Crossways House is thought to have been built in 1884 and sold to the owner of the Harvest Home pub, which was then in a pair of thatched cottages on Cambridge Road. The Harvest Home moved to Crossways House shortly afterwards: a building is shown on the site on the 1886 Ordnance Survey map and this building is identified as the Harvest Home public house in the following 1902 edition. The single-storey shop on the left is not shown on the 1902 map so may have been added slightly later.

New Harvest Home (now Crossways House). Left: c.1920. Right: during the floods of 1958.

The pub and shop was run by Joseph George Moore and his wife Beatrice from c.1920 to 1951 when the pub closed, and Joseph continued to live in Crossways House until 1960. The shop continued under the management and ownership of Amy Haynes until 1968. Im more recent times, part of Crossways House has been used as a hair salon.

Mr J. G. Moore’s Shop. Village historian RW wrote: This shop sold practically everything! Mr Moore would come round to each house during the week (as all tradesmen did in those days) and he would recite at great speed a list of grocery items and my mother would say “stop – I’ll have some of those” and then he would continue with his list. She states how we boys would stand there open-mouthed at the rapidity with which he went through his list. The groceries would then be delivered a day or two later.

Between 2017 and 2020, the owners of Crossways House made the two downstairs front rooms available for use by the village as a ‘Communitea Café’ and community hub. The space was used for various village activities including exhibitions, toddler sessions, board games nights, bring and share meals, a philosophers’ café, a book club, and a meeting venue for village groups. The arrival of the covid-19 pandemic, and associated social distancing regulations, put a stop to all indoor activities in 2020, but the forecourt became a social gathering point around the coffee stand of a local entrepreneur. The Crossways community project was closed in 2021 as a consequence of the pandemic, but many of the activities that were started have since continued in other venues.

Socially distanced café outside Crossways House in summer 2020

If you have any information or photos of Crossways House, please leave a comment below.

See also: Harvest Home

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