Thames Tributary River Mole - Cobham
Thames Tributary River Mole
The Mole flows south west
TQ 10400 60208
Central area of this upmarket village, taking in some of the Park and other 'big' houses.
Post to the west Painshill
Post to the north Cobham
Post to the east Cobham Tilt
Post to the south Chilbrook
Anvil Lane
Anvil is a corruption of Hamwell
Cobham Court. The centre for administration of the Manor of Cobham and home of the Chertsey Abbey bailiff. Repaired the Chertsey Abbey in 1331 and a chapel added. Local medieval courts were held here. The Surrey Union Hunt had its kennels here in 1902 and from the 19th in the same ownership at Cobham Park. The original house, called Gavells, has been replaced.
Cobham Court Farm. 17th house with Edwardian front and early 20th extension. It has a Timber framed core
Barn. 18th Timber framed barn. Listed.
Church Cobham
The settlement which grew around St.Andrew’s Church. The area was owned by Chertsey Abbey but this part of the village was probably laid out by the Lord of the Manor in the reign of King Stephen. After the dissolution the Bigley family bought the manor from Mary I and it then passed to the Gavell family. Some of the area was turned into a Chase under Henry VIII which means it was part of a Royal Deer Park and thus under special regulation, which has never been rescinded.
Church Street
This was the spine road of Church Cobham. Plots backing onto the river on the south side are probably 12th and laid out by Chertsey Abbey to maximise income. The rear boundaries may follow the line of an earlier road from Cobham Court and Downside Bridge to the mill.
12 Beech House built by Leonard Martin now a dentist
14 Homestead built by Leonard Martin and now a restaurant
15 Mole Cottage, at one time, a butcher's shop. Dated 1645, and built end on to street. Timber framed with fake timber framing to the upper floors. Originally this was a cottage, with a north hearth room and south service room, and two rooms over. It has the initials 'WK' on a
ground floor timber and this may be William King, a draper, who left
it to his son-in-law, Gerald Winstanley, the Digger
18 Overbye early 18th. Lived in by tailors and later called ‘St. Luke's Hostel’ and later ‘Lych Gate House’. Home of Leonard Martin, the architect who restored Church Stile House and designed Sandroyd (now Reeds) School – plaque to him on the house. The original house is the square portion on the right when seen from the road
19 Limehouse. An 18th house on the site of an earlier building. It is a Queen Anne Style house with a front of 1700 and a later rear. It was used by various tradesmen as two houses – the east wing was called ‘Somers’, and the rest ‘Christmas’. It is in red and blue brick with red brick dressings.
21 Church Stile House. It stands at the grave- yard entrance and where the vicar lived from the early middle ages. A house stood here in the 13th which was purchased by the Abbot of Chertsey and the house has a date plaque for 1432 although it was rebuilt in the mid 17th by Edward Fawcett, a London tallow chandler. A red brick wing at the rear is 17th and the house has a double overhang which is rare in Surrey. In 1614 Roger Bellow, a brewer, donated it to the poor of Clerkenwell and an iron plate in the garden listed the Clerkenwell church wardens. In 1902 it was an almshouse for ‘gentlewomen’ combined with a school for crippled children, but from 1948 has been a private house.
5 Phoenix with 18th façade. Had been the workplace of Eldred Tickety Ledger the watchmaker.
Building used as a dress shop. This was a butcher's shop in the early 18th it was owned by the Slifield family. And it later became a Coffee House and Reading Room.
Church Field was on the north of the street and used for strip farming.
Cobham Telephone Exchange. This is on the site of Longboyds, which was an owned by the Crawter family who were 19th land agents and local property owners.
Fox and Hounds. Now demolished. Had been built around 1900 on the site of an earlier building.
St.Bridgets. This was rebuilt by Leonard Martin. It was probably early 19th and is said to have been the laundry for Lime House and Church Stile House.
