They met in cottages and houses, read Scripture, sang hymns and listened to addresses given by Sirgood and other speakers. The movement also encouraged its members to share resources and build businesses that could support families who had previously relied on casual work or service in larger households.

James Puttock’s Assignment to Creditors, January 1851

The beginning of 1851 also brought financial difficulty to James Puttock, the grocer whose shop occupied an older wooden building on the road towards the chapel. On 25 January he assigned his real and personal estate to Henry Botting, the Brewhurst miller, and Thomas Elliott of Love’s Farm as trustees for his creditors. An advertisement in the Sussex press announced the arrangement, giving creditors formal notice of a local businessman’s debts. Such assignments allowed named trustees to collect and distribute property or income according to the deed and the creditors’ claims.

A grocer in a small village dealt in everyday goods and depended upon cash arriving from customers whose own income varied with the season. Some customers paid at purchase; others bought on account until wages, rents or crop sales brought money into their hands. The shopkeeper had to pay wholesalers and carriers as well as maintaining premises and stock. Puttock’s arrangement involved two established men from the district who knew the practical circumstances of local trade.

The Census Names Farms and Workers, March 1851

The census taken on 30 March 1851 gave much more detail than the return ten years earlier. It recorded the ages, relationships, occupations and birthplaces of household members. The 1851 return gives a detailed view of Loxwood Place as a major employer. William Churchman, aged fifty-three, lived there with his wife Catherine and their family and described himself as farming 300 acres with fourteen labourers. Their son William, aged twenty-eight, farmed another 120 acres and employed three labourers. Together the two entries identify more than four hundred acres of farming and seventeen paid agricultural workers associated with the family.

The fields required different work through the year. Ploughing, sowing, haymaking, harvesting and threshing involved horses, carts, hand tools and coordinated labour. Cattle and other animals needed fodder, bedding and shelter through winter. Tenant farmers decided how many workers to engage and when to hire extra help for time-sensitive jobs. Labourers and their families depended upon the number of days’ work available, and young people sometimes entered service or learned a trade when the farm could employ them. The Churchman household also included domestic service, a reminder that a substantial farmhouse functioned as both a family residence and the centre of an agricultural business. Housemaids prepared rooms and laundry, cooks managed meals and other servants attended visitors or farm employees.

Mary Steer was a widow by the time of the 1851 census and headed the household at Fletchings. Her adult sons William, George and John were agricultural labourers, and fourteen-year-old James had also entered agricultural work. Their younger brother Esau was ten. The house had previously been occupied by the larger family under William Steer senior; the new return records a household in which sons earning wages helped support the home after their father’s death. Fletchings stood close to the lane leading towards Brewhurst and the lower part of Loxwood. Its ownership had passed through the Garton and Napper interests, and the people living inside were wage earners. Several adult workers shared the same dwelling, and each could travel from it to a different farm or employer according to the availability of work.

The Great Exhibition and the Wealden Trades, May 1851

On 1 May 1851 Victoria opened the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. Prince Albert had helped organise the international display of machinery, manufactured goods, scientific equipment and decorative arts. Joseph Paxton’s enormous glass and iron building housed exhibits from Britain and abroad, allowing visitors to see the output of factories and workshops gathered in one place. The Western Weald had its own machinery, much of it operated beside streams or within farms.

At Brewhurst the mill wheel turned grain into flour. Blacksmiths repaired plough fittings and carts, wheelwrights shaped timber and iron into wheels, and local brickmakers supplied the materials for newer buildings. Industrial development elsewhere changed the prices, technology and markets available to these businesses. The railway and steam engine mattered to rural households long before most farms acquired engines of their own.

Crimean War, Army Supply and Public News, 1854–1856

Britain and France declared war on Russia in March 1854 after a dispute involving the Ottoman Empire and the control of territories around the Black Sea. The British army fought in Crimea, where soldiers endured severe weather, disease, shortages and major battles. Reports from the fighting reached home through newspapers and increasingly rapid telegraph communications. The battles of Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman became widely known, and the long siege of Sevastopol exposed deficiencies in military transport, hospitals and supply.

Army contracts drew upon Britain’s agricultural and manufacturing economy. Soldiers required food, boots, woollen clothing, leather equipment, horses and medicines. Naval operations demanded timber, coal and engineering work. Sussex producers and traders faced a market in which government purchasing took place alongside the usual demands of households and towns. The railway enabled provisions to be moved more quickly from inland markets towards ports, while rural carts and older waterways remained the first stage of some consignments. Florence Nightingale’s work at the military hospital at Scutari became a prominent part of the national story. Public interest in hospital cleanliness, skilled nursing and the treatment of sick soldiers increased. In village houses where childbirth, fever or serious injury still brought risk, medical help depended upon distance, available money and the practitioners serving neighbouring towns. When peace came in 1856, the government continued to face criticism over the war’s organisation and the health of ordinary soldiers.

Plaistow Rebuilds Its Church, 1854–1856

A more immediate building project occupied Plaistow, west of Loxwood. The old chapel dedicated to St Thomas had been damaged by fire around the middle of the century and was demolished in 1854. The parish undertook the construction of a replacement church dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The architect Joseph Butler designed a sandstone building, and on 26 July 1856 the new church was consecrated for worship. Plaistow’s roads were also adjusted around the new church site. The road towards Loxwood had previously run to the north of the old building, while the later alignment passed south of the new church. Visitors approaching from Kirdford or Loxwood encountered a different grouping of church, road and neighbouring houses. The alteration affected carts, walkers and property frontages as much as Sunday congregations.

Village trades supported the building work. Stone and lime had to be obtained and delivered, masons laid walls and dressings, carpenters prepared roof timbers and joinery, and glaziers fitted windows. Local worshippers subscribed or supported the project while clergy worked with builders and church officers. Plaistow also had inns and beerhouses that served farm labourers, carriers and residents. Henry Pullen’s Fox Beer Shop appeared in the census period, while the Sun offered a place for meetings and village dinners. Such houses supplied refreshment and accommodation, and their rooms were used by organisations whose members collected subscriptions for sickness or burial benefits. Their public gatherings brought traders and musicians into the village on appointed days.

Indian Rebellion and the Government of Empire, 1857–1858

In 1857 soldiers serving the East India Company rebelled at Meerut, and fighting spread into northern and central India. Indian rulers, soldiers and civilians took different sides during a conflict marked by sieges, killings and severe reprisals. News reached Britain through overseas correspondence, and Parliament debated how the territories would be governed. In 1858 the Government of India Act transferred the Company’s political authority to the Crown, with a secretary of state in London and a viceroy in India. Cotton, manufactured cloth, railway equipment and other goods crossed oceans under contracts supported by merchants and insurers. Britain also imported raw materials for factories that sold finished products throughout the country.

A Loxwood draper or grocer could supply articles manufactured or obtained far from Sussex, although their own customers purchased them across an ordinary counter. The development of shipping and steam-powered industry altered the range of goods reaching inland markets. Tea, sugar, tobacco, textiles and ironwares could be purchased in villages supplied by wholesale merchants. Local retailers needed carts, railway services or canal carriers to obtain them.

Steam Trains Reach Billingshurst, Pulborough and Petworth, 1859

In 1859 the Mid-Sussex Railway opened from Horsham through Billingshurst and Pulborough to Petworth. On 10 October a train of officials and visitors inspected the completed route before railway traffic began operating. Petworth station stood near Coultershaw, almost two miles south of the town, while stations at Billingshurst and Pulborough opened new goods yards for the farms of western Sussex. Railway builders had cut banks, erected bridges, laid track and arranged platforms and sidings through fields previously reached by lanes. Farm produce and livestock were carried by cart to the stations, and railway employees handled the consignments for onward movement towards Horsham, London and other markets. Pulborough also had a crossing and river trade on the Arun, with the new station providing another place for parcels, coal, manufactured goods and travellers to arrive.

People from Loxwood reached the stations by horse or cart along the turnpike, while farmers in Kirdford or Wisborough Green could also send goods through Pulborough or Petworth. Freight handlers moved sacks, livestock and packages onto wagons and recorded destinations and charges. Mail and newspapers arrived to a published railway timetable. Earlier ways of trading continued alongside the new services. In a County Court case reported in December 1859 Harriet Baker described sending wheat to both a mill at Plaistow and Brewhurst Mill. She told the court that she had received flour and pollard from the Brewhurst grain after the miller deducted his customary toll.

Chichester Cathedral’s Spire Collapses, 21 February 1861

On 21 February 1861 the tall central spire of Chichester Cathedral collapsed. Cracks had appeared in the tower and engineers had been examining the movement when the masonry fell through the central crossing. The falling stones destroyed part of the roof and damaged the interior. Workmen and officials had recognised the danger and kept people away, preventing a catastrophe among the congregation and cathedral staff.

The Cathedral stood at the head of the diocese containing Loxwood, Wisborough Green, Kirdford and Billingshurst. Its bishops appointed and supervised clergy and presided over diocesan church business, so damage to the great medieval building was widely reported across Sussex. Architects, builders and masons then undertook a major reconstruction under Sir George Gilbert Scott, rebuilding the crossing tower and spire and repairing the fabric around them. The work continued into the middle of the decade and required skilled stonecutting, carpentry, scaffolding and engineering.

