Merstham

 

Ashstead Lane

Alderstead Farm. Best vernacular farm on the Surrey downs.

Brighton Road

When the turnpike road was built in 1807 a spur road was built from Harps Oak Lane behind the site of the pub. This became the line of the main Brighton Road until changes for the motorway system.  It ran in front of the smithy and finished at Lime Works Road.

Joliffe Row was a linbe of cottsages along the turnpike road. It had beeb stabling for horses on the iroin railway converted to cottages. The smithy remained after demolition.

Hylton Arms was built next to Joliffe Row and replaced by the Joliffe Arms when it was converted to housing.

Joliffe Arms Hotel. This has gone having been the Exchange Tavern since 1995... Joliffe was the name of the contractors at the Merstham quarries. The inn was built following consrtruction of the turnpike which was later diverted for the railway after which it stood away from the main road – which has since been diverted again by motorway construction. The Old buildings behind the inn were the older  inn’s stables..In a fenced enclosure because were some bits of old Croydon, Merstham and Godstone  Railway track – which was subsequebtklty stolen 

Railway cutting to the north .

You can trace the line of the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone  Railway track on the right side of the  Brighton line.    

Smithy behind the pub

Dean Lane

Bridge parapet and top of arch, Brick parapet on the approach from  the limeworks there and on the right waste tips.

Joliffe Road

Joliffes were lords of the manor of Merstham. Rev W.J.Joliffe and his partner Sir Edward Banks were involved in buildijg the iron railway and then in the quaerrying business.

Cottages reached were from the railway tunnel now wooded

Firestone walls

Waste tips of the main line railway tunnels

Quarry Cottage  demolished. may have had an animal engine

Lime Works Road

Quarry Dean mine.  Joliffe and Bankis attempts to quarry underground for building stone – Reigate Stone.  A shallow depression in front gardens is the pit.  In 1788 They were owned by Joliffe and Banks. the quarries produced green sandstone, grey chalk and white chalk  The Partnership was sold in 1812 and a drift mine opened. A Steam engine was in use from 1819, and it was served by the Croydon/Merstham and Godstone Railway with an inclined plane.  In 1821 the mine flooded and the drainage adit stopped up following an injuction from a local miller’s injunction because his water supply  dried up.   The pit was Leased to George Hall in 1824, qho had done his apprenticeshop there, and .in  1827 closed.. Stone form here was used  for London Bridge in 1831.  Tgew J.J. & C. Hall co partnership began following his fathers death in 1845 and teh stone was used for their Redhill office. Their lease expired in 1854 and was not renewed. William Peters of Burham Works took the lease ocer and in 1867 the pit was used for trials of Nobel safety powder – a dynamite demonstration. Edwin Peters retired in 1883 and Mr. Atkins became manager until 1898 when it was taken over by Peter's son.  Owned btyg Readymix from 1934. Filled in with Croydon Refuse from 1961.

Canals through the Mersham Gap.Edward Banks' plan, 1810, was to construct the Grand Southern Canal across the south of England. He proposed to take a branch off it at Copthorne and connect it with the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone extension of the Surrey Iron Railway at Quarry Dean.

M23 over some of it

Terminus of Croydon/Merstham and Godstone Railway . Twenty three of the three-feet long cast iron 'tram plates' or rails of the Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Iron Railway which operated 1805 - 1838 between Croydon and Merstham, were on limited public display in Reigate, the intended terminus the line never reached.  The extension was built only as far south as its terminus at the chalk pits, lime works, and underground building-stone quarries at Merstham, where the junction was to have been for the branch to Godstone, and whence the main line was to have continued to Reigate.

Godstone and Reigate were authorised to be built

Lines and sleepers in garden at Merstham 1899; and on the site of the motorway.

14 Querrydene was Quarry House or Quarrydale and built for one of the early Halls plateways office meadow

plateways,

Track before the Joliffe Arms alongside the motorway is the old Lime works road. 

Railway:

Brick alignment tower 1838 CM&GR remains. Line to limeworks. Terminus was at Quarry Dean; Quarry Dean access by the railway when in 1805 the railway to Merstham opened. Plate rails like those at Godstone.  Standard gauge spur off the Brighton Line up the quarry mouth.

Railway  cutting east of A23 north from Harps Oak Lane to MWay

Merstham Estate bought by William Joliffe in 1788

The western railway tunnel is the older of the two built 1838.  The summit of the line is within the tunnel and it drains water from the north Downs taking it to the south. In the southern paer oif rhe tunnel is a culvert southwards.

Quarry Line tunnel 1897-1900. The summit of the line is within the tunnel.

Rockshaw Road

Canal scheme by Edward Banks 1810 The only tunnel needed would have been under Rockshaw Road.