Colin Manton

Haywards Heath is a remarkable place with an intriguing history. Misguidedly characterised as 'large and quite amorphous', detailed inspection actually reveals a dynamic settlement that spread like a patchwork quilt in a distinctive pattern of development. It was coming of the the railway, bringing with it the county asylum and one of the country's largest cattle markets, which was the making of Haywards Heath. There is far more to the district than that, however. The town's standing buildings and the local place names hint in places at much earlier history: a deadly battle of the Civil War in 1642, two thriving medieval manors, and even travellers and traders on a Roman road. In this book local author Colin Manton takes the reader on an enlightening and entertaining journey through the town's illustrious past, delving beneath the surface to reveal dark deeds and strange tales with long-forgotten facts and amusing stories. Secret Haywards Heath lifts the lid on the hidden secrets that even most local people don’t know.

The Victorian era saw great changes to the nation’s capital. This book illustrates the nineteenth-century aspects of London that the Victorians were so proud of: the pioneering public health engineering of Bazalgette’s system of intercepting sewers; the magnificent public buildings such as the ‘new’ Gothic Houses of Parliament and Big Ben; the classical and iconic British Museum; the great Natural History Museum; massive new railway termini and railway hotels; and, of course, the world’s first underground railway. The book also looks at the less savoury side of Victorian life: public hangings at Newgate, and the world known to Charles Dickens, contrasting scenes of squalor around St Giles to the magnificence of the Great Exhibition, dubbed the ‘Crystal Palace’. Through an intriguing selection of Victorian engravings and contemporary photographs, this book compares the ‘world city’ that was so imaginatively and confidently developed by the Victorians with today’s dynamic, multicultural city of commerce and culture, which so often hits the headlines.

This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which Haywards Heath has changed and developed over the last century.