The 1861 Census and the New Wheel at Brewhurst Mill

The census of April 1861 recorded another decade of change. In some houses parents were older and their grown children worked elsewhere; in others a new couple occupied a former farm worker’s cottage. The return named occupations and birthplaces as well as relationships, allowing movement across Loxwood, Alfold and Wisborough Green to be traced. A man called an agricultural labourer might be joined in his house by sons learning butchery or a building trade; a woman could be recorded as a schoolmistress, house servant or shop assistant.

At Spy Farm Joseph Cheesman lived with his wife Elizabeth and their children, including Sarah, William and Charles. Joseph worked in agriculture. The family occupied the older farm buildings beside Spy Lane after the Woods household recorded in the previous census. Ten years later the Cheesmans were still in the district, with further children recorded. The successive entries provide names and ages for a family whose working life centred on the farms close to the village. At Fletchings, William and George Steer were working as butchers. Their trade connected the cottage to the earlier Garton butchery and to the livestock reared in the surrounding countryside. Animals had to be bought, slaughtered, dressed and supplied to customers, creating a connection between farms and retail food. The men who worked at the trade needed knives, blocks, carrying equipment and a place to handle the meat.

In the centre of Loxwood a household could depend upon several forms of employment. Men cut timber, dug clay, tended fields or worked with carts; women washed and sewed, kept lodgers, served in farmhouses and worked at shops. The census gave formal names to these occupations, while many household tasks took place without paid employment being entered against them. The figures belong to a particular Sunday night in April, and the work of haymaking and harvest later in the year brought further demands for labour. The shop continued under later proprietors. In 1861 John Botting appeared there as a miller, grocer and dealer, combining the sale of provisions with a family trade rooted in Brewhurst.

In 1861 millwrights installed a second waterwheel at Brewhurst Mill. It was fitted outside the north-west end of the building and worked by breastshot power, measuring about fourteen feet in diameter and four feet wide. The Botting family used the new wheel when high water made the older internal overshot wheel difficult to operate. That earlier wheel had been installed around 1840 and was fitted with fifty-six curved wrought-iron buckets. Water turned shafts, pitwheels and gearing below the stones; further machinery hoisted and cleaned grain and moved the meal for bagging. Farmers brought sacks to Brewhurst by horse and cart along the lane, where the miller calculated his charge for grinding and returned the customer’s flour and pollard.

John and Harriet Sirgood at Old Cottage, 1861

The 1861 census placed John and Harriet Sirgood at Old Cottage in Spy Lane. Their hosts were Thomas and Ann Overington, a farm-labouring household already known in the district. Sirgood was a shoemaker and preacher whose religious work increasingly attracted farm workers and their families around Loxwood and Plaistow. The lodging brought the couple close to the cottages, holdings and footpaths by which their congregation reached one another.

Sirgood’s followers referred to themselves as Dependants or Dependant Brethren. The nickname ‘Cokelers’ also became associated with them in Sussex, sometimes in derision. Their meetings drew upon Bible reading, hymn singing, prayer and preaching, with a strong expectation that believers would help one another. The group favoured plain clothing, restrained personal spending and cooperation in earning a living.

Ann Overington appears in later records as a schoolmistress, bringing education into the history of the early community. Children learned reading and religious teaching in cottage rooms at a time when elementary instruction was still unevenly available. Dependants also used small schools and training within their businesses to prepare younger members for work. Where a person learned sewing, shopkeeping or baking, the income from that skill could be directed towards a shared household or congregation. Sirgood’s message reached people who were closely dependent on landowners for their employment and housing. A farm labourer might be dismissed when work was scarce, and a female servant generally lived under the employer’s roof. Working together offered some of Sirgood’s followers an opportunity to earn money through independent trades and shared shops.

Albert Dies and Victoria Withdraws from Court, December 1861

Prince Albert died at Windsor Castle on 14 December 1861, aged forty-two. He had been Victoria’s husband since 1840 and had worked closely with her on family, public and political matters. Their nine children included the Prince of Wales, whose own marriage and public appearances would later help represent the monarchy while Victoria grieved. Victoria wore black in mourning and sharply reduced her public appearances after Albert died.

Ministers continued to bring her official business, and Parliament carried on its work. Across the country newspapers described Albert’s death and reported the court’s mourning arrangements. Local churches prayed for the Queen and royal family under the forms used in public worship. Farmers had animals to feed through cold months, labourers depended upon whatever employment remained available and roads required repair after prolonged rain.

A Chapel in Spy Lane and Opposition to the Dependants, 1861–1864

The Dependants established their chapel in Spy Lane during the early 1860s. It stood within the older settlement around Old Cottage, close to the houses and smallholdings occupied by members of the movement. A congregation could now assemble under its own roof for preaching and worship. Men and women walked there along lanes from Loxwood, Plaistow and the surrounding farms. The new religious meeting attracted opposition from some local residents. At the end of December 1863 a dispute at the chapel was serious enough to appear in newspaper reports early in 1864. People interrupted a meeting, and the subsequent public account described hostile behaviour towards the congregation.

Parish clergy, landowners and magistrates had different duties in relation to the dispute. The Church of England provided authorised parish worship, while lawful Nonconformist congregations were able to meet under the legislation governing religious liberty. Magistrates and constables dealt with disturbances. Sirgood and the people who listened to him continued their meetings and widened the practical cooperation among members. St John the Baptist’s remained an Anglican chapel attached to Wisborough Green. Spy Lane Chapel was a separate place of Protestant worship with its own leaders, teaching and members.

Friendly Societies, Feast Days and Farm Workers, 1863–1865

Friendly societies were an important form of mutual help before national insurance. Members paid regular subscriptions into a common fund and could receive money during sickness or at a funeral, according to the society’s rules. The societies kept membership records, arranged officers and met at inns or other public rooms. Their anniversaries often included a procession, a sermon, a dinner and music from a band.

Plaistow’s Friendly Society held public celebrations in the 1860s that brought members through the village and into the Sun Inn. The events involved bands and a religious service as well as the business of maintaining a sickness fund. The Onslow Arms also hosted meetings and celebrations, drawing people towards the roadside meadows beside Loxwood Bridge. At the Sun Inn the members arranged dinners, music and gatherings for the society’s anniversary days.

The Guildford–Horsham Railway Opens, 1865

The railway through Cranleigh and Rudgwick opened in 1865, connecting Guildford with Horsham and bringing stations much closer to Loxwood. The line passed through wooded and agricultural country, with railway workers constructing cuttings, bridges, embankments and station buildings. Its stations at Cranleigh, Baynards, Rudgwick and Slinfold became points where local roads met steam-powered transport. A farmer or shopkeeper in Loxwood could now send goods by cart to Rudgwick station or one of the other nearby stations. Trains carried consignments onward towards London, Guildford, Horsham and the coast according to their connections and timetables. Station staff issued tickets, handled parcels, recorded goods and supervised loading. Carters had a new destination for their journeys, and some freight that had previously travelled by barge moved to the railway.

Canal workers maintained locks, banks, bridges, towing paths and water supplies over a long route. Railway companies could carry traffic at a greater speed and offered connections to a growing network of towns. As customers moved to the stations, canal toll receipts fell. The weakening of navigation affected Loxwood Wharf and the men who had worked with horses, barges and cargo beside the Onslow Arms. The railway also changed personal journeys. A family member could travel to London for employment and return to visit relatives. Tradesmen attended distant markets, and newspapers arrived more promptly. Loxwood’s road up from the river towards Rudgwick gained new importance because it offered access to a station.

Schools, Church Repairs and Industrial Trades beyond Loxwood, 1865–1866

The railway year of 1865 also brought a permanent school to Billingshurst. Henry Carnsew of Summers supported a National School in School Lane, built in red brick to designs by Robert William Edis. Teachers served children whose families worked along Stane Street, on farms and in trades associated with the new station. The building offered a larger and more regular programme of education than instruction limited to occasional lessons or Sunday classes. Cranleigh School admitted its first boys in September 1865. The building project had been supported by George Cubitt, who gave land, and by subscriptions raised for a school planned by Henry Woodyer. Its classrooms and boarding accommodation made Cranleigh a centre for education extending well beyond Surrey. Builders had needed a substantial supply of bricks, stone, timber and labour to complete its first buildings.

At Billingshurst the parish church of St Mary was largely restored in 1866 under Robert William Edis. Workmen removed galleries and older pewing, renewed parts of the church and exposed timber roofs. Local building firms and stoneworkers took part, while benefactors supplied money for the repairs. Billingshurst also retained small manufacturing businesses using the produce of the Weald. Hoop makers worked wood from coppiced plantations into hoops for barrels; brickmakers and tilers used local clay; steam-threshing contractors owned machinery that could be hired by farmers.

