WW2 Timeline

How do events in the history of the war influence Rudgwick? This is a roughly chronological summary of events in the war which had an impact on Rudgwick. A good starting point.

Rudgwick Roll of Honour 1939-1945

An initiative to provide an illustrated commemoration of those on the Holy Trinity Memorial Plaque, together with others known to us.

Wartime Articles

A list of al our Newsletter/Review articles about Rudgwick in the Second World War. The articles themselves are to be found on this website. Go to Newsletters/Reviews tab. Scroll down to find the edition you require.

D Day

The story of one young boy before D Day, and the pamphlet issued to residents detailing all manner of named contacts in emergencies.

VE Day, Rudgwick and Horsham

in June 1945, Rudgwick Parish Magazine was reporting on the events of early May in Rudgwick, including the church services. In association with this were reports on other things which were very much part of life in 1945. in Horsham the local paper reported on town events, but not the villages.

Rudgwick Project 1945

This project which was begun in January 2025 was to collect reminiscences about people in the war, and the years immediately afterwards, from Rudgwick residents, some about Rudgwick, some other places near and far. it is an eclectic mixture! WE N EED MORE, SO PLEASE GET IN TOUCH IF YOU HAVE A STORY. 

Evacuees in Rudgwick, Who Were They?

This article should be read in conjunction with one below “Joyce Bone. Evacuation to Rudgwick”. See also Doug Betts, “Rudgwick’s Preparation for War 1939” in RPS Review Spring 2025. In this article, an attempt has been made to discover names, families and homes of as many evacuees as possible, not a simple task, but rewarded by discovering that they came from a wider area of London than was thought. Any errors are the author’s. PLEASE GET IN TOUCH IF YOU CAN PROVIDE MORE INFORMATION ON ANY EVACUEE, SCHOOL, FAMILY OR TEACHERS/HELPERS.

Rudgwick Parish Magazine in Wartime, 1938-1949

The parish magazine is perhaps the first port of call for local news, but should be read in parallel with the next article on local newspapers.

Rudgwick Parish Council Minutes, 1938-1948

The parish council was the body with responsibility for not only a variety of things connected with the war effort, but more importantly keeping the village going in abnormal circumstances, and from 1944, preparing for post-war changes, in particular the playing fields.

Rudgwick News in Local Papers 1939-1946

Local newspapers provide lots of information, some routine, some extremely informative, with the wartime exceptions of government censorship and shortage of both paper and petrol reducing coverage. This article reveals many insights into life in the war.

Horsham District National Fire Service Diary 1939-1945

This diary includes bombs and flying bombs dropped on Rudgwick and many other urban and rural locations across the Horsham area. Adapted from a website created in memory of Robert Blake, member of Horsham NFS.

Dutch Courage, The Story of Cees Waardenburg

This is the story of the unfortunate deaths of two airmen, one Dutch, and of their commanding officer, based at nearby Dunsfold Aerodrome, and their 1944 burial in Rudgwick. With four appendices.

The Bramley Train Attack, 1942

This is the story of Rita Leaney and baby Paul, who both survived the attack. Rita was the daughter of Rudgwick headmaster Alfred Bacon. She was very badly injured. The article culls several websites to discover the remarkable story of 16 December 1942, as well as giving Paul’s personal reminiscences of his mother.

Martin Watts, A Memoir

My Childhood War in Rudgwick. Martin was born in 1937, but has  recall of life in Rudgwick in the 1940s and early 1950s is amazing. As well as his personal story, unaltered from his typescript pages, his 1953-4 Rudgwick ration book is at the end. 

A House at War

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) is rather better known today than it used to be. We also know more of its use of various houses in SE England, including one in Surrey just north of Rudgwick, around which this article weaves a tale which also involves the then owner of the house, Bernard Prance, the artist and illustrator of Punch magazine.

David Hamilton, Evacuee at Gibbons Mill Farm

David “Diddy” Hamilton, well-known nationally from the world of music, and now living in The Haven, just a stone’s throw from where he and his mother moved to his grandparent’s farm in 1939, has confided to me his memories of the war years for a book on the story of Gibbons Mill and Mill Farm (see Publications tab). He has now written his autobiography which was useful to cross i’s and dot t’s on his wartime story. In addition this article contains the memories of a land girl on the same farm, and a summary of his grandfather’s accounts ledger for the war years.

Pennthorpe School at Gibbons Mill

Evacuated from Chislehurst Kent to Rudgwick in 1939, the school of 40 boys remained at The Mill House, Gibbons Mill in The Haven until 1948, when it moved to its present location, Gaskyns, in the village. This is primarily the stories of boys who remember the war years.

King George’s Field

Rudgwick’s recreation ground in Bucks Green has its origins before 1939, but did not open until after the war, remaining the most important open space in the parish to this day.

Dr Kelsey’s Story

The extraordinary story of an escape to Tobruk, North Africa, in 1941 by a Rudgwick GP.

Gossage, Windacres and Bucks Green Camp

This is the story of The 69^th Light Anti-Aircraft Battery Royal Canadian Artillery at Bucks Green Camp, whose CO was Major Brookes Gossage, related to the Gossage family then living at Windacres off Church Street.

Cecilia Butcher, Land Girl

Cecilia Butcher was not only a Rudgwick Land Girl in the war, she also ran the village post office for many many years.

Lynwick & Woodsomes, Canadians and a Land Girl

Brief notes on military units at Lynwick, and an anonymous land girl’s diary

Evelyn Waller, Land Girl

Member of the Preservation Society, Graham Crummett, has provided this collection of documents and photographs of his mother’s time in the WLA.. A local Rudgwick girl, she was working only a few miles from home near Rowhook.

Joyce Bone, Evacuation to Rudgwick

Joyce, who is still alive and living in Rudgwick, has given her permission to publish this. It is a story of a Peckham family of three sisters who came to Rudgwick in 1939 in the official evacuation  of LCC schoolchildren. No one remembers it like Joyce.

Margaret Jordan, Evacuee to Sunnyside

Margaret, aged 7, and various Stevens and Piddock cousins evacuated to Sunnyside Nurseries in 1939 from Morden Surrey, looked after by Mrs Doris Stevens, at the home of their grandfather James Crisp and his son and daughter-in-law, John and Florence Crisp. The children, like all evacuees, attended Rudgwick School.

Wanford Bridges Defences and Other Relict Features

The Arun at Bucks Green was part of the Arun/Ouse Line across West Sussex, so was heavily defended, as were other crossing points, in the build up to potential invasion (Operation Sealion), which thankfully never happened..

The Milward Burge Documents,  Salvage and Savings Groups

This collection of documents, posters, letters etc has been edited and made into an account of all types of wartime “recycling” (long before the word was invented) in Rudgwick. Burge was also the driving force behind the successful  Savings Groups in the village.

White Lea, Alfold, Secret Research

White Lea is off the A281 between Rikkyo School and Alfold Crossways, only just outside Rudgwick. In the war there was a closely guarded site operated by the Ministry of Supply located out of sight behind the house. its purpose and it s buildings will be revealed in this article.

Roman Gate, Two Wartime Stories in One

The two stories relate to their location on the border of Rudgwick and Slinfold parishes. One is a story of charcoal burning in Roman Woods for the war effort (gas masks), the other of a Battle of Britain ‘kill’ by a Czech pilot of a German fighter pilot whose plane came down at Roman Gate.