UK: Sussex and Surrey towns

[jeremai]

I have been living in Sussex for almost a year now and enjoying the beautiful towns, villages and countryside. Here is a selection of pictures of Sussex towns (and one just into Surrey).

Crawley
My current home base, though not for much longer, Crawley was designated a New Town in 1948 and consists of modern housing estates built around Victorian village centres, as well as some more historic buildings in the town centre on the old London to Brighton road. The town centre has a major redevelopment planned including the addition of a John Lewis department store.

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4327.jpg

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http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4353.jpg

Dorking, Surrey
http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4505.jpg

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http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4513.jpg

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Step back in time:
http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4522.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4535.jpg

East Grinstead
http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4592.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4596.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4600.jpg

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http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_4632.jpg

Brighton
http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5080.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5083.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5085.jpg

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http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5091.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5100.jpg

Horsham
http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5791.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5794.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5796.jpg

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http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5798.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5802.jpg

Eastbourne
http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5924.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5925.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5926.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5929.jpg

View from Beachy Head:
http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5972.jpg

http://www.jeremai.com/Non-site/100_5974.jpg

[Chelsea Spy]

Great thread - I know most of these towns well :)

But I'm sorry - Crawley - your pictures do not give the true impression - I laughed out loud when I saw them - you make it look like a quaint, charming village, when it's anything but!! :yuck: :yuck: :yuck:

(I'm very prejudiced about 'creepy' Crawley I'm afraid...)

But good stuff!! :banana:

[Ex-Ithacan]

Dorking, Woodcock, Daisy Chain; I think this thread should get an R rating. ;) :D

Nice pics jeremai, and towns we don't get to see too often if at all. They look so.......English. Hard to believe you've be over on the other side of the pond for a year already.

Thanks for the tour and look forawrd to more. :)

[jeremai]

But I'm sorry - Crawley - your pictures do not give the true impression - I laughed out loud when I saw them - you make it look like a quaint, charming village, when it's anything but!! :yuck: :yuck: :yuck:

Hehe... very true. I wasn't really thinking about it but just picked a few "nice" photos for this thread. I did post a full Crawley thread when I first moved here but it doesn't exist any more. Mind you, it was mostly of the town centre; I'll have to get some shots of the "real" Crawley before I move!

[Jonas]

I haven't been to most of them but seem so familiar. Beautiful English towns... so many of them.

[Austinlee]

Pip-Pip!!

[Urbanguy]

Very cool looking towns, especially the pics of Eastbourne. :)

[Boris]

Great thread. Thx for this view of Southern England.

you make it look like a quaint, charming village, when it's anything but!!

So what's the story with Crawly?

[Jonas]

Someone once told me that Crawley is a shithole... never been there though.

[Chelsea Spy]

Someone once told me that Crawley is a shithole... never been there though.


Crawley is probably the ugliest town in Sussex. Utterly hideous! :yuck: Jerami does a good job making it look so attractive :tup:

[mSeattle]

Interesting places.

[rousseau]

I think only in England could there be a town called "East Grinstead."

[arbeiter]

lovely. Crawley is the hometown of Robert Smith and the Cure!

And I never knew Horsham was nice enough for a Waitrose...

noice pics

[Evergrey]

I love that last photo from Beachy Head... great thread... always a treat, Jeremai... where are you moving now, you restless vagabond?

[arbeiter]

this is a great 1985-era time lapse train footage (complete with custom-made synth soundtrack) of the London to Brighton line, which passes thru Crawley:

W87fasOtFO0

[westak]

I've spent a bit of time in Brighton and I enjoyed...I've been waiting for some pics from there.:tup:

[Chelsea Spy]

Brighton deserves a thread of its own - great town.

Personally, I'd love to see a thread of crap English towns - places like Crawley, Slough, Luton, Milton Keynes, Basildon, Swindon... the list is almost endless. The UK has so many ghastly towns ruined by unimaginative architecture and poor planning... the UK can easily hold its own with the US on this front. It's not all pretty churchs and cobbled streets!!

[Boris]

Whoa!, cool ride Arbeiter.

[jeremai]

Crawley is probably the ugliest town in Sussex. Utterly hideous! :yuck: Jerami does a good job making it look so attractive :tup:

Yes, Crawley has more than it's fair share of horrifically ugly buildings. The tallest building in the town is Central Sussex College which just last week won planning approval to be torn down and replaced with a low-rise building. Although I'd prefer it to be replaced with something taller, it's definitely good that it's coming down. The 1960s civic centre is equally ugly. Fortunately work has already begun on a new library which will be a three-storey modern-looking building, creating a street wall where there used to be just a surface car park. The council offices are due to be replaced as part of the Town Centre North redevelopment which will be a massive mixed-use development due for completion in 2012 which will seriously improve the town centre.

Unfortunately Crawley's woes won't all be solved by regenerating the town centre. The town has serious problems with drugs and gangs, hence the bad reputation the town has in the south east. However, my family and I have lived here quite comfortably for the last year with no trouble at all and a walkable way of life (to work and shops, meaning we sold the second car) that we could only have dreamed about in the US.