Parliamentary Reform and the Place of Rural Electors, 1867

Parliament passed a further Reform Act in 1867 during Benjamin Disraeli’s leadership of the House of Commons under Lord Derby’s government. It extended voting rights to many male householders in parliamentary boroughs and added a new group of working-class voters to the electorate. The qualifications for county constituencies remained different until the next major reform in 1884. Most people in Loxwood still held no parliamentary vote. Women were excluded from general parliamentary elections, and many agricultural labourers occupied cottages under arrangements that did not meet the county qualification.

Freehold owners and certain other qualified men voted at county elections, while boroughs such as Horsham had their own earlier history of representation. The distribution of the vote became an important issue as politicians discussed how laws affecting workers were made. Landowners still played a prominent part in county politics, but newspaper reporting allowed a wider public to read parliamentary speeches and campaign arguments. Debates about church schools, wages, taxes, the treatment of working people and the condition of the poor reached villagers through printed accounts.

Petworth Opens a Cottage Hospital, 1867

Petworth Cottage Hospital opened in 1867 to care for patients from the town and its surrounding parishes. The building offered treatment near home at a time when seriously ill people in the Western Weald otherwise depended upon local practitioners, private nursing and journeys to larger hospitals. The institution admitted people suffering from a range of diseases under its first regulations.

In November 1867 Petworth experienced an outbreak of fever described by contemporary medical writers as being of a typhoid character. The hospital’s experience entered the published debate over whether infectious patients should be placed among other hospital cases and how small hospitals should divide their limited beds. The discussion brought the questions of clean water, disease, isolation and nursing into a named western Sussex town while church restorations, railways and new schools were being built across the district.

Wisborough Green’s Restoration and Loxwood Place Readings, 1867–1868

The parish church of St Peter ad Vincula at Wisborough Green underwent a major restoration in 1867 and 1868. Architect Ewan Christian oversaw repairs and alterations to roofs, walls, windows, floors and seating. Craftsmen worked in a medieval building that had served the larger parish for generations, and old wall paintings came to light during the work. Church officials and subscribers paid for a building programme intended to provide a repaired and orderly place of worship.

Loxwood still belonged to the ecclesiastical parish of Wisborough Green during these years. The vicar of Wisborough Green exercised the rights attached to the mother church, and the chapel of St John the Baptist served people who lived some distance away from it. A resident of Loxwood might attend ordinary services at the chapel but still be affected by appointments, parochial rights and financial questions at Wisborough Green. Christian’s repairs were part of a national programme of Victorian church building and restoration. Architects changed interiors, repaired masonry, renewed benches and added stained glass. Parishioners also considered the position of congregations living at some distance from their parish churches. Around Loxwood the question had a long history, beginning with the inhabitants’ petition to the Bishop of Chichester in 1404. In the years following the restoration, people living at Loxwood renewed their efforts to obtain a separate ecclesiastical district.

On 11 February 1868 the Chichester Express and West Sussex Journal reported the second of a series of Penny Readings at Loxwood Place. William and Catherine Churchman provided a room at their farmhouse, where visitors paid one penny to hear readings, comic pieces, recitations, songs and music. The room was crowded for the evening’s programme. The report thanked the Churchmans for making the house available and named the entertainment as a local event with paying spectators. The farmhouse that employed seventeen workers between William Churchman’s two agricultural holdings in 1851 had also become a meeting place for literary and musical recreation.

The Canal Company’s Decline, 1868–1869

By the end of the 1860s canal traffic through Loxwood had fallen sharply. Barges still needed sound locks, a clear channel and sufficient water, while the company had to meet the costs of the navigation from the Wey to the Arun. The trade available to pay those expenses was increasingly carried by rail. Parts of the canal were already in poor condition as the owners and authorities considered its abandonment. Fewer barges came to the wharf beside the Onslow Arms.

A wharf made money when boats arrived, cargoes were stored, and carts came to collect goods. Its trade also brought customers to the inn and work to men who loaded sacks, handled timber, led horses or repaired equipment. As barge movements declined, the open wharf ground became available for other local uses, including fairs and gatherings. Brewhurst Mill continued to use the River Lox for its power, and the farms still needed roads to move grain and livestock. Carriers drove increasingly towards railway stations, markets and mill properties, while the availability of train services changed where merchants sent local produce.

Plaistow Opens Its School, 1869

Plaistow opened a village school in 1869, thirteen years after Bishop Ashhurst Turner Gilbert dedicated the new Holy Trinity Church beside its pond. Children from the northern part of Kirdford parish, including farms towards Ifold, Shillinglee and the Surrey border, could attend lessons near the crossroads linking Plaistow with Loxwood and Chiddingfold. The school joined the church and the Sun Inn as a permanent building serving local families. Kirdford village had provided a school since 1819; Billingshurst had opened its National School in 1865. Loxwood residents were still making use of Sunday and private teaching in houses near the chapel, with a permanent school planned after the introduction of the next education statute.

Parliament Provides for Elementary Schools, 1870

The Elementary Education Act of 1870 established a method of providing schools in districts where existing church and voluntary schools offered too few places. Locally elected school boards could raise rates, acquire sites, appoint teachers and arrange new buildings. The government supervised standards and grants through the Education Department. Education remained a mixture of voluntary schools, private teaching, Sunday schools and the new board schools as the system expanded.

Children in the Western Weald travelled different distances to obtain lessons. At Alfold some attended the church Sunday school, and small private classes operated in houses around Loxwood. A class associated with the Dependants met at Hall House, and Mary Jenkins taught in a roadside building at Garton House. Teaching might include the alphabet, reading, writing, sums and religious instruction, depending upon the school and the fee a family could afford. The legislation gave villages such as Loxwood a route towards a permanent school building with a salaried teacher. School boards could identify the number of children needing places and set a rate upon local property to meet the cost. Their decisions required a site, plans, contracts and ongoing expenditure on books, wages and repairs.

The Census of 1871 and New Occupations along the Roads

The census of 1871 recorded continued farming across Loxwood, with households linked to the same older farmsteads and a growing number of trades on the principal road. Joseph and Elizabeth Cheesman still occupied Spy Farm, where their household now included Charles, James, George and Felix. Nearby cottages housed workers whose journeys followed farm lanes towards Kirdford, Plaistow, Brewhurst and the road to Rudgwick station. At Fletchings William Steer was described as a timber hewer, cutting and shaping wood for sale or further work. Ann Steer was recorded as a schoolmistress, and Sarah Tickner lived with them as a domestic servant. The same house had accommodated men in agriculture and butchery during earlier decades.

The 1871 return identified Edward Pannell, aged twenty-seven, as a grocer at High House on the road towards the chapel. His business occupied the premises later associated with Hill Top Stores. A brick shop extension was added, and the village post office operated from that part of the road during his years there. The position was convenient for people walking between the farms and the chapel or travelling from the bridge up the hill. Families also used the railway to move farther afield.

The Wey and Arun Canal Is Abandoned, 1871

The Wey and Arun Junction Canal’s formal abandonment came in 1871 after years of falling traffic and financial difficulty. The railway had taken much of the business that once supported the waterway. Owners faced the continuing cost of keeping the channel navigable, locks operational and bridges safe, while cargo revenue fell. The abandoned navigation became a series of water-filled lengths, banks, locks and crossings running through estates that had once been obliged to accommodate commercial boats.

At Loxwood Wharf the decline was especially visible beside the turnpike and the Onslow Arms. Barges had formerly arrived with heavy goods that were stacked or weighed before carters took them to neighbouring farms. Canal horses walked the towing path, and lock keepers controlled water levels at Brewhurst and the other locks. After abandonment, the wharf was increasingly associated with fairs, gatherings and land questions. The canal continued to occupy ground beside houses and farms, and its bridges still carried local roads.

The abandoned route also changed the movement of goods. Coal could be delivered by train to Rudgwick or another station and collected by horse and cart. Timber from local woodland could travel to a station for dispatch to distant customers. Grain continued to reach Brewhurst Mill by farm cart, and produce destined for larger markets could be sent onward by railway. Road transport remained essential at both ends of the journey. Owners whose property adjoined the canal had practical questions over old rights of access, watercourses and the canal company’s land. A bridge over an abandoned navigation still needed repair if it carried a public road. A drain passing beneath the old bed still had to carry rainwater.

John Davies Trigge Arrives at Loxwood, 1871–1872

The Reverend John Davies Trigge began serving Loxwood in 1871. Born in Brompton, London, in 1828, he had been a schoolmaster in Brighton before attending Magdalen College, Oxford. He was ordained in the Diocese of Chichester in 1865 and had served at St Peter’s in Brighton. His experience in teaching became important as Loxwood prepared to establish a village school.

In November 1871 Trigge married Emma Andrews at St Luke’s Church in Chelsea. The couple made their home near Loxwood, where the old chapel stood beside Church Cottage and Loxwood Place. Emma helped organise religious teaching for children and established a local Sunday school. Her classes gave pupils lessons and books before the district obtained a purpose-built daily school.

Trigge also dealt with the position of the chapel itself. Loxwood’s inhabitants had petitioned Bishop Robert Rede for a local place of worship in 1404 because their journey to Wisborough Green was difficult. Bishop Rede granted permission for an oratory or chapel, and later bishops confirmed the arrangement. By the nineteenth century the chapel had a brick nave and an established congregation, but the vicar of Wisborough Green still held the rights associated with the parish church. The movement towards a separate district developed while national legislation made it easier to create new ecclesiastical parishes for growing congregations. The inhabitants wanted more regular pastoral provision and a minister with an identifiable local charge. Decisions required the attention of the Bishop of Chichester, ecclesiastical commissioners and the Crown in Council.