The Crown Inn. Opposite The Fox and Hounds. In 1764 used as a pub but later was a butchers. The pub was later owned by the Cobham Brewery. Closed down and demolished pre-First World War
The White Hart. Used as a general store from 1863 and now demolished
St. Andrew’s Church. Chertsey Abbey built this church for their tenants here around 1176, possibly on the site of an earlier church. It was extended shortly after and set at a slight angle to the nave and a chapel was added with places to wash cups in. There is a decorative Norman doorway, a Norman arch in the tower grooves where bell ropes were pulled – there are six bells, three of them from 1687. There are brasses -a 15th brass with a priest and on the other side a bearded layman – pivoted so both sides can be seen, and a brass of 1500 of the Adoration of the Shepherds. The church was restored several times in the 19th - the north aisle was rebuilt in 1886. A Chantry Chapel from the early 13th was restored as Cobham's War Memorial Chapel in 1919. There us a memorial tic poet Matthew Arnold. There is a stained glass window by Burne-Jones.
Churchyard extended in 1210. There is an ancient yew tree in the Garden of Memory. Local big wig Harvey Coombe is buried in the churchyard in a Soanesque mausoleum.
Cobham Park
The estate was made up of a parcel of properties including Downe Place and Bridge House Farm. In 1728 Bridge House Farm was sold to John Bridges of Cobham who built the house and landscaped the grounds. He merged the property with Downe House, demolished and rebuilt it. Eventually in the early 19th the estate was bought by Henry Lutterell, Earl of Carlhampton, and then Downe Place was bought by a brewer, Harvey Combe. Following a number of problems and a con man it was sold to a Thomas Page who left it to his daughter in 1842.
House. The house is on the site of Bridge House Farm. A mansion was built on the site by John Bridges who sold it in 1749 to Sir John Ligonier. It was rebuilt after a fire in the 1870s by Charles Coombe in Burgate Stone by Edward Middleton Barry, son of Charles Barry, and the result is a French Renaissance house which was home to Hucks brewer, who became a lunatic. Said to be the third house in the country to have electricity. In 1939 the Eagle Star Insurance Group moved there Administrative Centre here. The basement became an air-raid shelter. Between 1958 and 1979 various companies leased parts of the house as office space and then it was leased by Logica who bought it from the Combe family and restored it converting the whole site to office space. In the early 21st it was converted into flats.
Lake
Ice House. Underground near the lake – in vaulted brick icehouse which was damaged in the Second World War. The walls would have been lined with straw and ice cut from the lake during the winter. Probably 18th.
Stables- also converted to flats
Cobham Park Woodyard and Brewhouse. Designed 1848 by William Cubitt. It has an arched carriage entrance and Double planked garage doors under a glass roof across the front on iron scrolls. There is a wooden cupola. The name relates to the source of the Coombe family’s wealth in the City of London and the keystone is that from the London brewery.
Crown Alley
A footpath which links the High Street to the Tilt. Was this the line of the original main road?
Downside Road
Previously known as Poultry Lane
The Pound was originally at the end of Plough Lane but was later moved to opposite the entrance to Cobham Court.
Church Corner. This is now called Church Cottage. From 1814 it was the home of William Watts, engraver.
Plough Corner Cottage. c.1600 built as a smoke bay cottage
Old Garden House. Home of a blacksmith who lived opposite the entrance to Cobham Park. 17th house later occupied by a seedsman. Demolished by Harvey Coombe.
Downside Bridge Road
Downside Bridge. Once known as ‘Little bridge’ it is medieval but rebuilt as a brick structure by Gwilt in 1786 after a flood. In 1968 floods again washed the bridge away and it was rebuilt in 1971.
Church Gate House. House. c1700 built of brick with fishscale tiling above.