[jeremai]

I love that last photo from Beachy Head... great thread... always a treat, Jeremai... where are you moving now, you restless vagabond?

Hehe... off to south Wales and buying a house there, attracted by much more reasonable house prices and beautiful countryside. We knew what house prives were like in the south east before we moved back and it was never our intention to stay here but then I got the job in Crawley and we rented a house and before you know it a year has gone. It's time to settle down properly again though and we're looking forward to having a more spacious house for the kids to play in. I'm looking forward to exploring a new part of the country too, although I'm a little concerned that I'll be bored again in another couple of years! ;)

[Chelsea Spy]

When I was child I used to live near Crawley and my mother often took us shopping there - it seemed very modern and exciting - all those new buildings and big roundabouts.

I went there a couple of years ago and was appalled by the place... so ugly, shabby, crap shops and many nasty looking wannabe-gangster teenagers hanging around :yuck: .

Crawley is the sort of place that would really benefit from some imaginative new archiecture - a high rise or two might give the place a bit more character.

Wales, however, is much more beautiful. :banana: I love Wales...

How about a Cardiff thread - another interesting city that never appears on the forum? :whip:

[dktshb]

Beautiful!

[olga]

Cool tour, thanks! :tup:

[jeremai]

How about a Cardiff thread - another interesting city that never appears on the forum? :whip:

Yep, can do. Our trip to Cardiff was kind of stunted by us deciding to buy a house while we were there, so I only really have photos of Cardiff Bay at the moment, which I thought I'd seen loads of times before. I may be thinking of SkyScraperCity though.

[ChrisLA]

To the locals:
Whats is your opinion of Horsham? A friend of mine moved there from the city, but we didn't get out there because his family came to the city to hang out with us. His sister who lives in London sort of described it as rural, and too boring, but the few pictures posted doesn't look like all that bad. My friend Beresford also said his family is the only black family in his neighborhood, and stand out because of that. He didn't say they had any problems, but basicially they are referred to as the black family since they are the only one in the area.

[madonna]

Great thread!!... I Agree, a Cardiff thread would be great!!.

[Chelsea Spy]

To the locals:
Whats is your opinion of Horsham? A friend of mine moved there from the city, but we didn't get out there because his family came to the city to hang out with us. His sister who lives in London sort of described it as rural, and too boring, but the few pictures posted doesn't look like all that bad. My friend Beresford also said his family is the only black family in his neighborhood, and stand out because of that. He didn't say they had any problems, but basicially they are referred to as the black family since they are the only one in the area.

I went to school for a while near Horsham - I haven't been there for some years, but it's basically a typical Southern town, affluent, conservative and quite nice but rather dull... near Gatwick and with good rail links to London. Personally, I couldn't wait to get out of those places and hit the big city! :tup: Horsham has all the usual clone-town chain stores every other town in the South East has, and a shopping mall doubtless filled with bored teenagers hanging around with nothing better to do. The countryside around the town is attractive, and I'd probably chose a more rural location if I had to live there again. Like most such towns in the South, there are very few black people (many more Asians) but I doubt your friends should encounter any overt racism... at least, I would hope not... especially not if they're American as well...

[ChrisLA]

^
Thanks for the feed back Chelsea Spy, I was hoping to see that area before I left. My friend did say it was easy to reach the city from his home as he still works in London, but only has to commute 2 days a week since he gets to work from home. He did say the drive actually takes much longer because traffic is so bad from that area.

[jeremai]

Yes, Horsham is a nice town but with all the usual stuff to do. It does have some nice historical buildings and is well kept up, but that also applies to many other towns around here! We did enjoy walking around although we definitely noticed that it's an affluent white town; a distinct contrast to Crawley despite being five miles down the road. As SC said though, there's unlikely to be any out and out racism there.

[ChrisLA]

Dang I guess my friend is making more money than I would have thought. I know him from the company we both worked for, and we had the same position, only I was in LA and he was in London. Well he later took a job as a contractor and ended up working in many western european countries and come home on the weekends. I guess those contractor jobs paid very well. (lol). Well more power to him, he and his family are very nice folks and deserve it. We became instant friends from the time I met him in one of our training classes years ago. I guess that explains why he treated us to a fancy affair of traditional afternoon english tea with the works at some fancy hotel called the Savoy on the Strand while we were there. It was totally unexpected since I never expect anyone to pay for me.

[Patachou]

Absolutely fabulous!!

[clynnog]

Personally, I'd love to see a thread of crap English towns - places like Crawley, Slough, Luton, Milton Keynes, Basildon, Swindon... the list is almost endless. The UK has so many ghastly towns ruined by unimaginative architecture and poor planning...


The 'chavtastic' UK thread would be great. The Brentmeister General would approve. Add Warrington, Peterborough, Ware, Letchworth, Cumbernauld to the list.

[Benonie]

Fantastic pictures, lovely places, great country!

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures, these places look great.

[Jibba]

Excellent pictures. English towns are so damn charming. Nice to see something out of the UK besides London.