About Pease Pottage
Pease Pottage (sometimes spelt ‘Peas Pottage’) is a small, unspectacular village just south of Crawley in West Sussex.
It stands at the point where the M23 joins the A23, about halfway between London and Brighton, and is just a couple of miles from Nymans Garden, the well-known National Trust property in Handcross.
Traffic Congestion in Pease Pottage
Many thousands of people pass through Pease Pottage every day, most of them in cars, and many of them using the village as a short cut between the motorway and Horsham. The village is blighted by road traffic, especially during the morning rush hour, a problem which will only get worse if Redrow Homes succeed in their plan to build another 68 houses. See the Latest News page for more information about this planning application.
In addition to these 68 houses, an outfit called Thakeham Homes is proposing to build an unspecified number of houses on land surrounding Woodhurst.
Quote
“ … CRAWLEY … go two miles along the road … to Brighton; then you turn to the right [at Pease Pottage] and go over six of the worst miles in England … in short, it is a most villanous track.”
— William Cobbett, Rural Rides
Features
Pease Pottage contains, amongst other things:
- two pubs one pub (now that the Grapes is closed);
- a motorway service station;
- a large car scrap yard;
- a 36–hole golf club;
- a car boot sale in the summer;
- and a very short cycle lane.
There are plenty of things Pease Pottage doesn’t have.
Miscellaneous Facts
- Pease Pottage is just under 500 feet above sea level.
- The annual London to Brighton veteran car run passes through the village on the first Sunday in November.
- During the First World War, there was an army camp in Pease Pottage.
- Queen Victoria came through the village in 1837 on her way to Brighton.