History
Croxley Green has a large village green surrounded by some of its oldest buildings (17th century) including the Croxley Green Windmill. There is extensive building from the 19th Century centred around New Road plus a good deal of housing stock from the 1930s, built at the time of the Metropolitan Line branch. The Green houses the "Revels on The Green", an annual village fair which includes a traditional maypole dance, which used to be illustrated on the road signs on entering the village.
In 2008 a group of residents were successful in gaining "village green" status also for a small area of woodland ("Buddleia Wood") to the south of the village, thereby protecting the area for generations to come.
The village signs were replaced in February 2008 with a scene of All Saints Church and The Green. The revels were featured in Metro-land, the 1973 television documentary by John Betjeman, who referred to them solemnly as "a tradition dating back to 1952". The annual Mummer folk play "St. George & The Dragon" is played out during the Christmas period at a number of village hostelries. Since 2006 the Parish Council have organised a firework display on The Green for New Year's Eve.
Croxley Mill was built in 1830 adjacent to the Grand Union Canal by the paper manufacturer John Dickinson. Croxley Script stationery used to be produced there by John Dickinson and Co. Ltd. but is now a trade mark registered to Sappi (U.K.) Limited. Streets in Croxley (Dickinson Square, Dickinson Avenue, Barton Way and others) are named after Mill owners and management and some contain housing built by the company for mill workers at the end of the 19th Century. The mill closed in 1980. A windmill was built c1860. It survives today converted to residential accommodation.
Croxley Common Moor to the south of the village, OS grid reference TQ083949 was designated as an SSSI in 1986.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)