Southwater sits just south of Horsham and was, for most of the 20th century, a brickworks village. At its peak the works made 18 million bricks a year, and the red engineering bricks went into Christ's Hospital, Victoria Station and London's sewers. The works closed in 1981 and the old clay pits became Southwater Country Park, whose Cripplegate Lake is over 30 feet deep.
The housing tells the same story in brick. Council houses for brickworkers went up in the 1920s and about 200 more council houses followed in the early 1970s. Then the parish grew fast: by 1982 there were about 1,600 houses. The population stood at 10,730 at the 2011 census. The village centre around Lintot Square, with the Iguanodon statue that recalls the dinosaur bones found at the brickyard in the 1920s, was rebuilt in 2006. The 2015 Planning Framework allocated around 600 more homes west of Southwater.
A large share of Southwater's houses date from the 1970s and 1980s and have had one set of double glazing already. That makes Southwater a place of whole-house replacements rather than one-off windows. Chamfered uPVC casements are the usual like-for-like choice, and many owners take the chance to change from white to anthracite grey. Landings and stairwells often get a tilt and turn window, which can be cleaned from inside.
Southwater is not on Horsham District Council's list of conservation areas. The oldest buildings, such as Great House Farmhouse to the west of the village, a Grade II* building dated 1462, and Holy Innocents church of 1848 to 1849, are listed and would need consent for any change. For the estates, permitted development covers like-for-like replacement.
The Downs Link path runs along the old railway line through the village, past the country park. The railway arrived in 1866 and the yard that served the brickworks closed in 1966.
More background on Southwater on Wikipedia.
House: A 1980s four-bedroom detached house in Southwater, from the period when about 1,600 houses stood in the parish by 1982.
What is fitted: Ten chamfered uPVC casements in anthracite grey replacing the original white double glazing, plus one uPVC tilt and turn window on the landing.
Typically £11,850 to £17,450, supplied and fitted, including VAT.