Why is ‘Rosers Cross’ so named?

 John Roser migrated to Waldron in the late 1700s having married at East Hoathly in 1782 and baptised his daughter Martha in Waldron in 1794. So the family had not been long term residents of Waldron before the 1800s.^1,2 However just north of the village centre is a cross-roads (and a recently developed hamlet) named ‘Rosers Cross’.³ The cross-roads is marked with this name in the 1898 Ordnance survey map of the area, but not in the earliest (1813) map.^4,5 So sometime in this period the location acquired its name. Is there any way in which the location where the Rosers resided during this time can be identified to see whether it was in the locality later known as ‘Rosers Cross’?

Rosers Cross from Rosers Cross Lane, photographed by Sue Law, 13 July 2016

 In fact the 1841 Census can be used to roughly locate the Roser residence in June 1841. Census takers were allotted an area to cover (an enumeration district, usually described at the start of the census section) and since they were walking or riding, they optimised their route to minimise the length of their journey. The household schedules thus collected were numbered in the order they were taken. Thus by listing the locations in the enumeration district in schedule order, identifying their modern locations and plotting them out in order, the route followed by the census taker can be illustrated and the rough location of any unknown or poorly specified places can be identified. The Rosers lived in Enumeration District 5 (Waldron Parish) of Framfield Registrar’s District which was part of the Uckfield Superintendent Registrar’s District.⁶ The named locations were censused in the following order:

	1841 census location name	Most recent location name
1	Furnace	The Furnace7
2	Sharps Corner	Sharps Corner3,5
3	Eastons	-
4	Horsham	Horeham/Horam3,5
5	Cards	-
6	Great Tan House	Tanners Manor or Tanners Farm3
7	Lions green House	Lions Green3
8	Foxhunt green	Foxhunt Green3
9	Foxhunt House	Foxhunt4
10	Woodgates	-
11	Shullow Bridge	Scallow Bridge3
12	Shullow Bridge cottage	Probably Scallow Wish7
13	Herringdales	Heronsdale Manor3
14	Holms	Holms Farm7
15	Silver Oaks	Silveroaks Farm7
16	Gowers	-
17	Cutteys Crouch	Catts Crouch Farm7
18	Possingworth Bridge	Not named, but the road to Possingworth Manor House does cross the same stream as Scallows Bridge, so I have assumed that this is Possingworth Bridge
19	Possingworth	Possingworth Manor House8
20	Brickendens	Bryckden Place3
21	(Roser Residence)	Location of the Roser entries in the enumeration
22	Mount Pleasant	Montpellier.4 This is the closest I can find to a “Mount Pleasant”, through there is a street called “Mount Pleasant” in Cross in Hand not far from this location.
23	Siggses	Siggswood9 (on Brittenden Lane)
24	Waldron Cross	I assume this is the cross-roads west of the village
25	Poorhouse	Grove Cottages10,11
26	Owlesbury House	Owlesbury House12
27	Waldron Street	The Street

 

Street sign, Waldron, photographed by Alan Law, 13 July 2016

Plotting these places on Google Earth and linking places 1 to 20 (before the Roser residence) with an orange path and 22 to 27 (after the Roser residence) with a red path, we can see that the census taker took a logical and optimal path around the district. The locations of un-named residences will thus be between the identified locations either side of the census entry.

Census taker's route around Waldron, June 1841

 Logically the Roser residence lies in the gap in the path in the area of locations 20, 22 and 23 not far from ‘Rosers Cross’. There is thus a strong possibility that ‘Rosers Cross’ is named after the family of John Roser, his wife Martha and their descendants.

 This technique can be used to locate unknown locations anywhere in the UK with appropriate census records, for example locating named slum “Rents” in the East End of London which were not shown on any map before they were cleared.

Sources

1. Marriage of John Roser and Martha Hook, married 28 October 1782, East Hoathly Parish Register, East Hoathly, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
2. Baptism of Martha Roser, baptised 6 January 1794, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
3. Ordnance Survey, #199 Eastbourne & Hastings, Topographic, 1:50 000, OS Landranger, Southampton, UK, Ordnance Survey, 2017.
4. Ordnance Survey, and Cassini Maps, Eastbourne & Hastings 1898, Matching OS Landranger 199, Topographic, 1:50 000, Cassini Historical Map Revised New Series. Gillingham, UK, Cassini Publishing, 2007.
5. Ordnance Survey, and Cassini Maps, Eastbourne & Hastings 1813, Matching OS Landranger 199, Topographic, 1:50 000, Cassini Historical Map Old Series, Gillingham, UK, Cassini Publishing, 2007.
6. Census record for Parish of Waldron, Sussex, 1841 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO107/1118/9 Folios 5-12, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed 3 Nov 2006.
7.  Streetmap.co.uk, ‘1:25,000 Street Map: Waldron’, http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map?x=554678&y=119747&z=120&sv=Waldron&st=3&tl=Map+of+Waldron,+East+Sussex+[Town]&searchp=ids&mapp=map, accessed 10 Oct 2021.
8. Streetmap.co.uk, ‘1:25,000 Topographic Map: Waldron’, http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map?x=554678&y=119747&z=120&sv=Waldron&st=3&tl=Map+of+Waldron,+East+Sussex+[Town]&searchp=ids&mapp=map, accessed 10 Oct 2021.
9. Zoopla.co.uk, ‘Listing for Siggswood, Waldron, Heathfield TN21 0RG’, https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/siggswood/waldron/heathfield/tn21-0rg/23988774/, accessed 10 Oct 2021.
10. British Listed Buildings, ‘Grove Cottage’, https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101183172-grove-cottage-heathfield-and-waldron#.YWNz3xw7YaF, accessed 10 Oct 2021.
11. Mike Wilson, ‘History of Grove Cottages (Waldron Workhouse)’, Maggi and Popsie's Blog, 1 July 2009, http://maggiandmike.blogspot.com/,  accessed 10 Oct 2021.
12. Rightmove.co.uk, ‘Listing for Owlesbury, North Street, Waldron, Heathfield, East Sussex TN21 0QR’, https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html?prop=75796126&sale=80659083&country=england, accessed 10 Oct 2021.