Cheesman’s workshop and Smallridge’s shop, about 1932 (courtesy of David Cragg) What does a skilled craftsman do, when mechanisation and technological advances make his skill redundant? The Cranleigh wheelwrights faced this situation around 1920. It had come about in a surprisingly short time. Cars took over from ...
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Vine Cottage, before 1885 A newly-married couple came to Cranleigh from Wisborough Green in 1851. Jesse and Sabina Mann moved into Vine Cottage, a dairy farm that stood near the south-west side of the Common, off what was then Elmbridge (or even Eldenbridge) Lane. Fourteen years later the railway was built ...
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George Pirie’s delivery man is setting off on his round, with his basket to carry loaves from the van to his customers’ houses Around 1900 bread formed the main item in Cranleigh people’s diet. Many of our farm labourers, brick-makers and builders ate bread at breakfast, a chunk of bread with cheese for their ...
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Nanhurst about 1990 (courtesy of Pam Leeke) Nanhurst is the large, red-brick mansion next to the public rubbish dump at the far end of Elmbridge Road. Built in 1891, it was a very substantial house, with fifteen principal bedrooms and dressing rooms, and twelve servants’ bedrooms, its own electric light, stabling ...
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Cobbler’s hut under the tree, facing the Cricket Ground and a stone’s throw from the windmill, in 1908 Cranleigh’s beautiful common is surrounded by buildings of every century from the sixteenth to the twenty-first. Buildings from earlier centuries, being made of wood, have decayed and been replaced. This is the ...
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Village Hall and Rowlands Corner, 1904, with the Brewery on the right Modern Cranleigh owes a great deal to Stephen Rowland. Among his many projects to modernise Cranleigh, in 1891 he built a Village Hall in Ewhurst Road, adjacent to his home, Yew Tree House, and the area became known as Rowland’s Corner. The ...
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The wheelwright’s yard in 1904 One of the most peaceful corners of Cranleigh today was one of the busiest 200 years ago. The area is behind the Arts Centre, towards Ewhurst Road, and it was more open and uncluttered before the house called ‘Little Causey’ was squeezed in. An essential person in any village ...
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A postcard of the Lady Peek Institute, post-marked 1904, courtesy of Mrs Vera Wilkinson The Gentleman's Club Sir Henry William Peek, Bart, a wealthy importer of tea and spices, and MP for Mid-Surrey, founded the Lady Peek Institute in 1885 in memory of his wife Margaret Maria, who had died the previous year. He ...
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View of the Police Station, including Broadoak on the right (postcard post- marked 1909) The Police Station Sir Robert Peel set up the first modern police force, the Metropolitan Police, in 1829 (hence the nicknames ‘bobbies’ or ‘peelers’ for policemen). In 1835, the Municipal Corporations Act allowed cities ...
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The Victorian Schoolroom in Sainsbury’s car park (viewed from the south) This month we begin a series on ‘Cranleigh Buildings with a Story’. Have you ever noticed a little building with a slate roof, looking out of place in Sainsbury’s car park? This is its story. In the nineteenth century, education was ...
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