The route beside Loxwood
Jessop proposed a route of about seventeen miles between Shalford and Newbridge, with a short use of the River Arun. The prospectus published in The Times on 17 October 1811 listed coal, stone and other heavy goods and described a route without a tunnel or major deep cutting.
The promoters also needed agreements with landowners whose estates lay in the proposed line. During the autumn of 1811 they negotiated with objecting landowners while the subscription list remained open. The company then prepared the plans and notices required for Parliament before the 1813 Act authorised the works.
Formal notices of the intended bill appeared in the London Gazette and in newspapers circulating in Surrey and Sussex. The promoters deposited plans for the Parliamentary session, and the bill passed in spring 1813 before receiving Royal Assent on 19 April.
A separate canal proposal was also before Sussex in 1811. Engineers Francis and Netlam Giles surveyed a much longer line from the Croydon and Merstham system through Three Bridges, Crawley and Horsham to Newbridge. That proposal did not receive Parliamentary authority. Jessop’s route ran through the Sussex-Surrey border country and crossed the turnpike at Loxwood near Brewhurst Mill.
Edward Napper rebuilds Ifold House
Edward Napper began rebuilding Ifold while the canal promoters prepared their bill. He replaced the smaller house shown by Thomas Budgen with a larger residence above Loxwoodhills Pond. Mark Antony Lower, the nineteenth-century Sussex historian, later wrote that Edward Napper had built a “commodious mansion” at Ifold.
The house was orientated on a church axis and faced south across the park. The carriage drive entered from Plaistow Road beside the Lodge and ran for about half a mile through South Wood. Later estate particulars record the line of the drive and the mature arrangement of the house, park and gardens.
Edward was nominated for the Sussex shrievalty in November 1811 and served as High Sheriff of Sussex in 1813. Parliament gave Royal Assent to the Wey and Arun Junction Canal Act on 19 April 1813.
Building the Wey and Arun Junction Canal
Construction began under Josias Jessop’s direction after the 1813 Act. Contractor Zachariah Keppel of Alfold undertook much of the work. By the end of 1813 nearly three miles of canal had been completed. Brickworks supplied material at Sidney Wood and Alfold, while Pulborough stone was used for locks and bridges on the southern section.
The completed canal had twenty-three locks, thirty-five bridges, eight wharves, five lock-keepers’ houses and two aqueducts. The locks were about seventy-five feet long and thirteen feet wide and could take barges carrying up to about fifty tons. Vachery Pond supplied the summit level near Cranleigh. The completed canal cost about £105,000.
From Newbridge, sixteen locks raised the waterway from about thirty-nine feet above sea level to the summit near Alfold and Cranleigh, about 163 feet above sea level. Beyond the summit, the canal descended towards Shalford. Vachery Pond supplied water to the upper level. The Loxwood section lay between the summit and Newbridge.
The first tolls were collected in December 1815 when boats could reach Bramley. Work continued southwards during 1816, and the company completed the junction between the Wey and Arun systems in August.
The canal opens at Loxwood
The Wey and Arun Junction Canal officially opened on 28 September 1816. Loaded barges carrying coal and timber took part in the opening journey from Alfold to Guildford.
Ifold House stood west of the waterway, reached from Plaistow Road through South Wood. At Loxwood the new canal crossed the turnpike and passed Brewhurst Mill.
The mansion and its grounds
A later sale catalogue gives the mature plan of the house that followed Edward’s rebuilding. A stone-flagged porch opened into an entrance hall about twenty-seven feet long and fifteen feet wide, with a twelve-foot ceiling and an open fireplace. The main ground-floor rooms were a morning room, a drawing room extending nearly thirty feet into a circular bay, a dining room about twenty-three feet by seventeen feet and a smoking room. The drawing room had a marble chimneypiece with a brass grate, and the dining room opened to the terrace.
The same catalogue records the principal approach as a drive of roughly half a mile from Plaistow Road. South Wood screened much of the approach before the road entered the park. The Lodge stood at the entrance, and the estate later used Chalk Road as a service approach.
Four principal bedrooms and two bathrooms occupied the first floor. Five further bedrooms or nurseries and another bathroom lay above. The eastern wing had a kitchen, scullery, housekeeper’s room, pantry, larder and cellar, with servants’ rooms on the upper floor. Brick stables near the mansion included stalls, loose boxes, coach houses, harness rooms, saddle rooms and lofts.
The walled kitchen garden had fruit trees, a vinery, plant house, potting shed and stores. Loxwoodhills Pond covered about four acres in its mature form and had a boathouse and landing stage. Later descriptions also record trout and coarse fish in the lake.
Foxbridge Farm and Edward Napper’s final years
The tithe assessment of the 1830s records 315 acres farmed with Ifold, while the house, garden and orchard occupied about four further acres. During Edward Napper’s ownership the mansion, park, gardens and lake stood beside an estate that had grown considerably from the property shown on Thomas Budgen’s map in 1806.
In October 1846 Foxbridge Farm was added to Ifold, bringing another 225½ acres into the property. The acquisition came thirty years after the Wey and Arun Junction Canal had opened through the countryside east of Ifold House.
Edward Napper died at Ifold House on 30 April 1847, aged sixty-nine. He had bought Ifold in 1811 as the canal project was being promoted, rebuilt the old manor house while the navigation was under construction, and lived for more than thirty years beside the completed waterway. Ifold House and the enlarged estate passed to his son John Napper in 1847.
