Alfold Crossways

Roads across the Wealden clay

Before Crossways acquired a name, the surrounding ground belonged to the agricultural landscape of Alfold. Gibbs Hatch, White’s and neighbouring holdings occupied a countryside of fields, woods, ponds, ditches and small clearings. Movement depended upon routes that had grown from the daily needs of farms, woodland work, livestock and worship. Drove roads, green lanes and field tracks joined one holding to another and reached the wider ways towards Dunsfold, Loxwood, Rudgwick and the market towns beyond.

The heavy Wealden clay shaped every journey. Rain softened the surface, wheels cut deep ruts and horses worked hardest where loaded carts met rising ground. Travellers selected the firmest line through a broad lane, while local knowledge guided the choice of route in each season. These roads served a dispersed parish whose church, farms and cottages stood apart from one another across a wide area.

The older approach to Alfold appears to have reached the church-centred settlement through Rosemary Lane. From there, Sachelhill Lane and the ways towards Dunsfold provided connections towards Guildford and Godalming. Farther south, tracks through the Oakhurst farming landscape and the country around Chapel Green linked the communities of Alfold and Loxwood through a series of local routes. The future site of Crossways formed part of the farmed ground around Gibbs Hatch, served by agricultural access and nearby lanes.

The turnpike scheme of the eighteenth century gathered this scattered network into a managed regional road. Its trustees set out a clearer and more direct corridor, improved drainage and surfaces, and concentrated traffic at toll gates. The place later called Crossways began with that reorganisation of movement through the parish.

The 1757 turnpike reaches the farms

Parliament authorised the Guildford-Arundel turnpike in 1757. The road began near Dapdune Wharf, passed south through the Guildford and Dunsfold country, crossed Alfold and continued through Loxwood, Newbridge, Pulborough and Bury to Arundel. It linked farms and estates on the Weald with the River Wey navigation, the Sussex road system and the Arun valley.

The new managed route came through the agricultural ground beside Gibbs Hatch and White’s. Here the trustees established Alfold Gate, a toll point positioned to control traffic entering the southern part of the Guildford road. A notice published in 1784 recorded fifteen years of toll income on the road from Dapdune Wharf to Alfold Bars, placing organised collection on the northern section by at least 1769.

The road changed the geography of this part of Alfold. Farm produce, timber, livestock and supplies could move along a maintained regional route, while the gate concentrated passing traffic beside a single roadside site. The fields remained productive farmland, yet the toll house introduced a permanent administrative presence and a recognised stopping point.

Alfold Gate and the first carriageway

Alfold Gate combined a dwelling, garden, toll barrier and working roadside space. The collector watched the carriageway, received payments and managed exemptions as carts, riders, livestock and travellers passed. Domestic life took place within a few yards of the road, with the garden and outbuildings forming part of the same compact plot.

The toll house faced the original eighteenth-century alignment. That road curved across ground later enclosed within the garden, which explains the building’s unusual orientation in relation to the present junction. Its principal frontage belonged to the first turnpike line and preserves the shape of Crossways before the eastern road was added.

For the surrounding farms, Alfold Gate became a practical landmark. Loads from Gibbs Hatch and neighbouring holdings met the turnpike here, and journeys towards Guildford or the Sussex road could be described from the gate. The site acquired importance through the road long before a close group of houses formed around it.

The Horsham road creates Aldfold Crossways

A second turnpike scheme transformed Alfold Gate. The road from Horsham towards Guildford was authorised in 1809 and reached the older route at the toll house. Its construction created a direct eastern approach through the northern Weald and placed Alfold Gate at the meeting of two regional roads.

The carriageway beside the toll house was straightened through part of the garden and transferred to the opposite side of the building. The former frontage continued to face the earlier curve, while the new road created the cross-shaped junction recognised today. From this point traffic could travel north towards Dunsfold and Guildford, east towards Horsham, west towards the church settlement, or south through Alfold and Loxwood.

The change was recorded quickly on the map. An 1810 survey labels the junction “Aldfold Crossways”. The additional “d” belongs to the variable spelling found in early maps and records, while “Crossways” describes the new form of the place with direct clarity. The map provides the earliest cartographic recognition presently identified and shows that the junction had acquired a distinct name soon after the Horsham road was laid out.