The Secret Ballot and County Government, 1872

Parliament passed the Ballot Act in 1872, introducing secret voting in parliamentary elections and many local elections. Before the change, electors commonly declared their choices publicly, exposing their votes to pressure from employers, landlords or other influential people. Under the new procedure officials supplied ballot papers and provided places where electors could mark them privately. The reform entered a countryside where many agricultural families depended upon farm wages or tied accommodation.

The law governed the manner of voting for those who qualified, while the number of rural electors remained limited by property and occupation rules. Local public bodies, including those concerned with roads, schools and poor relief, also continued to be affected by legislative changes. In Loxwood the school and ecclesiastical questions brought different forms of representation into view. Ratepayers could elect school board members under the education legislation, while parishioners and clergy dealt with the Church over their chapel. Those authorities worked alongside justices, poor-law guardians and the county officers responsible for roads and policing.

Loxwood Becomes a Separate Ecclesiastical Parish, 1873–1874

On Saturday 9 August 1873 Queen Victoria attended a meeting of the Privy Council at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. An Order in Council made on that date assigned a district chapelry to the consecrated church at Loxwood. It gave Loxwood a separate ecclesiastical district within the Diocese of Chichester, ending the church’s centuries-long dependence upon Wisborough Green for its ordinary parochial organisation. The church of St John the Baptist, then standing beside the village pond, served as the new district church.

The Order came almost 470 years after Bishop Robert Rede’s licence of 1404. In the medieval petition, the inhabitants had explained that the journey to Wisborough Green took them along deep, muddy woodland tracks and sometimes across the diocesan boundary to obtain worship. The bishop authorised a local place where a chaplain could celebrate services, while rights over tithes and burial remained attached to Wisborough Green. The brick rebuilding of 1822 had provided a larger nave for that dependent chapel.

Loxwood’s new status had practical consequences for its minister and congregation. Richard Durnford, Bishop of Chichester since 1870, and the Church authorities could arrange the cure of souls for a defined area under a vicar, and the local church acquired its own formal district for the services and administration assigned to it. Trigge became Loxwood’s first vicar in November 1873. Henry Botting of Headsfoldwood, son of the earlier Brewhurst miller, served as the new parish’s first churchwarden. Queen Victoria’s Order established Loxwood as a Church of England district.

Civil administration still followed the older parish and poor-law boundaries. Households at Loxwood continued to deal with the relevant civil parish officers, poor-law guardians, rate collectors and county officials under existing law. The church trustees’ deeds also had a separate function. Trustees drawn from local families held land and other property endowed for the chapel’s support, and they had to attend to title, rents and repairs. The chapel trustees continued to manage the existing church property under their deeds, while the bishop appointed Trigge to serve the new district.

Trigge began the work of a parish incumbent from a district whose families were scattered among farms, cottages and workshops. A minister visited the sick, prepared couples for marriage, arranged baptisms and burials and conducted services on Sundays and church festivals. With a separate district came a stronger need for a permanent residence near the church and close to roads used by parishioners. A new vicarage was built in 1874 on the road rising northwards from Loxwood Bridge. London architects Maynard-Shaw of Gray’s Inn prepared the designs, and Robert Pink of Hambledon carried out the building work for approximately £1,500. The house gave the vicar a fixed residence and was placed within reach of the old chapel, canal crossing and neighbouring lanes. The road acquired the name Vicarage Hill. The old chapel and Church Cottage remained close to Loxwood Place on the higher ground, while the vicarage stood farther downhill.

The Wisborough Green School Board Is Formed, 1874

In March 1874 a School Board was formed for Wisborough Green parish and its dependent district, including Loxwood. The board could raise local rates and arrange elementary instruction where sufficient places were lacking. Members included people who knew the farms, houses and roads of the district, among them George Napper of Lakers Lodge and other ratepayers involved in local administration.

The board had to decide where a school should stand so that as many children as possible could reach it. A site high on the ridge might be close to the old chapel but distant from some farms around Brewhurst and Loxwood Bridge. A position on the road near the new vicarage provided a more central approach for children walking from the bridge, village lanes and farms to the north. The school would have to be built to a plan acceptable to the Education Department. Land was made available near the river road, and the board began examining plans, building costs and accommodation. The prospective school needed a main teaching room, provision for younger children, heating, sanitation and secure boundaries. The cost had to be met from funds and rates raised by people whose income came largely from farms, mills and local trades.

Farming Changes as Cheap Imported Grain Arrives, 1874–1876

During the 1870s British farmers faced increasingly strong competition from imported grain. Steamships and railway systems lowered the cost of moving wheat from North America and other producing regions to British ports. Grain merchants bought overseas supplies for mills and towns, while domestic producers had to sell against prices influenced by much larger international markets. The Western Weald’s clay land required careful drainage and often heavy labour for cultivation. Some holdings were well suited to pasture and livestock, while others included a mixture of cornfields, meadow, orchard and coppice woodland. Farm owners and tenants chose whether to continue ploughing particular fields, increase livestock or make use of timber and grazing. A fall in grain prices could reduce the value of an arable crop even when the farmer had already paid for seed, labour and horses.

Agricultural workers felt these changes through the number of days offered by employers. Where farms reduced arable cultivation, some work in ploughing, weeding and harvest also declined. Families sought other employment in building, cartage, railway services and village trades. Young men and women increasingly had the option of leaving the parish for urban employment or domestic service in larger towns. Brewhurst Mill remained closely linked to grain production, and farmers brought corn there as part of their regular business.

The School Contract and the First Building Works, 1875–1876

The School Board chose plans prepared by James Girdwood, an architect working from Pall Mall in London, and awarded a building contract to Edwin Woolgar of Itchingfield in 1875. The accepted price was £1,123, a major expenditure for a village school. Under the contract, Woolgar was to complete the building by the end of July 1876. Work began on the ground near the new vicarage, and local people watched walls, roof and classrooms emerge. Carters delivered bricks and other materials, masons worked on the structure, carpenters assembled the roof and interior fittings, and labourers dug foundations and drains. The design provided the main teaching room and space for smaller children.

In February 1876 Girdwood proposed moving the infants’ room to the rear, and the board approved the amendment. The promised completion date passed. By October the board was concerned about the slow progress and instructed its clerk to write to the builder and a surety. Disputes over the contract continued into 1877, and the board began arranging parts of the outstanding work separately.

Rudgwick Organises Schools near the Road Junction, 1875–1877

Rudgwick’s school arrangements were influenced by the distance between its villages and outlying farms. Residents of Rowhook opened a schoolroom in 1856, families in The Haven gained one in 1862, and James Braby of Maybanks financed a Church Street schoolroom in 1863. In 1875 the parish adapted a pair of cottages in Lynwick Street for teaching and provided adjoining accommodation for the master.

Rudgwick entered the school-board system in 1877. Board members prepared plans for a permanent school at Bucks Green, where the old road from Loxwood met the routes to Wanford, The Haven and the parish church. Their appointed schoolmaster was Charles Woods. Children approaching Bucks Green from Loxwood Road or The Haven passed the smithy and the Queen’s Head on their way to the chosen site.

Victoria Takes the Title Empress of India, 1876–1877

The Royal Titles Act received royal assent on 27 April 1876. The government then arranged a proclamation giving Victoria the title Empress of India, following the Crown’s assumption of direct government there in 1858. Her proclamation of the title Empress of India was announced during the following year, and a great imperial assembly was held at Delhi in January 1877. Parliament continued to exercise its authority over money and legislation while the Crown appointed the senior officers responsible for Indian government.

The new title connected the monarchy with territories containing a vast population and major agricultural and commercial industries. Goods moved between Indian ports, Britain and other markets in growing steamship networks. British manufacturers sold machinery and textiles overseas, while importing foodstuffs, raw cotton, tea and other commodities. Merchants and bankers financed the voyages, and the resulting trade affected prices and products available in country shops. For Loxwood’s shopkeepers the international origins of goods mattered at the counter and in the prices charged by wholesalers. Tea, sugar and cloth reached the village through traders and railway deliveries.

Roads, Tollgates and the Railway Stations, 1876–1877

The closing years of the turnpike system altered traffic through Alfold and Loxwood. For more than a century roads had been improved and maintained by trustees who collected tolls at gates. Travellers paid according to their vehicle, animals or other categories fixed by the Acts and regulations. The cost of maintaining turnpikes, the growth of railways and changes in local government gradually brought many of these trusts to an end.

