The London/Surrey boundary - Nonsuch
SQUARE BY SQUARE LOOK AT LONDON
TQ 23 64
Nonsuch Park – part of the park; and once the site of Henry VIII’s Palace of Nonsuch
The London/Surrey/Sutton boundary goes from the railway line north up Ewell Road and into Cheam Park. It runs north west between the Park and the wood to the end of Cheam Recreation Ground
Post to the north North Cheam
Post to the west Nonsuch
Post to the east Cheam
Sites on the London Sutton side of the boundary
Cheam Park
This is in the grounds of what was early 19th Cheam Park House, in 1937 and the park was bought by the local authority. In 1939-40 it was used for assembling gas masks, but in 1944 it was bombed and later demolished. Lodge to Cheam Park House. The original drive is now tarmac which curves round in front of the house site which is still marked by a platform. The brick walls beyond the house site originally enclosed the kitchen garden which is now a parks depot. A shallow gully curving across the grass is the remains of the ha-ha which separated the garden from the park to the north.
Said to once have been a spring flowing west towards the Ewell Grove stream and the Hogsmill
Ewell Road Nonsuch High School for Girls an all-girls' school standing in 22 acres of grounds on the edge of Nonsuch Park
Sites on the Surrey Epsom side of the boundary
Cheam Road
Harefield Bridge
Cuddington. The name refers to a Saxon landowner. It is an elongated ‘finger’ parish which in 1538 had a church and houses but which Henry VII then acquired in order to build Nonsuch and then demolished it all. ‘Cotintone’ 727, ‘Cudintone’ 933 ‘Codintone’ 1086, that is 'farmstead associated with a man called Cuda',
Nonsuch
Nonsuch House. A Mansion House with turrets and battlements by Wyattville. It was built 1731-1743 by Joseph Thompson, but enlarged by Jeffrey Wyatt in 1802- 6 for Samuel Farmer. A chequer-work wall of flint and chalk on the east side is Tudor. Inside the porch wall is a stone, crudely inscribed: 1543 HENRICV OCTAVS + 35. This suggests that the house occupies the site of, and was perhaps originally converted from, one of the lodges in the Little Park. A service wing with a dairy and kitchen has been restored.
Chalk Pit. Understood to have provided material for the building of Nonsuch Palace.
The Wood
Nursery Park
Oak Plantation
Unfinished Road
This is the remains of a road begun in the 1930s which would have re-established part of the old Vicarage Lane route between the Cheam Gate of Nonsuch Park and the Ewell by-pass. It remains as an overgrown concrete path with a pedestrian subway where a pathway to Warren Farm crosses the route.
This material has been compiled over many years and from a wide variety of sources
TQ 23 64
Nonsuch Park – part of the park; and once the site of Henry VIII’s Palace of Nonsuch
The London/Surrey/Sutton boundary goes from the railway line north up Ewell Road and into Cheam Park. It runs north west between the Park and the wood to the end of Cheam Recreation Ground
Post to the north North Cheam
Post to the west Nonsuch
Post to the east Cheam
Sites on the London Sutton side of the boundary
Cheam Park
This is in the grounds of what was early 19th Cheam Park House, in 1937 and the park was bought by the local authority. In 1939-40 it was used for assembling gas masks, but in 1944 it was bombed and later demolished. Lodge to Cheam Park House. The original drive is now tarmac which curves round in front of the house site which is still marked by a platform. The brick walls beyond the house site originally enclosed the kitchen garden which is now a parks depot. A shallow gully curving across the grass is the remains of the ha-ha which separated the garden from the park to the north.
Said to once have been a spring flowing west towards the Ewell Grove stream and the Hogsmill
Ewell Road Nonsuch High School for Girls an all-girls' school standing in 22 acres of grounds on the edge of Nonsuch Park
Sites on the Surrey Epsom side of the boundary
Cheam Road
Harefield Bridge
Cuddington. The name refers to a Saxon landowner. It is an elongated ‘finger’ parish which in 1538 had a church and houses but which Henry VII then acquired in order to build Nonsuch and then demolished it all. ‘Cotintone’ 727, ‘Cudintone’ 933 ‘Codintone’ 1086, that is 'farmstead associated with a man called Cuda',
Nonsuch
Nonsuch House. A Mansion House with turrets and battlements by Wyattville. It was built 1731-1743 by Joseph Thompson, but enlarged by Jeffrey Wyatt in 1802- 6 for Samuel Farmer. A chequer-work wall of flint and chalk on the east side is Tudor. Inside the porch wall is a stone, crudely inscribed: 1543 HENRICV OCTAVS + 35. This suggests that the house occupies the site of, and was perhaps originally converted from, one of the lodges in the Little Park. A service wing with a dairy and kitchen has been restored.
