Alfold Bars

Alfold Bars

Coordinates: 51°04′24″N 0°31′10″W / 51.07336°N 0.51933°W / 51.07336; -0.51933

Loxwood is a small village and civil parish with several outlying settlements, including those at Alfold Bars, Gunshot Common, Flitchfold, Headsfoldwood, Roundstreet Common, Drungewick Lane and Manor, and Wephurst Park, in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England, within the Low Weald. The Wey and Arun Canal passes to the East and South of the village. This Civil Parish is at the centre of an excellent network of bridleways and footpaths crossing the Low Weald and joining with those in adjacent Counties. Walking to the coast and into London is entirely feasible, essentially on footpaths or bridleways. The name "Loxwood" is thought to derive from the name of a place-god from Celtic or Saxon times rather than a clan chief, and to refer to the wooded terrain but further research is necessary to establish a clearer picture.

The 2001 census recorded a population of 1341 people living in 660 households. 536 people were economically active. Between that census and 2011 approximately 55 more dwellings have been built, probably adding net more than 100 people. At March 1, 2011 the electoral register showed 1200 electors.

A considerable number of the economically active people are self-employed, either as travelling workers, or working from home. Most people who commute regularly to a principal place of work do so to the Gatwick Diamond area (loosely an area between Redhill in the north and Crawley to the south), to Horsham, to Guildford or Woking, or to London, and tele-commuting is growing in popularity.

There is a primary school, village hall, with outdoor children's playing facilities, a sports centre, an Anglican church, a Chapel, two pubs The Onslow Arms and the "Sir Roger Tichborne" at Alfold Bars, a small number of shops with a sub-Post Office in the Loxwood Village Stores, John Murray and Son's Butcher, Game Dealer and supplier of cheeses, cooked meats and other delicacies about a butcher's cold and cutting room supplying local pubs and restaurants and clubs, Forget-Me-Not - a florist and gift shop, Just Hair - a hairdressing business, Kennard's garage in Loxwood village, and a small car showroom and workshop at Alfold Bars.

Additionally Loxwood has an NHS medical practice with some 4 GPs, several practice Nurses, a Dispensary (rural practices), and a visiting Physiotherapist all supported by an active "Friends of Loxwood Medical Practice". Two further physiotherapist services are available in Loxwood, one based at the Loxwood Sports Association, the other on private premises.

The village was once one of the settlements greatly influenced by a small Christian sect, the Society of Dependants, also known as Cokelers who left London in the mid-1800s. They built their first chapel in the village. The sect evolved to run a Combination Store in the village, the building for which houses villages shops today.

Lawrence Durrell, the renowned author of The Alexandria Quartet, a series of interrelated novels that take as their subject matter the psychology of love and the shifting façades that human beings present to one another, lived here from 1933 to 1934, in a cottage called Chestnut Mead.Durrell, along with his first wife Nancy and another young couple, George and Pam Wilkinson, left Fitzrovia to live in the English countryside. It was here that Durrell, then in his early twenties, wrote what became his first published novel, Pied Piper of Lovers.

Several people of note in the public eye and ear during the later part of the 20th century and more recently live in or adjacent to Loxwood - pleasingly many have sent their children to the Loxwood Primary School, and are otherwise engaged in active fundraising for important Loxwood institutions.