In the Alfold district the toll gates were removed in 1877. People using the road could now travel along the former turnpike roads free of the old gate tolls. A signal box built at Billingshurst railway station in 1876 controlled train movements by means of the lever and signalling equipment supplied to the line. The installation used a Saxby and Farmer design. Maintenance of the former turnpike road still required money, materials and labour, and highway authorities retained responsibility for the surface, bridges and drainage. The road from Loxwood towards Alfold, Guildford and the stations continued to carry carts, horses, walkers and occasional coaches. The railway had made journeys to Rudgwick and Cranleigh stations regular parts of village business. Coal merchants, carriers and grocers arranged deliveries, while farmers used the goods yards for consignments. A horse drawn cart remained necessary between Loxwood and the railway because there was no station in the village itself.

Wisborough Green Commemorates John King, 1877

In 1877 a three-light stained-glass east window by H. Hughes was installed in St Peter ad Vincula at Wisborough Green. It depicted the Annunciation, Nativity and Ascension and commemorated John King of Loxwood House. The King family had held land around Loxwood for generations, and its members had appeared repeatedly among the men entrusted with the chapel’s property.

The memorial placed a Loxwood family name in the mother church four years after the creation of Loxwood’s separate district. The east window marked a continuing connection between the families of Loxwood and the older parish church at Wisborough Green. Its three scenes were installed by the glaziers during the later stages of the church’s Victorian improvements.

The Village School Is Completed and Opens, 1877–1878

During 1877 the School Board arranged the final work needed at Loxwood School. On 5 June it accepted Henry Spooner’s tender of £53 15s for boundary walling, brick paving and fencing, with completion required in August. Books, slates, desks and other equipment were ordered, and the classrooms were fitted out for teaching. On 16 October Reverend Trigge asked permission to use the building for Sunday school. The board agreed to allow the use without rent, provided that no expense or damage was charged to it. Emma Trigge’s Sunday classes could then meet in a larger and more suitable room than those previously available. Meanwhile the village church continued to worship in the 1822 brick nave beside Church Cottage. The old chapel remained central to parish services and meetings, and families walked to it from farms along Spy Lane and the River Lox.

On Monday 7 January 1878 Loxwood’s new village school opened for daily instruction. Charles Smith was appointed schoolmaster, and his wife Lydia assisted with teaching, including sewing. The couple had worked in east London before coming to Sussex. The main room contained tiered desks arranged in four blocks, with accommodation initially planned for forty-eight children. The school also had space for infants, heating and a small area for the teacher’s work. Children arrived from cottages and farms by foot. Some had walked through wet lanes or along roads used by carts, while others lived closer to the vicarage and river crossing. Their lessons included reading, writing and arithmetic, with other subjects and practical work determined by the teacher and school standards. Slates and copybooks were used for practice, and attendance was recorded in the school register.

The schoolmaster had to organise several ages and levels of ability within a limited space. He prepared lessons, checked exercises, maintained order and reported to inspectors. Lydia Smith’s sewing instruction gave girls practical training in work commonly expected in households and paid service. Inspectors assessed pupils’ progress, and government grants depended partly upon satisfactory results under the rules of the period. Parents had to plan children’s attendance alongside farm employment and household duties. Children whose older siblings had spent much of their time working could now acquire regular literacy and numeracy instruction. Religious teaching continued through the Sunday school associated with Reverend and Emma Trigge.

Loxwood Place and the Return of John Arthur Garton, 1879

An estate advertisement in 1879 offered the manor of Loxwood with Loxwood Place farmhouse and approximately 174 acres. The property stood near the old chapel on land that had appeared in the 1848 sale of the wider Drungewick and Loxwood interests. Its yard, barns, moat and large farmhouse had been part of local farming for generations, while the surrounding road and fields were changing as new homes and businesses appeared. Prospective buyers considered the acreage, tenants, buildings, access to roads and potential agricultural income. Sale particulars presented houses and farmland through descriptions and plans that could be read by investors outside Sussex.

John Arthur Garton returned from London to Loxwood in July 1879 at the age of fifty. He had left the village as a boy in 1839 and had become a successful butcher, with a place in the affairs of the Worshipful Company of Butchers. For his return Garton paid for a village feast near the Onslow Arms. A large gathering assembled in the meadows and open ground beside the road, with food and entertainment provided for local people. He travelled by railway to Rudgwick and completed the journey by road. The feast became an annual event. Garton brought friends and relatives from London, engaged musicians and arranged generous hospitality. Children were invited as well as adults, and the celebrations grew to include games, gifts and speeches. The visits were remembered as much for Garton’s conversations with villagers as for the size of the meals.

Schools and the Dependants’ Early Shops, 1880

The Elementary Education Act of 1880 made school attendance compulsory for children aged five to ten across England and Wales, with exemptions under the law. Attendance officers and school boards had to enforce the rules, while parents were expected to send children to school during the required periods. The change increased the importance of the classrooms erected at Loxwood only two years earlier.

Rudgwick opened its purpose-built school at Bucks Green in 1880, with Charles Woods serving as headmaster. In Loxwood, the school could now be expected to admit children from households in which adults worked on farms, in mills and in shops. Teachers needed to cope with pupils arriving with very different levels of earlier instruction. Some learned quickly after attending Sunday or private classes; others began with letters and basic sums. Increased attendance required more equipment, attention to classroom space and continued spending by the board. The same decade brought new work to village women through the Dependants’ cooperative businesses. Women who had learned to manage purchases, stock, accounts and customers could hold positions of responsibility within the congregation’s shops. Domestic service continued to employ many, and girls leaving school often had to choose between residence in an employer’s house, household work at home and opportunities in local trading businesses.

Felix Foster was one of the earlier local supporters of the Dependants. He had traded at Black Hall, near the road through Loxwood, and his shop supplied groceries and drapery to residents. His business grew from the network of religious households that Sirgood had encouraged to work and support one another. Foster also dealt with ordinary village customers who needed provisions or household cloth.

Foster died in 1880, and his widow Sarah continued the business. The enterprise formed part of the commercial experience that Dependants would bring to their larger Combination Stores. Buying goods in quantity, stocking shelves, keeping accounts and sharing wages required more than the willingness of a congregation to worship together. Members had to learn the practical habits of retailing and manage business risks. The early shops occupied existing houses and premises along the village road. Their proprietors made use of the traffic moving between Alfold, the farms and the Onslow Arms.

The 1881 Census and the Small Farms of Loxwood

The 1881 census named James Puttock, aged sixty-six, as farming thirty acres at Spy Farm. His wife Mary, aged fifty-eight, lived with him and their children Jane, Margaret, Alice and Peter. Fifteen-year-old Peter was already working as an agricultural labourer. A thirty-acre farm could contain meadow, pasture and fields under crops alongside house, garden and yard. Members of the family worked both inside the dwelling and on the land, and the amount of paid assistance available depended upon the holding’s income. Peter’s occupation indicates that he earned agricultural wages, which might involve work for his own family or another employer depending upon the circumstances of the season.

At Fletchings the 1881 return described William Steer, aged sixty, as a lath binder and Ann Steer, sixty-three, as resident with him. Laths were narrow wooden strips used with plaster in walls and ceilings. Cutting, preparing and binding them drew directly upon timber supplies, carpentry and the building trade. William’s work demonstrates how woodland products remained valuable even as railway transport and imported grain altered other rural markets. The census also recorded the continuing development of businesses along the turnpike. At Hill Top the grocer’s shop was part of a group of property gradually enlarged with brick fronts and adjoining homes. Shopkeepers received parcels and goods through the station network, and customers from farms could buy an increasing range of manufactured articles at the village counter.

John Loxwood King Enters the Architectural Profession, 1882

John Loxwood King became an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1882 after working in the offices of Henry Woodyer and Alfred Waterhouse. He belonged to the Loxwood King family, whose earlier members had held chapel trust property and whose memorial east window had been installed at Wisborough Green in 1877. Among his professional sponsors was the architect Rowland Plumbe. Woodyer had worked on churches, schools and colleges, while Waterhouse designed large commercial and public buildings in London and other cities.

Pulborough Provides a Coffee Tavern and Reading Rooms, 1882

Pulborough’s station had opened in 1859, bringing a cattle market and new roadside businesses to the ground near the railway. Farmers used the station for livestock and goods, while the village’s old centre continued around Church Place, Lower Street and the road over the Arun. By 1882 residents had also provided a coffee tavern and Reading Rooms near the junction of Church Hill and Lower Street. A coffee tavern offered refreshments in premises distinct from the village public houses, and the rooms provided newspapers and places for meetings. Such enterprises were part of a growing effort to make reading and organised recreation available to working people.

Village Schools, Garton Feasts and the Benefit Society, 1882–1883

By the early 1880s the school had developed beyond its first small intake, while John Arthur Garton’s summer visits had become part of the village calendar. From 1882 he and his wife Sarah stayed at Loxwood Place as guests of Sydney Botting. The farmhouse grounds provided space for assembled children, guests, tents and games, and the road from Rudgwick station could carry the visiting party in horse-drawn vehicles.

The schoolchildren had a conspicuous role in the annual celebration. They greeted visitors, sang and took part in activities organised for them. A benefactor who had attended Sunday school in Alfold as a boy could now speak to children taught at a village school that had opened during his lifetime. Books and games were among the gifts associated with the visits. For the Bottings the gatherings brought national business connections into a rural household. Sydney Botting’s family possessed farming and milling interests in the district, while Garton’s success came from London butchery and the trade networks of the capital.

