Salfords
| Salfords | |
| Surrey | |
|---|---|
 Crossoak Lane industry | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ279463 |
| Location: | 51°12’5"N, 0°10’6"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,900 (approx.) |
| Post town: | Redhill |
| Postcode: | RH1 |
| Dialling code: | 01293 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Reigate and Banstead |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Reigate |
Salfords is a village in Surrey, found approximately 3 miles south of Redhill on the A23 London to Brighton road.
The village was the original UK home of the Monotype Corporation and Salfords railway station was originally built to service the corporation. The village lies within the Salfords and Sidlow parish which has a population of 3,069.[1] Nearby settlements include: Horley, Earlswood, Redhill and Whitebushes.
Name of the village
Salfords means "willow-tree ford" from Old English sealh ford. The name was recorded Selefrid in 1193. This is similar to the derivation of the more famous City of Salford in Lancashire. The -s was added in recent times.
The village
The village has its own church, primary school, cricket club,[2] shops, cafes, a social club, a number of restaurants and a take away.
Salfords Stream runs through the village and can cause flooding in the autumn and winter months.[3]
The village once had a wooden watermill with two sluice gates next to the Mill House Hotel. It produced breakfast cereals in the early twentieth century. By the 1950s it was defunct and has since washed away.
Salfords made the national news in January 2008 when a farmer named Robert Fidler built a personal home similar in style to a Tudor castle and disguised it with hay bales and tarpaulin for four years in an attempt to avoid the need to obtain planning permission.[4][5]
Surrey Police applied for planning permission in 2010 for permission to build a 30-cell custody suite at the IO business centre to replace the existing facility at Reigate. The police application was extremely unpopular with the residents who packed out two meetings with Surrey Police in the local village hall to air their concerns over increases in crime and traffic, the first meeting attracted so many people it had to be postponed as numbers far exceeded the capacity of the venue. The application was subsequently refused by the Council, but was granted on appeal. Mr Fidler's beautiful castle home however was condemned to the bulldozers.
History
Salfords owes its existence in its modern form to the construction of the A23 road and to the coming of Monotype and the railway.
The original pre-mediæval trackway to which the A23 is heir passed on the other side of the London to Brighton railway, from Redhill passing in front of the Royal Earlswood Hospital through Whitebushes and crossing the river Sal at Dean Farm in Salfords. Then it runs in front of the former Monotype Corporation site and towards the Horley gasometer passing the Haroldslea moated site which was a 13th. century manor. Eventually it would have reached the south coast near Brighton.
In the 1870s a state school was built on the fork between the London Road and Pendleton Road on Petridge Common. It has a single bell located in the gable to call children to school on the London Road end. The school consisted of four classrooms three were divided by sliding glass doors. The head teacher was located upstairs above the cloakrooms. In Second World War two air raid shelters were built on opposite sides of the long tapering playground. In the mid 1950s the then "Salfords County Primary School" started to expand and relocate to Copsleigh Avenue.
The railway station was built in 1915 to enable workers access to the Monotype Corporation factory. Today it is served by London Bridge/London Victoria to Horsham trains. On the main road Hall & Co had their regional maintenance depot. This was used in WWII to repair war tanks. {Hall and Co used to be the dominant building materials supplier in the south east of England}
Cricket Club
Salfords Cricket Club is a village cricket club. The club runs two Saturday League sides in the Surrey Downs League and a Sunday friendly side. The club host a "Cricket Week" of mid-week games each July, and a tour every August. The club now play on a council-owned ground on Petridge Wood Common, off Woodhatch Road. Salfords Cricket Club was formed in 1921.[6] The Club's first captain was Tom Enever, whose photograph can be seen in the pavilion today. The Council relocated the club to its present ground at Petridge Wood Common in 1960.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Salfords) |