Nutfield

Blacklands Meadow

Park Works.  Park works was a collection of substantial brick buildings from the nineteenth century and constituted a processing plant.  It was demolished in 1988.  The cleared site which is behind the old village school on the north side of the A25 in Nutfield village was clearly discernable in 1993.  Park works was probably built for James Cawley who came from Bletchingley.  He was the man who started a large development of pits in the area between Park works and Cormongers Lane later to be called Cockley Quarry.

Settling Pit.  North west of the site of the former Park Works is a wide shallow pit.  Here the fuller's earth was allowed to settle after being ground in water.  Probably this was a method of washing and grading before kiln drying.  Later in the nineteenth century the dried earth was separated into different grades using air currents created by a fan.

High Street

Fullers Earth Union Ltd. modern complex works for woollen manufacture. Cutting in M23

Chart Lodge. This house, 1780, was built by John William Grece who was the first person to devote his whole business life to fuller's earth.  Behind it and to the west is interesting worked ground which is the remains of Grece's Chartfield pit dating to the early years of the 19th century.

Well House.  On the north side of High Street, is where James Cawley (1822-1882) and his son Claude William Cawley lived.  In those days it was called the Tower because the tower (which is actually a folly which still stands today) was erected in the garden.  Claude William Cawley rose to become a dominating figure in the whole of the English fuller's earth business and he was the first managing director of the Fuller’s Earth Unions Ltd.  He also worked a hearthstone mine at Betchworth.

Preserved Pits at the Inn on the Pond. Old steep sided fuller's earth pits still remain to the SW of the pub. Even up to recent times steep sided pits were a familiar feature of the landscape but most of the older ones are now filled and modern working methods do not leave such pits.

Nutfield

Nutfield Village.  A small linear village along the A25 with a few buildings dating before the nineteenth century although there was woollen manufacture in the 17^th. . It  intimately connected with the fuller's earth industry.  Buildings composed of stone (quoinstone) from the fuller's earth pits are very evident.  North of the village and east of the football pitch is heavily worked ground. a sequestered village on the ridge-top, where the road is crossed by one from Merstham to Outwood.

Nutfield Priory

Toxic tip

Formidable asymmetrical neo Tudor Big tower at the back.

Cottages

Farm Quadrangle

Church Hill

Copyhold Works.  On north side of the A25.  Just outside the Tandridge District.  In 1993 this was the last surviving fuller's earth plant and was used for crushing, drying and screening the earth.  It was unlikely to survive much longer than 1994.  The great pits to the north of it which merge into sand pits were at the point of exhaustion and in 1993 are largely operated as landfill sites.  Nutfield Quarry.  Modernised by Laporte in 1982 for cat litter

Laporte Earths. Park Woods nature trail. Fullers’ earth works. Path from A215 to quarry line. Beds of fuller's earth for which Nutfield is noted, this being one of the few places in Britain where it can be worked. The clay- like substance, originally named from its use by fullers as an absorbent of grease, is being increasingly employed in the refining of oil. Nature reserve on the demolition of Park Works processing plant shallow settling pits and pond

St. Peter & St.Paul’s Church.  Down a sunken road and Built 13-15^threstored in the 18^thfaced, with roughcast concrete.It has a 15th-century tower with a spire and six bells, a 15th-century font bowl on a stem dated 1665, a Tudor pulpit and a 16th-century rood screen of high quality Surrey woodwork. Burne Jones window done by Morris Monuments: Tomb of Thomas de Fulaham; brasses to William Graffon.  Who, though described as a priest, is habited as a layman, wears no tonsure and is shown with a wife. Griffith Jones, a noted Celtic scholar, was vicar of Nutfield from 1892 -1940.

Sandy Lane

Narrow Road The Greensand ridge between Redhill and Godstone constituted a defensive line and roads running north-south over it are generally steep and sunken between high sided banks. An exception to this rule is Sandy Lane. Here the road follows a shallow gradient up to Nutfield and during the war its width was deliberately restricted, by the military, by erecting a low wall on the east side. This obstruction causes inconvenience to this day.

Almost the whole of the south side of the ridge between Capenor and Chartfield has been worked for the earth at one time. Most of the former pits have been used as small landfill sites but it is still possible to find traces of workings north of Priory Farm.