In 1883 Garton’s party arrived by train at Rudgwick and travelled towards Loxwood through a decorated approach to the village. A triumphal arch near the entrance to Loxwood Place welcomed him back to his native village, and the Alfold band played as the party passed. Children assembled to greet their visitors and later received books, cricket bats, balls, stumps and games. The local press recorded that John Cooper, described as the oldest man in Loxwood, addressed Garton during the festivities. He spoke of having lived in the village for almost eighty years. His memory reached back to the period before the canal opened, and he had known the changes to its farms, roads and houses throughout the century.

The Onslow Arms Benefit Society held its own anniversary during 1883. Reverend Trigge preached at the morning service, and members then walked to a meadow close to the inn where a large tent had been erected. Robert Knowles supplied the dinner, and the Alfold Brass Band played under John Tate. The society had 121 members, whose subscriptions supported one another during illness and other difficulties under the society’s rules.

Henry Napper Records the Medieval Altar Stone, November 1883

In November 1883 Henry Frederick Napper gave an account of the old altar stone associated with Loxwood chapel to the Horsham Advertiser. Napper belonged to a family closely connected with the chapel’s property and worship. Richard Napper had been among the local men named in the petition to Bishop Robert Rede in 1404, and later generations had acted as trustees and church officers.

Henry stated that the altar stone had been removed from the chapel during the Reformation and concealed in the kitchen chimney of the neighbouring priest’s house, now called Church Cottage. His account described the stone as built into the masonry as a substantial support above the hearth. He also said that the stone had later been taken from the chimney and moved to the vicarage at Wisborough Green, where it had been used as a garden seat. Napper had personal memories of the chapel’s enlargement in 1822. Napper recalled laying the first stone of the chapel extension in 1822 when he was nine years old; his father had been a churchwarden at Wisborough Green.

Rural Electors Gain the Vote, 1884

The Representation of the People Act of 1884 extended household and lodger voting qualifications in county constituencies on terms closer to those already operating in parliamentary boroughs. More rural men became eligible to vote, including people who occupied qualifying houses without owning the land on which they stood. The Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 then rearranged parliamentary constituencies and seats.

For men living in the Loxwood district the legislation changed the qualifications by which they might appear on an electoral register. The registration process still required that a person’s address and occupation meet the statutory rules. Women remained excluded from parliamentary elections, and some men continued outside the franchise. Local political organisers had to identify newly qualified voters and explain the election arrangements. Elections were now conducted using the secret ballot introduced in 1872. Political parties needed to persuade electors without knowing how each person actually voted. Rural issues such as agricultural employment, taxes, education and landownership became important subjects for campaigners.

The Combination Stores Open and John Sirgood Dies, 1885

In 1885 the Dependants established their Combination Stores near the pond on the road through the upper village. The new premises brought several forms of retail trade under the direction of people belonging to Sirgood’s congregation. Groceries and drapery were important parts of the early business, and the organisation developed further departments as it acquired capital and customers. Women carried major responsibilities for management, selling, purchasing and serving at the counters.

The stores operated alongside the older grocers and tradesmen already established in Loxwood. They drew custom from inhabitants who attended the parish church and from people connected with the Dependants. Members could supply produce from smallholdings or work in the shop, and the income helped support the community. The stores gave their customers a place to buy provisions and gave workers practical training in a trade. John Sirgood died on 19 October 1885 and was buried in the small burial ground beside the Dependants’ chapel in Spy Lane. By then the congregation had meeting houses and business connections across parts of Sussex and Surrey. His followers continued their worship and cooperative enterprises under local leaders.

Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and the Village Churches, 1886–1887

In June 1887 Britain celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Victoria’s accession. London held major public ceremonies, including a thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey on 21 June attended by members of the royal family and representatives of foreign courts. The Queen’s ministers presented the event as a celebration of a long reign, and towns and villages arranged their own dinners, concerts, decorations, services and charitable gifts. Plaistow marked the jubilee with a clock associated with Holy Trinity Church. The church, built in the 1850s, stood beside the village pond and the Sun Inn, at the crossing of roads used by residents from Kirdford, Ifold and the surrounding farms. A public clock gave villagers a visible measure of time close to a church whose bell and services already helped order the week. Later stained glass continued the work of improving its interior.

At Loxwood the Queen’s reign could be followed through changes that had occurred since the 1830s: a railway station at Rudgwick, the school, a separate parish, the new vicarage and shops established by the Dependants. Some of the adults celebrating the jubilee had been children when John Arthur Garton left Loxwood in 1839. Older residents could remember barges approaching the wharf while younger workers had known railway deliveries throughout their working lives. Church of England clergy conducted thanksgiving services for Victoria’s fifty years on the throne.

Corrall Farmer and the Constable Family Come to Loxwood, 1887

In 1887 the artist Corrall Farmer married Elizabeth Constable and established a home at Linden House, among the substantial residences and shops along Loxwood’s principal road. Their marriage brought together two families with close connections to railway engineering. Corrall’s father, John Stinson Farmer, was a partner in the signalling firm Saxby & Farmer, which manufactured the interlocking apparatus used to control points and signals on busy railway lines. Railway expansion had carried equipment of this type into signal boxes throughout Britain, including installations on routes used by travellers from Loxwood.

John Stinson Farmer’s daughter Emily married Lionel Leslie Constable in 1884; Lionel was Elizabeth Constable’s brother. The families were associated with Ifold House and the land extending eastwards towards Vicarage Hill. Corrall and Elizabeth’s young household later included their son Neil John Constable Farmer, recorded at Linden House in the 1891 census alongside three domestic servants. Corrall served in church property affairs and became treasurer of the subscription fund for the proposed new St John the Baptist’s Church. Rowland Plumbe, a friend of the elder John Stinson Farmer, eventually prepared the building plans.

The Old Wharf Ground Becomes a Public Dispute, 1887–1889

The open ground opposite the Onslow Arms had been used for wharf business during the canal’s working years and later for fairs and village recreation. Robert Knowles, the landlord of the inn, asserted control over part of this land in the late 1880s. He placed an old railway carriage there and erected fencing. Local people objected, maintaining that the ground had long been open for common use.

The dispute produced physical confrontations over the fence and claims that people had been injured. It eventually reached the County Court, where witnesses described the ground as they remembered it. Henry Frederick Napper of Lakers Lodge told the court that his father had stored hoops there during the canal’s working years and that he had done the same without paying for the privilege. James Overington, a wood dealer, and Maurice Botting of Brewhurst also gave evidence. Other witnesses recalled stoolball, skittles and ninepins played on the open land. The jury found against Knowles. He appealed to the Divisional Court, arguing that he was entitled to exclude villagers from the ground. The judges upheld the jury’s decision and dismissed his appeal with costs.

Kirdford Opens a Reading Room, 1888

Kirdford opened a Reading Room in 1888, giving inhabitants a place to consult newspapers and meet outside the parish church, school and inns. By then the village had possessed a permanent school for almost seventy years, and census schedules named agricultural labourers, farmers, wheelwrights, millers, blacksmiths, shopkeepers and carriers among its residents.

Printed newspapers carried market prices, parliamentary debates and reports of public events into households whose relatives often worked outside Kirdford. Local people gathered for cricket, friendly-society meetings, church events and musical entertainments, using premises that had to be booked, opened, heated and maintained. The Reading Room added an indoor place for these activities near the village centre.

Garton Celebrates Fifty Years since Leaving Loxwood, 1889

The 1889 Garton festival marked fifty years since John Arthur Garton had left Loxwood with his family. He and Sarah returned from London and stayed at Loxwood Place with Sydney Botting, as they had done in earlier summers. Tents were erected behind the farmhouse, and villagers gathered for food, speeches, singing, games and music. The Alfold band and other performers supplied entertainment during a celebration that continued into the evening.

Committees arranged invitations and provisions, while people prepared ground for marquees, seating and games. Cooks and caterers supplied meals and refreshments. Local carriers and horse owners brought visitors from the railway, and village children were assembled in groups under the supervision of adults and teachers. Garton addressed people whom he had known as neighbours and family friends.

Estates and Village Households, 1890–1891

In June 1890 the Pallinghurst Estate offered a large group of farms and land for sale, including Spy Farm together with Songhurst and Brick Kiln holdings. The combined lot extended to more than 517 acres. Auction particulars named the properties, measured their land and described them for potential purchasers. The transaction belonged to a period in which agricultural owners reviewed their investments and some estates were divided or sold.

For the residents of Spy Farm the land sale concerned the property around their home and workplace. Fields recorded on earlier tithe maps were now described within a larger commercial lot. A buyer might retain a farm tenant, rearrange field boundaries or alter how the land was let. The auction documents provide a different view of the countryside from the census: the household schedule named the people occupying a farm, while the sale particulars described ownership, acreages and the terms offered to purchasers. The regional property market also included cottages and small commercial sites around Chapel Road, Alfold and Kirdford.

