Southwater

One of the oldest buildings in the parish is Great House Farmhouse, a listed building at Grade II* built in 1462 from a late medieval structure in the Tudor period just west of the town. In the early 19th century Southwater was predominately a collection of large estates divided into leased farms. Whilst mixed agriculture provided a lucrative industry for centuries, much of the population of Southwater originated from the workforce of the brick industry and the arrival of the railway, which opened in 1866. At the peak of production, the Southwater brickworks manufactured 18 million bricks a year, and employed 100 men. It was reported that Southwater bricks were used in the building of…