History
The hamlet of Lowfield Heath began to develop on the heath of the same name, 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Crawley, after 1770 when the London to Brighton road was turnpiked. The road ran across the heath on its way to Crawley, and a few farms and houses were built close to it. The heath, which had been common land, was enclosed in 1827 and 1846, encouraging more residential development. Lowfield Heath grew into a small village, with amenities such as a school, public house and post office.
Lowfield Heath village, and the heath itself, straddled the county boundary between Surrey and Sussex, but the village was administratively part of Surrey and for ecclesiastical purposes lay within the Parish of Charlwood. A merchant donated some land in the centre of the village, which had been used to grow damsons, for the construction of a church. Architect William Burges, who had worked on The Great Exhibition in London and St Finbarre's Cathedral in Cork and who later built Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch in Wales, was employed to build a church on the site.
Work started in 1867, and the foundation stone was laid on 15 July of that year. The consecration ceremony took place on 1 December 1868. Despite its small size, the village continued to thrive for the next 80 years, and the church was considered its "architectural highlight". Its architectural merit received official recognition on 21 June 1948, when it was listed at Grade II*.
The village fell into steady decline in the 1950s when Gatwick Aerodrome was expanded to become London Gatwick Airport—London's second international airport. Between the early 1950s, when the Government announced its decision, and the early 1970s, when the White Lion public house and the last few houses were demolished, every original building in the village, except the church, was destroyed. Following the rapid expansion of nearby Crawley, and the extension of its ancient parish to include several churches and large parts of the New Town, St Michael and All Angels was transferred from the Parish of Charlwood to the Parish of Crawley, thereby coming under the control of the parish church of St John the Baptist's and the Diocese of Chichester. This happened despite the church and the remains of the village still being administratively in Surrey. (The area was transferred to the newly created county of West Sussex in 1974, removing this anomaly. Since 1 April 1974, therefore, the church has been within the Borough of Crawley.)
A special service was held at the church in 1989 to commemorate the loss of the village. A plaque was unveiled by the entrance door:
| “ | In commemoration of a service held in this church at Lowfield Heath on the 30th September 1989 for the occasion of a reunion of those who formed the village community at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and whose homes and village were subsequently displaced by the development of Gatwick International Airport | ” |
Read more about this topic: St Michael And All Angels Church, Lowfield Heath
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