The 1891 census gave officials another detailed account of households across the ecclesiastical district and neighbouring civil parishes. Contemporary trade directories later reported the population of Loxwood’s ecclesiastical parish as approximately 700 in 1891. Families continued to occupy a mixture of older timber-framed cottages, late-Victorian brick houses, farmsteads and lodgings beside shops. At Linden House Corrall Farmer and Elizabeth lived with their young son Neil John Constable Farmer. Farmer gave his occupation as artist, and three domestic servants worked in the household: Eliza Cheesmore, Annie Crees and Rosina Baker. Their work included cooking, caring for a child and maintaining the house. Elsewhere in the district young women occupied similar positions in substantial households, while some earned wages in shops or through the Dependants’ businesses.

Fletchings had changed occupants again. Alfred Ayling, an agricultural labourer, was head of the household after the Steer family’s long association with the building. The old cottage had accommodated different families and trades over fifty years, from agricultural labour to butchery, woodwork and teaching. Its residents’ names and occupations allow the changing uses of the house to be followed without assuming that the fabric of the building was continually altered. The census also shows how mobility continued to affect households. Some people born in Loxwood worked in other parishes; others settled in Loxwood after arriving from Surrey, Sussex towns or London.

Elementary Schools Become Free, 1891

In 1891 the government introduced grants that enabled public elementary schools to remove ordinary attendance fees. Earlier pupils might have paid a small weekly sum, and collecting those fees could place a burden upon families with several children. Loxwood School had already grown substantially since its opening. Records give 111 pupils in 1884 and around 120 in 1886, far above the first accommodation planned for forty-eight in the main room. Teachers had to adjust classroom arrangements and teaching methods as numbers increased. School inspectors examined attendance and attainment, and the board arranged expenditure upon premises and supplies.

The Dependants’ Shops and Women’s Employment, 1891–1892

The Combination Stores continued to develop after John Sirgood’s death. Members of the Dependant congregation managed different departments and used income from trade to support their religious community. Women held conspicuous positions in the shops, dealing with customers and accounts and supervising younger assistants. Some had grown up in agricultural households in which domestic service was otherwise a common route into paid work.

The movement’s smallholdings supplied fruit, vegetables and other produce. Purchasing stock for a general store also required access to wholesalers beyond Loxwood. Parcels and heavy consignments could come through the nearby railway stations, while carts brought them onward to the shops. The central location close to the pond made the stores convenient for people from surrounding farms as well as the immediate village. The Dependants extended their trading premises in stages. The buildings associated with the Combination Stores and their later steam bakery were developed in stages through the end of Victoria’s reign and into the Edwardian period.

The Tustin Memorial Chapel Opens at Kirdford, 6 October 1892

In 1892 Edward Lee, the Congregational minister at Billingshurst, asked the Reverend Jesse J. Tustin of Burstow Hall, near Horley, to help provide a permanent chapel for Kirdford worshippers. Tustin gave financial and practical support, and builders erected the red-brick Tustin Memorial Chapel beside Plaistow Road. The new building opened on 6 October 1892. Tustin conducted the opening ceremony, and visiting ministers and neighbouring congregations attended the services. Inside, the pulpit, seating, hymn books and an organ or harmonium furnished a meeting house for Scripture reading, prayer, singing and preaching.

Kirdford’s parish church of St John the Baptist continued to serve its Anglican congregation, while the new chapel gave local Congregationalists a place for Sunday worship, teaching and anniversary meetings. The chapel stood close to the businesses of Kirdford village, where Thomas Voice and his family worked at the mill, John Simpkins kept the Half Moon and Ephraim Stringer combined carrying with coal dealing.

John Stinson Farmer Dies at Ifold House, December 1892

John Stinson Farmer died at Ifold House on 12 December 1892. He had built his career in railway signalling and was a partner in Saxby & Farmer, the engineering firm responsible for widely used interlocking signal apparatus. The company manufactured machinery that railway staff used to prevent conflicting routes being set for trains moving through junctions and station approaches.

Farmer spent his later years at Ifold, close to Loxwood and Plaistow. His son Corrall had married Elizabeth Constable and lived at Linden House, while his daughter Emily was the wife of Lionel Constable of Ifold. Their family friend Rowland Plumbe was among John Stinson Farmer’s executors and later became the architect of Loxwood’s new parish church.

John Arthur Garton’s Final Festival and the Proposed New Church, 1893

John Arthur Garton made his last festival visit to Loxwood in July 1893. The children assembled, speeches were made and the visiting party again enjoyed hospitality at Loxwood Place. Garton’s remarks turned towards the proposed replacement of the old parish church. Remembering the Bible he had won at Alfold Sunday school before leaving Loxwood, he promised a contribution to the new building and told those assembled that he wished to have a brick in its wall.

Reverend Trigge had been seeking support for a new church. The existing chapel beside the pond had a brick nave dating from 1822 and occupied ground alongside Church Cottage. The congregation wanted a larger building and a churchyard in which Loxwood residents could be buried. Architect Rowland Plumbe of London prepared plans and an illustration for an appeal to potential subscribers. The initial proposal placed the new church on the old site beside the pond. Building there required careful attention to the older buildings, the available ground and the plans for churchyard and access. The subscription campaign involved Trigge, Maurice Botting as honorary secretary, Corrall Farmer as treasurer and local donors including the Garton family. John Arthur Garton died on 8 April 1894. His widow Sarah subsequently honoured his promise to help pay for the church.

Parish Councils and Agricultural Shows, 1894–1895

The Local Government Act of 1894 reorganised many aspects of civil local government in England and Wales. It established elected parish councils for qualifying rural parishes and reorganised rural district administration. Local boards and councils acquired duties relating to paths, public property and other local affairs within the limits of the statute. Loxwood remained within its older civil parish arrangements, although its Church of England district had been separately established in 1873. Decisions about rates, roads and local administration followed the statutory civil authorities rather than the church district alone. Residents encountered parish and district institutions alongside the school board, churchwardens and chapel trustees. At Petworth and across neighbouring districts officials had to adjust to the new council system. Public business was recorded in minutes, rates were assessed and disputes about roads or other property could be brought before the relevant authorities.

Loxwood held agricultural shows that brought livestock, crops and local workmanship before visitors from the surrounding parishes. Fields near the Onslow Arms provided room for exhibitions, demonstrations and gatherings. Farmers brought animals for judging, and tradesmen supplied equipment or exhibited the products of local work. Stewards arranged the entries, controlled the grounds and supervised the programme. Maurice Botting of Brewhurst was one of the local men associated with the shows and with other public organisations. Farming and milling gave him a direct interest in the condition of horses, crops, machinery and the skills required by rural businesses. Agricultural societies elsewhere in Sussex performed similar functions, encouraging competition, sharing information and arranging occasions on which farmers and labourers met.

The shows depended on the same road network used to reach markets and railway stations. A farmer brought an animal along the lanes from Kirdford, a visitor came from Alfold or Wisborough Green and a musician or supplier might arrive by train at Rudgwick. They also provided customers for village inns and shops during the days of the exhibitions.

Loxwood Builds a Reading Room and Chichester Appoints a Bishop, 1895–1896

Richard Durnford, Bishop of Chichester since 1870, died in 1895. Ernest Roland Wilberforce became Bishop of Chichester in 1896. The change brought a new diocesan bishop into office shortly before Loxwood had to appoint a successor to Reverend Trigge and obtain approval for its new church. The bishop’s officers dealt with the parish clergy and the building plans while local subscribers gathered the money.

In 1896 John Elliott, proprietor of Hill Top Stores, gave a parcel of land for a village Reading Room. Residents raised money to build and furnish the premises, which became a place for reading, meetings and social activities. The building stood along the principal village road, with access for people from the chapel, shops and surrounding houses. The Reading Room offered newspapers and other printed material at a time when books were expensive for many households. Residents used the room to read newspapers and to attend organised lectures, discussions and meetings. Local committees had to arrange subscriptions, maintain the building and decide how its rooms would be used. Elliott was closely involved with the village’s trading and postal services. He owned or operated commercial premises at Hill Top and later dealt in property along the same road.

The Diamond Jubilee, Jubilee Villas and Plaistow’s Church Window, 1897

Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in June 1897 marked sixty years on the throne. London held a great procession and public thanksgiving, while towns and villages across Britain and the Empire arranged celebrations. The Queen travelled through streets lined with crowds, and photographs and printed reports carried the occasion into homes far from the capital. At Loxwood the name Jubilee Villas became attached to a pair of late-Victorian houses near the Combination Stores. The buildings had appeared on the revised Ordnance Survey mapping of the 1890s and had matching gables and upper walls clad with tiles. They were associated with accommodation provided for older members of the Dependants.

Plaistow’s Holy Trinity Church received stained glass by the workshop of Charles Eamer Kempe in 1897, adding to the improvements made since its construction four decades earlier. The new window brought coloured glass and commemorative artwork into a church used by families from the northern part of Kirdford parish. The jubilee clock and window were visible additions to a building that had replaced the old St Thomas chapel. Loxwood’s own church remained the brick building by Church Cottage, and its vicar was working to finance the replacement planned on the village’s older church site.