Crossways therefore emerged from a precise moment in road engineering. The 1757 turnpike had established Alfold Gate; the 1809 road turned that gate into a four-way junction. The toll house remained the fixed point through both stages, and its position still allows the two alignments to be read in the landscape.

A roadside settlement by 1836

Traffic created opportunities around the junction. Toll collection brought a resident household, while passing carts and riders generated demand for food, repairs, stabling, small goods and accommodation. Farm labourers and craftspeople also valued homes close to the surrounding holdings and roads.

By 1836 Alfold Crossways had become an established place-name in newspaper advertising. A substantial roadside building was then offered for sale beside the turnpike. It had been divided into eight tenements and stood with gardens, pigsties and a well described as providing excellent water.

The sale reveals the character of the early settlement. Eight households could occupy one large building, each combining domestic life with a garden and the keeping of pigs. The shared well supplied the group, while the road offered access to farms, neighbouring villages and casual employment. Within a generation of the 1809 junction, Crossways had grown from a toll point into a compact roadside community.

The arrangement also explains why Crossways developed as a second centre of Alfold. The older village remained focused upon the church, green and later Alfold Street. Crossways gathered around movement: roads, gate, farm entrances and roadside plots gave it a separate identity at the eastern approach to the parish.

Farms and households around the junction

Agriculture continued to define the land around Crossways throughout the nineteenth century. White’s House was occupied by Henry Baldwin in 1841. Ten years later he farmed about 350 acres and employed twelve labourers, placing the holding among the larger agricultural businesses in the parish. In 1861 Charles Pullen occupied White Farm, where approximately 320 acres supported a family household and domestic service. By 1871 White Lea appeared as a substantial residence with a coachman, housekeeper and housemaid, recording the growing country-house character of this part of the landscape.

Gibbs Hatch represented another enduring farmstead beside the junction. Its old timber-framed barn has been attributed to the late sixteenth century, preserving a structure from the farming landscape that preceded Crossways. Fields, yards and buildings around the farm continued to support livestock, crops, carting and seasonal labour as the road settlement expanded nearby.

The turnpike entered the official geography of the parish. In 1851 the Guildford-Loxwood road formed the boundary between Alfold’s two census districts. The enumerator’s division reflected a road that had become one of the clearest lines through a dispersed parish, separating households on either side while connecting their work and trade.

John Sparkes at the toll gate

The census gives the toll house a detailed domestic history. In 1861 John Sparkes, aged thirty-two, lived at the Gate House with his wife Jane and their children. His occupation combined agricultural labour with toll collection, linking the road directly with the surrounding farm economy. Two of the children were recorded as scholars, and the family shared the building with the continual movement of traffic outside.

By 1871 the census used Crossways for the toll-gate household. Sparkes remained the collector, living with Jane and four of their children during the final years of the trust. The barrier, garden and old carriageway formed the setting for a family whose income joined road administration with agricultural work.

Sparkes provides continuity across the last decades of toll collection. His household occupied the gate while Crossways developed around it, and his later census entry carried the story beyond the removal of the barrier.

The gates come down

The Guildford-Alfold turnpike reached the end of its statutory life in 1877. At midnight on 31 October the gates at Shalford, Bramley, Smithwood Common and Alfold were removed. Traffic through Crossways then passed freely along roads maintained through the county and parish system.

The former toll property was offered for sale soon afterwards. Alfold Toll Gate House, together with its extensive gardens, went to auction on 3 December 1877. The sale transferred the building from the administration of the road into private occupation, while its relationship with the old and new carriageways remained visible.

The end of tolls opened a new stage in the history of Crossways. The junction retained every advantage created by the turnpikes: four directions, broad road frontages and a steady flow of local and regional traffic. Shops, houses and farm businesses could now use the site free from the barrier that had first defined it.

Crossways in the later census

The 1881 census used Crossways as a residential address and records a community shaped by farming, craft and small trade. Harman Balchin lived there with his wife Harriett and their children. He worked as a carpenter, a trade closely connected with farm buildings, carts, gates and the continuing growth of roadside housing.

John Sparkes also remained at Crossways. Jane had died in 1879, and the return recorded him as a widower and general labourer living with his son Amos, his daughter Amy and a young granddaughter. The former toll collector had become part of the settled roadside community that had grown around his earlier place of work.

