Handmade Clay Tiles in Surrey
Handmade Clay Tiles
Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd have been in the clay tile business for many years and have developed an enviable reputation for excellence by offering our customers that little extra special personal service, coupled with the very highest quality handmade clay tiles.
All our handmade clay tiles carry a fifty year guarantee so you have the added peace of mind when you choose market leaders like us for your handmade clay tiles.
Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd have over fifty years industry experience. We are very proud of the professional team we have here at Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd.
We are the United Kingdoms leading supplier of high quality handmade and handcrafted clay roof tiles, peg tiles and machine made tiles. You would be hard pressed to find a better supplier for your handmade clay tile requirements.
Our handmade clay tiles are manufactured using traditional skills coupled with modern kiln technology, the Heritage Tile range is literally second to none, offering old world character and charm, yet able to meet modern building requirements.
With a wide and varied colour choice, including innovative shades and bespoke styles available, we offer the architect or homeowner complete control over the handmade clay tiles they need to create a stunning design that will enhance any building project.
A little information about Surrey
Early Modern Surrey
Under the early Tudor kings, magnificent and luxurious royal palaces were constructed in northeastern Surrey, mainly because they were close to London. At Richmond an existing royal residence was rebuilt on a very grand scale under King Henry VII, who also founded a Franciscan friary nearby in 1499. The even more spectacular palace of Nonsuch was later built for Henry VIII near Ewell. The palace at Guildford Castle had fallen out of use long before, but a royal hunting lodge existed outside the town. Sadly all these glorious buildings have since been demolished.
Nonsuch palace
Nonsuch Palace, near Cheam in Surrey, was perhaps the grandest of Henry VIIIs building projects. It was built on the site of Cuddington, near Ewell, the church and village having been destroyed and compensation paid, to create a suitable site. Work started on 22 April 1538, the first day of Henry celebrated his thirtieth year on the throne, and six months after the birth of his son, later Edward VI.
Within two months the name Nonsuch appears in the building accounts, its name a boast that there was no such palace elsewhere equal to it in magnificence. Construction had been substantially carried out by 1541, but it took several more years to complete. As the Royal Household took possession of vast tracts of surrounding acreage, several major roads were re-routed or by passed to circumvent what became Nonsuch Great Park.
The palace was designed to be a celebration of the power and the grandeur of the Tudor dynasty, built to rival the Chateau de Chambord in France. Unlike most of the kings palaces, Nonsuch was not an adaptation of an old building; he chose to build a new palace in this location because it was near to one of his main hunting grounds. However the choice of location was unwise, as there was no nearby supply of water suitable for domestic use. The palace cost at least £24,000 because of its rich ornamentation and is considered a key work in the introduction of elements of Renaissance design to England.
The Cornish rebellion
During the Cornish Rebellion of 1497, the rebels heading for London briefly occupied Guildford and fought a skirmish with a government detachment on Guildown outside the town, before marching on to defeat at Blackheath in Kent. The forces of Wyatts Rebellion in 1554 passed through what was then northeastern Surrey on their way from Kent to London, briefly occupying Southwark and then crossing the Thames at Kingston after failing to storm London Bridge.
Early Surrey industry
Surrey had a cloth industry that had declined by the 16th century and collapsed in the 17th, damaged by falling standards and competition from more effective producers in other parts of England. The iron industry in the Weald, whose rich deposits had been exploited since prehistoric times, expanded and spread from its base in Sussex into Kent and Surrey after 1550. New furnace technology stimulated further growth in the early 17th century, but this hastened the extinction of the business as the mines were worked out. However, this period also saw the emergence of important new industries, centred on the valley of the Tillingbourne, south east of Guildford, which often adapted watermills originally built for the now moribund cloth industry. The production of brass goods and wire in this area was relatively short lived, falling victim to competitors in the Midlands in the middle of the 17th century, but the manufacture of paper and gunpowder lasted much longer. For a time in the middle of the 17th century the Surrey mills were the main producers of gunpowder in England. A glass industry also developed in the middle of the 16th century on the southwestern borders of Surrey, but had collapsed by 1630, as the wood fired Surrey glassworks were surpassed by emerging coal fired works elsewhere in England. The Wey Navigation, opened in 1653, was one of Englands first canal systems.
Surrey resident as Archbishop of Canterbury
George Abbot from Surrey, served as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1611 to 1633. In 1619 he founded Abbots Hospital, an almshouse in Guildford, which is still operating to this day. He also made unsuccessful efforts to revitalise the local cloth industry. One of his brothers, Robert, became Bishop of Salisbury, while another, Maurice, was a founding shareholder of the East India Company who became the company Governor and later the Lord Mayor of London.
Southwark expanded rapidly in this period, and by 1600, if considered as a separate entity, it was the second largest urban area in England. Parts of it were outside the jurisdiction of the government of the City of London, and as a result the area of Bankside became Londons principal entertainment district, since the social control exercised there by the local authorities of Surrey was less effective and restrictive than that of the City authorities. Bankside was the scene of the golden age of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, with the work of playwrights including William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and John Webster performed in its playhouses.