Chalk Pit. Understood to have provided material for the building of Nonsuch Palace.
The Wood
Nursery Park
Oak Plantation
Unfinished Road
This is the remains of a road begun in the 1930s which would have re-established part of the old Vicarage Lane route between the Cheam Gate of Nonsuch Park and the Ewell by-pass. It remains as an overgrown concrete path with a pedestrian subway where a pathway to Warren Farm crosses the route.
This material has been compiled over many years and from a wide variety of sources
Comments
These structures would have supported the width of a train, where the pipe would have been placed in the middle of the structure with rail tracks on either side.
The Atmospheric Railway functioned in many areas, but was hobbled by the technology of the day regarding the seals, which were leather lubricated in tallow, which rats liked and subsequently was part of the downfall of the Atmospheric Railway.
The 'underpass' would have been the pumping station where negative and positive air pressure would have been pumped up to the longitudinal pipe through the openings in the top of the underpass.
Alan Nicol
As Marks says they don't look like foundations.
In my mispent early years I had the pleasure of visiting many military sites, bomb shelters and research stations. What was common to them all and this area is that specific type of concrete. It reeks to me of war dept. I think the origin is likely to be during the war probably to some sort of access road to a shelter, concealed by the woods and terrain, I am guessing your 'underpass'. The national archives might be able to reveal its true use.
Incidentally the area remained favorite for shelters, there was a large nuclear shelter at North Cheam crossroads adjacent and behind the circle k/sperrings and PH. Its now been filled in and there is a housing development on it.
I remain convinced that is isn't an unfinished road. Adrian, do you remember the layout of the 'underpass'? In my memory, its top was much higher than the level of the roadways and therefore not an underpass at all. It would have prevented any through-traffic along the roadways.
I think that something could be loaded/ unloaded from the 'underpass', through a hatch on the top which I half-remember. It could be moved by a vehicle on one roadway and stored on the other. I'm thinking ammunition.
My other thought was that it was something to do with operation PLUTO.
But this is all pure speculation.
I remain convinced that is isn't an unfinished road. Adrian, do you remember the layout of the 'underpass'? In my memory, its top was much higher than the level of the roadways and therefore not an underpass at all. It would have prevented any through-traffic along the roadways.
I think that something could be loaded/ unloaded from the 'underpass', through a hatch on the top which I half-remember. It could be moved by a vehicle on one roadway and stored on the other. I'm thinking ammunition.
My other thought was that it was something to do with operation PLUTO.
But this is all pure speculation.
No. I don’t recall the exact layout of the underpass - rather a tunnel feed-road into the bunker itself and safe to play on for us children who, as far as I remember from 60 years ago (!) and despite energetic games, never had an accident, such as falling off the flat concrete terrace-roof on to the road(s), rather on to an elevated mound with a grassy knoll all the way round.
I definitely had been unaware of any Operation Pluto pipeline connection. The park site is possibly just too far away - from any ocean or riverbed e.g. the Mole or Thames - to serve as an underwater pipeline.
I merely accepted, or rather swallowed, my parents' idea of the ghost road(s) doubling as an aircraft runway. This theory had been further reinforced by a Nonsuch Park neighbour who had been a serving BOAC (British Overseas Aircraft Corporation) airline pilot and himself also ex-RAF.
What has stuck in my mind is that both such neighbour and my father had boasted that they could have ‘easily’ landed thereon a Spitfire or – tellingly with no hospital in the immediate vicinity - an air-ambulance helicopter. I - albeit born 5 years post-World War II - know, though, of no actual landing.....
I last explored the area in 2004 and the underpass was still there although covered in rather unpleasant graffiti