IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Frenches Road, REDHILL, RH1 2HZ

Prior to the 2005 completion of a new bridge on Ormside Way (see Image), this narrow and low bridge under the London-Brighton railway, turning straight from the residential Frenches Road (visible through the bridge) was the main road access into the Holmethorpe Industrial Estate - hardly suitable.

A unit on Holmethorpe Avenue, in the Holmethorpe Industrial Estate. The level crossing gate on the left is the only remaining evidence of the sidings that connected the British Industrial Sand works, now the site of the Watercolour development, with the London-Brighton railway, a link which operated until the mid 1980s.

Units on Trowers Way, in the Holmethorpe Industrial Estate.

Former Surrey County Council day centre, catering for adults with physical disabilities, closed in 2015 due to relocation.

Buildings in Frenches Road. On the left is the Frenches Lodge, a former Surrey County Council day centre, catering for adults with physical disabilities, closed in 2015 due to relocation (see Image) and beyond is Masjid ul-Emaan, an Islamic community education centre (see Image).

This hall in Frenches Road has the appearance of a "tin tabernacle", the nickname given to corrugated iron structures, often used for mission churches, around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. I have not been able to identify its history, other than a reference to its use by All Saints Church Merstham near the beginning of the second world war, and more recent references to "Battlebridge Education Centre" at what would appear to be this address. The name "Battlebridge Hall" is what appears on very large scale maps.

The former Battlebridge Hall, a "tin tabernacle" dating from the early 20th Century, now used as an Islamic community education centre. See Image for a photo from 2008.

Front elevations of some of the units in Ormside Way

Elevations of some of the units in the Ormside Way Industrial Estate, Redhill

British Industrial Sand had pits and processing plant through the arch under the main Brighton "Quarry Line" in the distance, and sand trains were handled in this yard by their locomotives. Two of these are on view, one with bushes growing around it, the other more recently used. Little or no sand traffic was handled in 1990, all of this has gone now.