Pyports. William le Pypard appears to have lived here in 1332 but by the 18th it was the home of the Skrine family and then the Freeland family. Later it was the home of Sir William Hoste, and then the Currie family of brewers and then the Lushington family made it a centre for pre-Raphaelites and Christian Socialists. It became a centre of aggressive Methodism under the Bradnacks. Mesolithic flint axes were found in the grounds. It has a timbered hall hidden behind the Georgian facade and was for a while in the 19th called The Cedars. There are Sun Fire Insurance marks on both the front and the back
Pyrports Barn. Used by the first Methodists in the area and became a chapel. Led to a great deal of dissent and persecution of Methodists and by them of the local drinkers.
Rose Lodge. On the site of the original medieval vicarage. Probably used as such from 465, when it was founded by Chertsey Abbey, until 1717.
Royal British Legion Building
High Street
Originally seems to have been a lane which crossed Church Field. It did not exist as a road until the 19th but there was a back lane which went on the east side – was this the original medieval layout?
Holly Lodge. Home of the first RC priest in the area in 1912. Built by Daniel Dallin of Cobham Mill and later became the South Eastern Gas Showroom. Demolished in the 1960s.
Royal Mail sorting office. On the site of the 1880s post office
Woolworths. First self service Woolworths in the country.
Leg of Mutton Field
Sold for building in the 1890s by the Crawter family but acquired as open space by the local authority.
Plough Lane
Plough Pub. 16th building at the back with early 19th extensions at the front. Timber framed with brick infill
Wall letter box near Downside Road junction
River Hill
Red brick cottages built in the 18th once lined the road.
La Capanna. This used to be called the Old Cottage. 17th altered in 20th. It is timber framed with brick infill,
Old Bear Pub. 17th building with 19th additions. Timber framed with roughcast cladding.
Spencer Road
Former church rooms built by Leonard Martin. Girl Guide HQ and Montessori Nursery
Sources
Industrial Archaeology of Elmbridge
Industrial Archaeology. Elmbridge area
Old Bear. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. Web site
Plough. Web site
St. Andrew's. Web site
Taylor. A History of Cobham Park
Taylor. Book of Cobham
Taylor. Cobham. A History
The Mole flows south west
TQ 10400 60208
Central area of this upmarket village, taking in some of the Park and other 'big' houses.
Post to the west Painshill
Post to the north Cobham
Post to the east Cobham Tilt
Post to the south Chilbrook
Anvil Lane
Anvil is a corruption of Hamwell
Cobham Court. The centre for administration of the Manor of Cobham and home of the Chertsey Abbey bailiff. Repaired the Chertsey Abbey in 1331 and a chapel added. Local medieval courts were held here. The Surrey Union Hunt had its kennels here in 1902 and from the 19th in the same ownership at Cobham Park. The original house, called Gavells, has been replaced.
Cobham Court Farm. 17th house with Edwardian front and early 20th extension. It has a Timber framed core
Barn. 18th Timber framed barn. Listed.
Church Cobham
The settlement which grew around St.Andrew’s Church. The area was owned by Chertsey Abbey but this part of the village was probably laid out by the Lord of the Manor in the reign of King Stephen. After the dissolution the Bigley family bought the manor from Mary I and it then passed to the Gavell family. Some of the area was turned into a Chase under Henry VIII which means it was part of a Royal Deer Park and thus under special regulation, which has never been rescinded.
Church Street
This was the spine road of Church Cobham. Plots backing onto the river on the south side are probably 12th and laid out by Chertsey Abbey to maximise income. The rear boundaries may follow the line of an earlier road from Cobham Court and Downside Bridge to the mill.