The Death of Trigge and the Dispute over a New Vicar, 1897–1898

Reverend John Davies Trigge died on 12 July 1897 after more than twenty years as Loxwood’s first vicar. He had served the old chapel during the transition to a separate ecclesiastical district, helped bring a vicarage into the village and worked for the establishment of its school. On 15 July parishioners assembled at the old church for his funeral service. Teachers, schoolchildren and clergy attended along with local residents.

The Reverend W. H. B. Mainprice, Vicar of Wisborough Green, conducted the service, and Corrall Farmer accompanied the hearse to Brighton, where Trigge was buried. The congregation had to arrange continuing worship and pastoral care while a successor was appointed. Trigge’s death also brought into public discussion the older terms under which the inhabitants of Loxwood had supported a chaplain. The selection of a new minister became a dispute between local church officers and the vicar of Wisborough Green over the rights associated with the chapel and the separate district.

The Vicar of Wisborough Green appointed Reverend Connard Hatton Hildebrand to serve Loxwood. Henry Frederick Napper of Lakers Lodge objected, maintaining that the inhabitants possessed a right to choose their own minister. He relied upon the medieval licence issued by Bishop Robert Rede in 1404, under which the inhabitants had been permitted to provide their own chaplain at their expense. Napper withheld six months of tithe payments amounting to £11 6s 10d during the dispute. Corrall Farmer supported his efforts to investigate the old deed. In August 1897 the solicitor Edward Ryley prepared an English translation of the 1404 episcopal grant and its later confirmation. The documents connected the Victorian argument with the original petition, the requirement to maintain a local place of worship and the rights reserved to Wisborough Green.

The dispute required careful distinction between the early medieval permission, the later legal history of the chapel property and Victoria’s Order in Council of 1873. The petition had given the inhabitants permission to build and support a chapel, while the Victorian parish and its incumbent operated under nineteenth-century Church law. Napper and his supporters sought to establish what rights local contributors retained when a new minister was appointed.

The Church Project Moves to Vicarage Hill, 1898

The campaign for a new parish church continued during Reverend Hildebrand’s incumbency. Lionel Leslie Constable of Ifold offered land on Vicarage Hill opposite the school, allowing a church and burial ground to be built in a new position. The site lay across Vicarage Hill from the school opened in 1878, with the new vicarage farther up the slope. The choice required new arrangements for access, foundations and the churchyard. The land adjoined the road descending towards the River Lox, where villagers from the bridge, Spy Lane and outlying farms could approach the new building. The parish would retain its historic association with St John the Baptist while obtaining enough ground for a larger church and burials.

Lionel and Emily Constable of Ifold held a bazaar in support of the building fund in 1898. Such events raised money through the sale of goods and contributions collected from supporters. Corrall Farmer, related to the Constables by marriage, remained involved with the work, and Maurice Botting assisted with its organisation. Sarah Garton continued the support promised by her late husband. Rowland Plumbe’s designs provided the basis for the building project. He had worked on other churches, housing and public buildings, and his professional connections included the Farmer and Constable families.

The School, Shopkeepers and the Post Office, 1898–1899

Loxwood’s school continued to operate under the local education system as the nineteenth century drew to a close. The Education Department required attendance registers and inspection, and pupils studied subjects intended to prepare them for work and ordinary life. In 1899 national legislation raised the general compulsory school-leaving age to twelve, with the detailed rules governing exemptions and enforcement. The village post office also moved. John Elliott relinquished the position of sub-postmaster, and John Foster Dennis received the appointment. On 1 June 1899 the post office opened for money-order and savings-bank business in premises opposite the village pond, beside Hall House. Hill Top continued as a shop, while Elliott developed property along the road.

In 1899 Elliott married Kate Botting, who had worked in the grocery and drapery business of her family at Billingshurst. The 1881 census had recorded Kate as a young draper’s assistant in the shop of her father George Botting, who employed several workers. The post office handled letters, parcels, orders and savings deposits, bringing national services to a shop counter within the village. The post office provided money-order and savings-bank business at the premises opposite the pond from 1 June 1899.

Fire Destroys the Upper Floors of Brewhurst Mill, 23 August 1899

On Wednesday 23 August 1899 Brewhurst Mill caught fire while an oil engine was being used. At about a quarter past two in the afternoon Stephen Moon junior noticed oil escaping from a joint in the engine’s feed pipe. As he tried to stop the leak, oil caught fire at a lamp. Flames spread to surrounding woodwork and the upper weatherboarded floors. Moon suffered slight burns while attempting to control the outbreak. Maurice Botting was working nearby and hurried to the engine room with employees. The men used water and tried to keep the fire from reaching other buildings, but the flames spread through the upper part of the mill. Their efforts then concentrated on protecting the engine and nearby property. The mill held more than a thousand sacks of wheat, oats, barley, maize and peas, together with flour, meal and machinery.

A messenger went to Alfold Post Office to send a telegram requesting the Horsham Volunteer Fire Brigade. The brigade left Horsham at 3.10 p.m. and reached Brewhurst at 4.05 with two manual engines and fifteen men commanded by Captain Brooks and Lieutenant Penfold. The firefighters pumped water for hours while timber floors and much of the machinery collapsed. They later had to extinguish flames in a nearby oak tree and continue wetting the smouldering remains.

The wind helped protect a cart shed, cottages and ricks on the other side of the narrow cart road, although they were soaked against the heat. The lower brick walls of the mill remained, and the newly installed engine escaped with comparatively little damage. The damage was estimated at about £2,000. Maurice Botting left two men to watch the premises overnight, and the debris still required attention the next day. The Botting brothers planned the rebuilding, and the work continued into the following reign.

The Village and its New Church Building, 1900

The year 1900 began with Loxwood’s new church project occupying the parish officers and subscribers. The existing church beside the pond continued to be used for services, and the new site on Vicarage Hill awaited builders. The school across the road served children whose parents worked on farms, in shops and at the mill. The Combination Stores, post office and Reading Room offered other centres for trade and meetings.

Local businesses had widened their connections beyond the parish. Maurice Botting and his elder brother John Botting of Wanford purchased Brewhurst in 1900, arranging two mortgages totalling £7,150. They faced the rebuilding of mill premises damaged in the fire of August 1899. Grocers relied upon suppliers whose goods reached nearby stations by rail. Farmers could consign produce to distant customers and buy coal, machinery or household goods transported from manufacturing districts. The horse and cart still linked houses and farms with the railway. When officials prepared the 1901 census, they added questions asking whether each person worked independently, worked for an employer or carried out an occupation at home.

On Tuesday 28 August 1900 parishioners and invited guests assembled on Vicarage Hill for the laying of the foundation stone of the new St John the Baptist’s Church. Archdeacon Francis John Mount performed the ceremony in the afternoon, and the building project advanced from drawings, subscriptions and land agreements into construction. Henry Spooner of Alfold Bars was the building contractor, working from plans by Rowland Plumbe. The site stood opposite the school near the vicarage, on land given from the Ifold estate by Lionel Constable. Stone and other materials had to be brought to the village by cart, and labourers prepared foundations on the slope above the River Lox. Masons set the walls, carpenters prepared roof timbers and craftsmen worked on window openings, joinery and fittings.

Money for the work came from diocesan funds, local families and individual subscribers. Early appeals had named £300 from the Bishop of Chichester’s Fund, £100 from the Chichester Diocesan Association and larger personal gifts from Reverend Trigge, Sarah Garton and Corrall Farmer, with other contributions following. Organisers kept accounts and continued to seek support while the contractors worked. A larger Anglican church had been desired since before Trigge’s death, and the new site offered space for a churchyard serving Loxwood’s growing parish. Worship continued at the older church while the walls rose across the road from the school.

Victoria’s Final Months, 1900–January 1901

The last year of Victoria’s life was dominated nationally by the South African War, which had begun in October 1899, and by military and political arguments over the cost and conduct of the campaign. British soldiers served far from home, and the government arranged transport, supplies and hospitals across long distances. Newspapers carried reports of fighting, sieges and the conditions endured by soldiers and civilians. Victoria had become a familiar public figure through photographs, coins, postage stamps and printed illustrations. Her image reached every part of the country through the postal service and money used in village shops. Many younger people in Loxwood had known no other reigning monarch. Schoolchildren had learned her name from lessons and public ceremonies, while older inhabitants remembered the coronation and the celebrations for the Golden and Diamond Jubilees.

In Loxwood the brick chapel near Church Cottage remained in use throughout the winter. Its congregation knew that the new church on Vicarage Hill was still under construction. At Brewhurst, the Botting brothers were arranging the reconstruction of their mill, and the village’s shops and farms continued their work along the roads to Billingshurst, Rudgwick, Kirdford and Alfold.

Queen Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight on 22 January 1901, aged eighty-one. Her eldest son succeeded as Edward VII. The announcement brought a new sovereign to Britain and changed the royal prayers in parish churches. On Sunday 27 January 1901 Reverend Connard Hildebrand conducted two memorial services for Victoria in the old St John the Baptist’s church beside Church Cottage. Building continued on Vicarage Hill under Edward VII. The congregation worshipped in the old St John the Baptist’s church until 18 August 1901; Archdeacon Francis John Mount opened the new church on Tuesday 20 August.