Surrey in the English Civil War
Surrey almost entirely escaped the direct impact of fighting during the main phase of the English Civil War in 1642 to 1646. The local Parliamentarian gentry led by Sir Richard Onslow were able to secure the county without difficulty on the outbreak of war. Farnham Castle was briefly occupied by the advancing Royalists in late 1642, but was easily stormed by the Parliamentarians under Sir William Waller. A new Royalist offensive in late 1643 saw skirmishing around Farnham between Wallers forces and Ralph Hoptons Royalists, but these brief incursions into the western fringes of Surrey marked the limits of Royalist advances on the county. At the end of 1643 Surrey combined with Kent, Sussex and Hampshire to form the South Eastern Association, a military federation modelled on Parliaments existing Eastern Association.
In the uneasy peace that followed the Royalists defeat, a political crisis in summer 1647 saw Sir Thomas Fairfaxs army pass through Surrey on their way to occupy London, and subsequent billeting of troops in the county caused considerable upset with the local population. During the brief Second Civil War of 1648, the Earl of Holland entered Surrey in July, hoping to ignite a Royalist revolt. He raised his standard at Kingston and advanced south, but found little support. After confused manoeuvres between Reigate and Dorking as Parliamentary troops closed in, his force of five hundred men fled north and was overtaken and beaten at Kingston.
Early politics seated in Surrey
Surrey had a central role in the history of the radical political movements unleashed by the civil war. In October 1647 the first manifesto of the movement that became known as the Levellers, The Case of the Armie Truly Stated, was drafted at Guildford by the elected representatives of army regiments and civilian radicals from London. This document combined specific grievances with wider demands for constitutional change on the basis of popular sovereignty. It formed the template for the more systematic and radical Agreement of the People, drafted by the same men later that month. It also led to the Putney Debates shortly afterwards, in which its signatories met with Oliver Cromwell and other senior officers in the Surrey village of Putney, where the army had established its headquarters, to argue over the future political constitution of England.
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in East Sussex
Clay Roof Tiles in East Sussex
Clayhall Roof Tiles in East Sussex
Conservation Roof Tiles in East Sussex
Edwardian Roof Tiles in East Sussex
Georgian Roof Tiles in East Sussex
Handmade Clay Tiles in East Sussex
Handmade Roof Tiles in East Sussex
High Quality Roof Tiles in East Sussex
Traditional clay tiles in East Sussex
Traditional roof tiles in East Sussex
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in Essex
Conservation Roof Tiles in Essex
High Quality Roof Tiles in Essex
Traditional clay tiles in Essex
Traditional roof tiles in Essex
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in Hampshire
Clayhall Roof Tiles in Hampshire
Conservation Roof Tiles in Hampshire
Edwardian Roof Tiles in Hampshire
Georgian Roof Tiles in Hampshire
Handmade Clay Tiles in Hampshire
Handmade Roof Tiles in Hampshire
High Quality Roof Tiles in Hampshire
Traditional clay tiles in Hampshire
Traditional roof tiles in Hampshire
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in Hertfordshire
Clay Roof Tiles in Hertfordshire
Clayhall Roof Tiles in Hertfordshire
Conservation Roof Tiles in Hertfordshire
Edwardian Roof Tiles in Hertfordshire
Georgian Roof Tiles in Hertfordshire
Handmade Clay Tiles in Hertfordshire
Handmade Roof Tiles in Hertfordshire
High Quality Roof Tiles in Hertfordshire
Traditional clay tiles in Hertfordshire
Traditional roof tiles in Hertfordshire
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in Kent
Conservation Roof Tiles in Kent
High Quality Roof Tiles in Kent
Traditional clay tiles in Kent
Traditional roof tiles in Kent
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in London
Conservation Roof Tiles in London
Edwardian Roof Tiles in London
High Quality Roof Tiles in London
Traditional clay tiles in London
Traditional roof tiles in London
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in Surrey
Conservation Roof Tiles in Surrey
Edwardian Roof Tiles in Surrey
High Quality Roof Tiles in Surrey
Traditional clay tiles in Surrey
Traditional roof tiles in Surrey
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in West Sussex
Clay Roof Tiles in West Sussex
Clayhall Roof Tiles in West Sussex
Conservation Roof Tiles in West Sussex
Edwardian Roof Tiles in West Sussex
Georgian Roof Tiles in West Sussex
Handmade Clay Tiles in West Sussex
Handmade Roof Tiles in West Sussex
High Quality Roof Tiles in West Sussex
Traditional clay tiles in West Sussex
Traditional roof tiles in West Sussex
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in Bedfordshire
Clay Roof Tiles in Bedfordshire
Handmade Clay Tiles in Bedfordshire
Handmade Roof Tiles in Bedfordshire
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in Buckinghamshire
Clay Roof Tiles in Buckinghamshire
Handmade Clay Tiles in Buckinghamshire
Handmade Roof Tiles in Buckinghamshire
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in Cambridgeshire
Clay Roof Tiles in Cambridgeshire
Handmade Clay Tiles in Cambridgeshire
Handmade Roof Tiles in Cambridgeshire
Products available from Heritage Clay Tiles Ltd in Suffolk
Handmade Clay Tiles in Suffolk
Handmade Roof Tiles in Suffolk
Further Information
If you would like to know more or are interested in a quote we would be happy to help. Phone us on 01634 471 344, email us at sales@heritagetiles.co.uk and we will be in touch as soon as possible.