12 Beech House built by Leonard Martin now a dentist
14 Homestead built by Leonard Martin and now a restaurant
15 Mole Cottage, at one time, a butcher's shop. Dated 1645, and built end on to street. Timber framed with fake timber framing to the upper floors. Originally this was a cottage, with a north hearth room and south service room, and two rooms over. It has the initials 'WK' on a
ground floor timber and this may be William King, a draper, who left
it to his son-in-law, Gerald Winstanley, the Digger
18 Overbye early 18th. Lived in by tailors and later called ‘St. Luke's Hostel’ and later ‘Lych Gate House’. Home of Leonard Martin, the architect who restored Church Stile House and designed Sandroyd (now Reeds) School – plaque to him on the house. The original house is the square portion on the right when seen from the road
19 Limehouse. An 18th house on the site of an earlier building. It is a Queen Anne Style house with a front of 1700 and a later rear. It was used by various tradesmen as two houses – the east wing was called ‘Somers’, and the rest ‘Christmas’. It is in red and blue brick with red brick dressings.
21 Church Stile House. It stands at the grave- yard entrance and where the vicar lived from the early middle ages. A house stood here in the 13th which was purchased by the Abbot of Chertsey and the house has a date plaque for 1432 although it was rebuilt in the mid 17th by Edward Fawcett, a London tallow chandler. A red brick wing at the rear is 17th and the house has a double overhang which is rare in Surrey. In 1614 Roger Bellow, a brewer, donated it to the poor of Clerkenwell and an iron plate in the garden listed the Clerkenwell church wardens. In 1902 it was an almshouse for ‘gentlewomen’ combined with a school for crippled children, but from 1948 has been a private house.
5 Phoenix with 18th façade. Had been the workplace of Eldred Tickety Ledger the watchmaker.
Building used as a dress shop. This was a butcher's shop in the early 18th it was owned by the Slifield family. And it later became a Coffee House and Reading Room.
Church Field was on the north of the street and used for strip farming.
Cobham Telephone Exchange. This is on the site of Longboyds, which was an owned by the Crawter family who were 19th land agents and local property owners.
Fox and Hounds. Now demolished. Had been built around 1900 on the site of an earlier building.
St.Bridgets. This was rebuilt by Leonard Martin. It was probably early 19th and is said to have been the laundry for Lime House and Church Stile House.
The Crown Inn. Opposite The Fox and Hounds. In 1764 used as a pub but later was a butchers. The pub was later owned by the Cobham Brewery. Closed down and demolished pre-First World War
The White Hart. Used as a general store from 1863 and now demolished
St. Andrew’s Church. Chertsey Abbey built this church for their tenants here around 1176, possibly on the site of an earlier church. It was extended shortly after and set at a slight angle to the nave and a chapel was added with places to wash cups in. There is a decorative Norman doorway, a Norman arch in the tower grooves where bell ropes were pulled – there are six bells, three of them from 1687. There are brasses -a 15th brass with a priest and on the other side a bearded layman – pivoted so both sides can be seen, and a brass of 1500 of the Adoration of the Shepherds. The church was restored several times in the 19th - the north aisle was rebuilt in 1886. A Chantry Chapel from the early 13th was restored as Cobham's War Memorial Chapel in 1919. There us a memorial tic poet Matthew Arnold. There is a stained glass window by Burne-Jones.
Churchyard extended in 1210. There is an ancient yew tree in the Garden of Memory. Local big wig Harvey Coombe is buried in the churchyard in a Soanesque mausoleum.
Cobham Park
The estate was made up of a parcel of properties including Downe Place and Bridge House Farm. In 1728 Bridge House Farm was sold to John Bridges of Cobham who built the house and landscaped the grounds. He merged the property with Downe House, demolished and rebuilt it. Eventually in the early 19th the estate was bought by Henry Lutterell, Earl of Carlhampton, and then Downe Place was bought by a brewer, Harvey Combe. Following a number of problems and a con man it was sold to a Thomas Page who left it to his daughter in 1842.
House. The house is on the site of Bridge House Farm. A mansion was built on the site by John Bridges who sold it in 1749 to Sir John Ligonier. It was rebuilt after a fire in the 1870s by Charles Coombe in Burgate Stone by Edward Middleton Barry, son of Charles Barry, and the result is a French Renaissance house which was home to Hucks brewer, who became a lunatic. Said to be the third house in the country to have electricity. In 1939 the Eagle Star Insurance Group moved there Administrative Centre here. The basement became an air-raid shelter. Between 1958 and 1979 various companies leased parts of the house as office space and then it was leased by Logica who bought it from the Combe family and restored it converting the whole site to office space. In the early 21st it was converted into flats.
