Thames Tributary Pipp Brook - Westcott

Thames Tributary Pipp Brook
The Pipp Brook continues to flow north towards the river Mole

Post to the north Holehill Lane
Post to the east Westcott
Post to the south Sylvanus Wood

Balchins Lane
Westcott Mill. The Old Mill House. Site of a mill mentioned in Domesday but a mill with a six acre mill pond was built in the 17th.  It had a very large mill pond to make up for its low water supply, since it is near the source of the Pipp Brook.  What remains of the mill building dates from 1850. It operated until 1909, and the machinery was sold in 1912. It was then used as a fishing lodge by Mr. Brooke, of the tea company. It then became a private house but the water still flows through the wheel pit and the mill pond is still there, used by fishermen. Part of the original walling of sandstone rubble encloses the cellar but above this is a modern house.
Churtgate House. The oldest portion is the east wing which dates
from the late 16th. It is built of sandstone rubble. Listed Grade II
Rookery Farmhouse. 17th red brick building. Listed Grade II
Stowe Maries. Listed Grade II. 16th timber-framed building once 2 cottages. Timber-framing exposed inside. Film star Leslie Howard lived here, visited by Ingrid Bergman.
Taw cottage and Tawside cottage. Listed Grade II. Victorian front masking a timber-framed open hall house with internal jetty probably mid 16th.
Black Hawes Castle. Large earthwork, which may be part of a fortified Norman manor house known as Black Hawes Castle. A sherd from a 12th or 13th century cooking pot was recovered in the garden below the earthwork.

Coast Hill
Developed from the 1890s by Arthur Brooke of the Rookery but no houses were built on the southern side of the road and only few on the north in Coast Hill Lane.
House. In the garden is ‘Rookhurst Castle’ built by Arthur Palmer in the 1930s. Old lime kiln also in the garden.

Coast Hill Lane
Coombe Copse

Guildford Road
Rookery Lodge. Listed Grade II. Estate office, a later house. Built 1896 by Smith and Brewer in Arts and Crafts style. Red brick with pebble dashed first floor. It was built for a company who had bought the Rookery estate for redevelopment.
Holy Trinity Church. Westcott church is near an ancient droveway to the Weald. Holy Trinity was an entirely new church built by G.G.Scott in 1851 for the area which was previously part of Dorking parish. The money was raised by subscription and from Charles Barclay. It is in dressed flint and there is a window of the Ascension in Whitefriars glass – given by one of the Barclays. Listed Grade II
Vicarage on land given by the Barclay family
Sandrock Cottage. Listed Grade II. 17th house built of Brick on flint sill.
Bay Tree Cottage. Stone and brick cottage

Logmore Lane
Start of a long drove road which goes to Ockley. It climbs the sandstone ridges as an unmetalled trackway part of a system related to sheep and swine pastures held by settlements on the downs. It begins at the church.
Westcott Hill Farmhouse. Long 18th house.

Rookery
The Dorking Water Company supplied the Westcott area from springs in the Rookery. Closed 1932.
The Rookery. Began as ‘Churt-gate’; and was bought in 1759 followed by the Fuller family whose bank eventually became NatWest. Daniel Malthus persuaded Rousseau to visit the Rookery in 1766. Malthus laid out the garden on the principles described by Rousseau as 'Julie's garden' . Daniel sold the house in 1768 but his sixth child, Robert, was born there and brought up on the principles laid down by Rousseau - and he later became the author of 'Principles of Population'. It was put up for sale in 1894 and the principal purchaser was Arthur Brooke who used his ‘Brooke Bond’ tea fortune to acquire the Mansion as a home, and several hundred acres of land. Some of which continued to be farmed or stayed as woodland, but some significant acreage was identified as potential building land placed in the hands of a newly formed company - Landowners Limited. Gothic, stucco and battlemented it was demolished in 1968.

Rookery Drive
Westcott Sand Pit. Disused pit where bands of ironstone can be clearly seen in the rock face
Rookery Mills. There were two flour mills in the Rookery estate before 1729, one on the embankment between the two lakes and one below the lower lake. They were 'statute mills' and worked alternately. There is no trace of the upper mill - which in its last days was used as a saw mill - but the mill building of the lower mill was converted to housing in 1945.
Ice House. A 19th century brick-built ice house may be seen between the bridleway and the upper pond.
Springs. Formerly called Mistress Close. Timber-framed cottage on the banks of a stream, in the grounds of the Rookery,

Sandrock Road

Westcott Heath
Pound in north-western corner. Small square sandstone rubble enclosure built on to the wall enclosing the former stables to Wintershaw.

Westcott Street
Kingscote. Timber-framed house with plaster infilling on the 1st floor and painted brick infilling below. Listed Grade II
Lower Springfield Farmhouse, Timber-framed house with red brick infilling
1 and 2 The Barracks. 17th building of sandstone rubble with red brick dressings.
Wintershaw. Listed Grade II. Early 19th house

Sources
British Listed Buildings web site
Stidder. Watermills of Surrey
London Transport Country walks one. 
Penguin Book of Surrey,
Pevsner Surrey