The parish from Pallingham to Loxwood
The historic parish of Wisborough Green stretched for many miles from the River Arun at Pallingham to Loxwood on the Surrey border. Its southern end lay among river meadows and low farmland; its northern end occupied the wooded clay country of the western Weald. Pallingham belonged to a wider manorial and riverside district. James Dallaway, a clergyman and early nineteenth-century historian of western Sussex, recorded land in Kirdford and Petworth, while Pallingham Manor Farm and Pallingham Quay were associated with Wisborough Green.
Medieval masonry survives within a later barn at Pallingham Manor Farm, close to the river corridor that became the southern entrance to the navigation. Roads from Kirdford, Petworth and the farms of southern Wisborough Green converged upon this stretch of the Arun. The route north from Pallingham later passed Newbridge, Drungewick, Brewhurst and Loxwood before leaving the historic parish near the Surrey boundary.
Pallingham and the early River Arun navigation
By the late sixteenth century the tidal River Arun was navigable to Pallingham Quay. Timber felled in the western Weald travelled by cart to the river, where it was stacked, loaded and carried downstream towards Arundel and the coast. P. A. L. Vine, a twentieth-century canal historian and author of London’s Lost Route to the Sea, described a route managed through weirs, gates and timed releases of water.
Pallingham Furnace operated in the same landscape from the late sixteenth century. Charcoal burners supplied fuel from surrounding woods, carts carried ore and flux, and water stored behind the furnace pond powered the bellows. Timber, charcoal, ore and finished iron moved between the riverside, farms and woodland tracks, giving Pallingham a transport role long before the statutory navigation.
The first route to Newbridge
The Onslow family held Pallingham and the Drungewick estate within the historic parish. Work begun in 1623 sought to extend navigation from Pallingham to Newbridge. The proposed line crossed flood-prone meadows where water levels also served drainage, fisheries, farms and mills. Newbridge was already identified as the northern terminal of the southern navigation.
A parliamentary proposal of 1641 sought a wider connection between the Arun and the River Wey. Its promoters calculated that a barge carrying twenty tons could replace 120 horses. The plan depended upon an improved route from Pallingham to Newbridge followed by a northern canal through the western Weald. The section through Wisborough Green parish remained central to every later scheme.
Newbridge and the parish road network
The Guildford and Arundel turnpike road was authorised in 1757. It passed through Alfold and Loxwood to Newbridge, where the north-south road met routes towards Wisborough Green, Billingshurst, Kirdford and Petworth. Farms across the central parish could reach Newbridge without travelling to a coastal town or major market.
Newbridge offered a practical location for warehouses, yards, horses and carriers. Heavy goods could arrive by water and continue by cart to Wisborough Green village, Drungewick, Loxwood and neighbouring farms. Grain, timber and agricultural produce could travel in the opposite direction towards Pallingham and the lower Arun.
The River Arun Navigation Act, 1785
Parliament passed the River Arun Navigation Act in 1785. Its title authorised improvement of the River Arun from Houghton Bridge to Pallenham Wharf and continuation from Pallingham to Newbridge. The Act incorporated the Company of Proprietors of the River Arun Navigation, with powers to purchase land, make cuts, construct locks and bridges, regulate traffic and collect tolls.
John King, a member of the King family of Greathouse near Loxwood, appeared among the proprietors. Greathouse stood close to the northern edge of the historic parish, while the navigation works began at Pallingham in the south. The company first met at the Swan in Pulborough in June 1785. A meeting at the Three Crowns in Wisborough Green in June 1786 brought contracts, finance and land negotiations into the village.
Building from Pallingham to Newbridge
The new section followed the Arun valley but required extensive engineering. Pallingham Lock raised vessels from the tidal river into the controlled navigation. Middle Lock, also called Lee Farm Lock, lifted the route through the central meadows. Orfold or Lordings Lock completed the rise towards Newbridge.
At Orfold the navigation crossed the River Arun on an aqueduct. A waterwheel raised river water into the upper pound, maintaining the level required for vessels approaching Newbridge. Embankments, cuts, sluices and bridges carried the route through a floodplain already divided by drainage channels, fields and parish roads.
The Pallingham-Newbridge navigation opened on 1 August 1787. The company contributed towards road repairs in Wisborough Green and neighbouring parishes because every barge cargo still depended upon carts for its final journey. Coal, lime, iron goods and manufactured articles travelled inland. Timber, grain, flour, bark and agricultural produce moved towards the lower Arun and the coast.