Lake
Ice House. Underground near the lake – in vaulted brick icehouse which was damaged in the Second World War. The walls would have been lined with straw and ice cut from the lake during the winter. Probably 18th.
Stables- also converted to flats
Cobham Park Woodyard and Brewhouse. Designed 1848 by William Cubitt. It has an arched carriage entrance and Double planked garage doors under a glass roof across the front on iron scrolls. There is a wooden cupola. The name relates to the source of the Coombe family’s wealth in the City of London and the keystone is that from the London brewery.
Crown Alley
A footpath which links the High Street to the Tilt. Was this the line of the original main road?
Downside Road
Previously known as Poultry Lane
The Pound was originally at the end of Plough Lane but was later moved to opposite the entrance to Cobham Court.
Church Corner. This is now called Church Cottage. From 1814 it was the home of William Watts, engraver.
Plough Corner Cottage. c.1600 built as a smoke bay cottage
Old Garden House. Home of a blacksmith who lived opposite the entrance to Cobham Park. 17th house later occupied by a seedsman. Demolished by Harvey Coombe.
Downside Bridge Road
Downside Bridge. Once known as ‘Little bridge’ it is medieval but rebuilt as a brick structure by Gwilt in 1786 after a flood. In 1968 floods again washed the bridge away and it was rebuilt in 1971.
Church Gate House. House. c1700 built of brick with fishscale tiling above.
Pyports. William le Pypard appears to have lived here in 1332 but by the 18th it was the home of the Skrine family and then the Freeland family. Later it was the home of Sir William Hoste, and then the Currie family of brewers and then the Lushington family made it a centre for pre-Raphaelites and Christian Socialists. It became a centre of aggressive Methodism under the Bradnacks. Mesolithic flint axes were found in the grounds. It has a timbered hall hidden behind the Georgian facade and was for a while in the 19th called The Cedars. There are Sun Fire Insurance marks on both the front and the back
Pyrports Barn. Used by the first Methodists in the area and became a chapel. Led to a great deal of dissent and persecution of Methodists and by them of the local drinkers.
Rose Lodge. On the site of the original medieval vicarage. Probably used as such from 465, when it was founded by Chertsey Abbey, until 1717.
Royal British Legion Building
High Street
Originally seems to have been a lane which crossed Church Field. It did not exist as a road until the 19th but there was a back lane which went on the east side – was this the original medieval layout?
Holly Lodge. Home of the first RC priest in the area in 1912. Built by Daniel Dallin of Cobham Mill and later became the South Eastern Gas Showroom. Demolished in the 1960s.
Royal Mail sorting office. On the site of the 1880s post office
Woolworths. First self service Woolworths in the country.
Leg of Mutton Field
Sold for building in the 1890s by the Crawter family but acquired as open space by the local authority.
Plough Lane
Plough Pub. 16th building at the back with early 19th extensions at the front. Timber framed with brick infill
Wall letter box near Downside Road junction
River Hill
Red brick cottages built in the 18th once lined the road.
La Capanna. This used to be called the Old Cottage. 17th altered in 20th. It is timber framed with brick infill,
Old Bear Pub. 17th building with 19th additions. Timber framed with roughcast cladding.
Spencer Road
Former church rooms built by Leonard Martin. Girl Guide HQ and Montessori Nursery
Sources
Industrial Archaeology of Elmbridge
Industrial Archaeology. Elmbridge area
Old Bear. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. Web site
Plough. Web site
St. Andrew's. Web site
Taylor. A History of Cobham Park
Taylor. Book of Cobham
Taylor. Cobham. A History
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