These households show how quickly the character of the junction broadened after 1877. Crossways retained agricultural labour, added skilled building work and provided homes for several generations. The name now described a neighbourhood as well as a road junction.

The 1911 return brings Gibbs Hatch into equally clear focus. John Covey farmed there with his wife Alice and a large family in a nine-room house. Older children worked as labourers, carters and dairy workers, while the younger children attended school. The household depended upon the fields, livestock, carts and buildings surrounding Crossways and preserved the agricultural rhythm of the place into the twentieth century.

In 1921 Louisa Muggeridge, widow of the former Alfold House farmer George Muggeridge, lived at Crossways with her daughter Mabel. Their ten-room dwelling records a more established residential element at the junction. The household also connects Crossways with another important Alfold farm and with Mabel’s earlier work as a pupil teacher.

When Gibbs Hatch Farm was offered for sale in 1928, the property comprised about seventy-eight acres, an old half-timbered farmhouse, substantial agricultural buildings and a bungalow cottage. The particulars drew attention to valuable frontages along the main and parish roads. Land that had long supported farming had acquired an additional value from the visibility and traffic of Crossways.

Crossways in the motor age

Motor traffic gave the junction a new purpose. Drivers, cyclists, walking parties and organised outings approached Crossways from several directions and found a convenient place to pause. The old turnpike geometry, created for horses and carts, now concentrated a faster and more numerous stream of visitors.

A landscaped roadside area became known as the Plantation. Postcards show trees, flower beds, entrances, bicycles and parked cars arranged around the junction. Nearby, the old barn at Gibbs Hatch was adapted as Gibbs Hatch Tea Barn. A lay-by allowed vehicles to stop, while the timber building and garden offered refreshments in a setting that retained the appearance of the old farmstead.

By 1939 Lucy E. Kirby was recorded as a roadside cafe proprietress at Gibbs Hatch. Tea, home-made cakes, flowers, arts, crafts and antiques became associated with the barn and gardens. The conversion gave an agricultural building a new livelihood while preserving its close relationship with the road.

A second business developed in the bungalow on the opposite corner. The 1939 Register recorded Frances Hirst and Ellen J. Kirchly at the Rhodesia Tea Rooms. In August 1940 Captain and Mrs H. Beeching reopened the premises, advertising light luncheons, teas and suppers on the main Horsham-Guildford road. The name reflected Captain Beeching’s long association with southern Africa and gave the small roadside establishment a distinctive identity.

After the Second World War the bungalow traded as the Sun Dial Cafe. Cycling clubs included Crossways in their runs, and the roadside site continued to attract passing traffic. The business later became the Cafe de Paris and then Chez Jean. In 1975 Chez Jean received a Michelin star, turning a junction cafe into a restaurant known far beyond Alfold.

The two corners followed different paths, yet both grew from the same advantage. Gibbs Hatch Tea Barn reused the fabric of the farm, while the Rhodesia site developed through successive cafes and restaurants. Together they made Crossways a recognised stopping place and then a destination in its own right.

The history preserved at Crossways

Alfold Crossways contains several layers of the parish’s history within one compact landscape. The farms preserve the agricultural setting. The toll house records the 1757 turnpike and the original curved carriageway. The present junction reflects the Horsham road authorised in 1809, while the 1810 spelling “Aldfold Crossways” captures the moment when the place first appeared clearly on the map.

The census households add the life of the settlement: John and Jane Sparkes at the gate, the Balchin family and their carpentry, the Coveys at Gibbs Hatch and the Muggeridges in a later Crossways residence. Their work ranged from toll collection and farm labour to carting, dairy work, building and domestic life.

The Plantation, tea barn and roadside cafes belong to the next transport age. They used the same junction to serve new travellers and gave Crossways a wider reputation. The Michelin star awarded to Chez Jean completed an extraordinary progression from clay roads and toll barriers to a celebrated dining destination.

Crossways became Alfold’s second centre through movement. Each new phase of transport brought another use to the same site: gate, tenements, farms, shops, tea rooms and restaurants. The surviving roads and buildings still show how a junction created by turnpike engineering developed into a distinct and enduring part of the parish.

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