Newbridge Wharf and the Iron Railway
Newbridge Wharf became the principal transfer point for the central and northern parts of Wisborough Green parish. Roads led east towards Billingshurst, west towards Wisborough Green village and Petworth, and north through Loxwood towards Surrey. Nearby farms supplied horses, fodder, carts and labour.
Coal provided domestic and industrial fuel. Lime supported field improvement and building work. Timber, grain, flour, bark, hoops and farm produce left the district by water. Warehouses and yards concentrated goods beside the crossing, while carriers completed the journey to farms and settlements away from the canal.
In September 1801 the Morning Post published a proposal to extend the Surrey Iron Railway from Croydon through Reigate, Horsham, Slinfold, Itchingfield, Billingshurst and Wisborough Green to Newbridge. An iron railway was a horse-drawn plateway using cast-iron rails fixed to stone blocks. Merchants supplied their own horses and wagons and paid tolls to use the track.
The promoters planned a dock or basin at Newbridge with cuts, locks and works connecting the railway terminus to the Arun Navigation. Coal, lime and manufactured goods could have passed from railway wagons to barges and carts at the centre of the parish. The Newbridge extension remained a published proposal, while the Surrey Iron Railway opened between Wandsworth and Croydon in 1803.
The Junction Canal through Drungewick and Loxwood
Ten years later in 1813 Parliament authorised the Wey and Arun Junction Canal. George O’Brien Wyndham, third Earl of Egremont and owner of Petworth House, became its principal financial supporter. The canal opened on 28 September 1816 from Newbridge through the historic parish towards Stonebridge Wharf near Shalford, where it joined the Godalming Navigation and River Wey.
From Newbridge the line passed through farmland associated with Drungewick and Brewhurst before reaching Loxwood. Dallaway recorded about eleven miles of canal within Wisborough Green parish. A vessel could travel from Pallingham through Newbridge and Loxwood to the Wey near Guildford and continue towards the Thames.
The canal placed the full length of the parish within one transport corridor. Pallingham served as the southern entrance, Newbridge as the principal wharf and junction, and Loxwood as the northern canal settlement beside the turnpike.
Brewhurst Mill and Loxwood
Loxwood already possessed a working river and mill landscape when the Junction Canal arrived. A record of 1554 names Brewhurst with its watermill, buildings and land. The mill used a pond, dam and sluices to control the River Lox. The surviving building belongs largely to the late eighteenth century, with a cast-iron breast-shot waterwheel dating from about 1840.
The canal crossed the local road close to the Onslow Arms and the River Lox. Grain reached Brewhurst Mill from surrounding farms by cart, while flour and animal feed entered the road and canal network. Coal, ironwork, millstones and machinery could be carried close to the mill by water.
Towpath horses required fodder and stabling. Lock keepers, bargemen, carters, wharf labourers, millers and innkeepers worked along the Loxwood section. Traffic on the linked navigation reached about 23,000 tons in 1839, with the Wisborough Green parish route forming the central passage between the Arun and Surrey.
Connections beyond the parish
The navigation depended upon works outside Wisborough Green parish. Improvements at Hardham, including the cut, tunnel and locks opened in 1790, shortened the route from Pallingham towards Arundel and the coast. Hardham Mill, built in 1827, used water retained beside Hardham Lock at the junction of the Arun and the River Rother.
These lower-river works supported the parish route by improving access to southern markets. North of Loxwood, the Junction Canal continued through Surrey towards the River Wey. The local corridor remained the stretch from Pallingham through Newbridge, Drungewick, Brewhurst and Loxwood.
Railways, abandonment and the surviving parish landscape
Railway stations opened at Pulborough and Billingshurst in 1859. The railway between Guildford and Horsham followed in 1865, carrying goods more quickly through much of the canal’s trading district. Commercial traffic on the Junction Canal had almost ended by 1868, and Parliament authorised abandonment in 1871.
The upper Arun Navigation remained open until 1888. Canal land and structures returned to estate and agricultural use. Channels became drainage features, lock chambers stood within fields, and wharf buildings passed into ordinary occupation.
Organised restoration began in 1970, followed by the formation of the Wey & Arun Canal Trust in 1973. Restored locks, bridges and navigable sections at Loxwood preserve the northern part of the historic parish route. South of Newbridge, the sites of Pallingham Lock, Middle Lock, Lordings Lock, the aqueduct, waterwheel and docks retain the engineering sequence opened in 1787.
