M25 Thorpe Lea




Post to the south Egham Great Fosters
Post to the north Egham


Ambleside Way
This is part of an estate of houses which appear to be on the site of part of Thorpe Lee Nurseries which lay to the east of Thorpe Lea Road

Clockhouse Lane East
Clockhouse – this seems to be a house with a clock on the front of it. It is said to be, or to be the successor to, the Old Pipe House and from the name it is inferred that clay pipes were made there. This was a Free Public House which once stood “at the junction of the roads from Thorpe, Staines, and Egham, to Chertsey’ and this is noted on maps from 1768.
Clockhouse Mushroom Farm
Clockhouse Nurseries. This site on the south side of the road is a remnant of what was once a large nursery and market garden owned for nearly a century by the Mason family and employing many local people.  The southern section was sold to Halls for gravel extraction and the area now still in use declined to selling only cut flowers and its present status is not clear.

Clock house Lane West
Homestead Cottage. This is a 14th or 15th timber-framed house

Manorcrofts Road
Egham Bowls Club.  This was founded in 1922 as the Egham and District Bowling Club. They leased some old grazing land from the Baron and Baroness de Worms, who were also the first Presidents and bought the freehold in 1948. The old club house was demolished in 1975. In 1982 money was raised to build an Indoor Bowls facility following an exchange of land with Amey Roadstone – and this went ahead despite a withdrawal of Sports Council funding.

M25

Stroude Road
Milton Park was a large house, the home of the de Worms family. From 1960 to 1994 Johnson Wax Ltd has research laboratories here and it had previously been the British Leather Manufacturers Research Association.
An office building was erected here in 2009 and bought as an European Head Office for Belron. It is a highly sustainable building with a traditional reinforced concrete  slabs structure. Belron are suppliers of glass for automobiles, a company originating in South Africa in the late 19th.
Lodge to Milton Park. This red brick house  is dated 1865 on a wall tablet with the initial W below a coronet. There is also a replica extension dated 1888
Brick gate piers to Milton Park linked by a 18th brick serpentine boundary wall.

Thorpe Lea Road
Thorpe Lea Manor. This was bought by Edward Blackett in 1774 and was then called Thorpe Lea House. He sold it in  1802 he sold it and moved to another house also called Thorpe Lea House. The original house remained a private house until requisitioned in the Second World War.  Later it was badly burnt in a fire but was rebuilt. It is now offices for Kerry Foods and associated provisions companies..

Vicarage Road
Laurel Cottage. Early 19th stables to Thorpe Lea House.  It is also said that a section of one of the pillars from the front entrance is now in the garden.
Egham Cricket Club.   Egham Cricket Club was hiring rooms in 1860 and it is claimed that cricket was played here in 1750. In 1913 the club was formed as Somers X1, after a sponsor. In 1923 space was found by Egham Football Club in Green Lane. The club was then called Denham Cricket Club as there was also another club called the Egham Town Cricket Club which was later disbanded. In 1928 the Club moved to land near the Runnymede Hotel. In 1931 land in Windsor Road was leased and needed to be cleaned and converted and they were given an old wooden bungalow as a pavilion. In 1969 Egham Urban District Council leased the site in Vicarage Road to the club and this too needed conversion. The original pavilion from the Windsor Road site was re-erected where it is today. The wooden core is the original.
Gleville Farm. Seems to be a tyre depot
Egham Sports Centre. Local authority sports complex now called “Achieve”.

Wesley Drive
Manorcroft Primary School. Egham County Secondary School appears to have preceded it on this site

Wickham Lane
Wycham Lane was the previous name
Thorpe Lea Farm
Thorpe Lee House. This was built by North East based grandee Edward Blackett and became the home of his son and later family members until the early 20th. By the 1930s it had become a hotel and during the Second World War it was requisitioned. It was eventually demolished for the M25.


Sources
Blacketts of North East England. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Crocker. Industrial Archaeology of Surrey
Egham. Bowls Club. Web site
LAMAS. Transactions.
Runneymede District Council. Weh site

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