Trolley 588

Trolley 588, from the M&S food hall, was captured on West Hill, just by the entrance to the yard behind what used to be the Eclipse public house. Home, inter alia, to Epsom Autos, who have looked after our cars for many years.

Given that the snap was taken in bright sunlight, not very bright here. Perhaps the Microsoft Photos app for Windows 11 has got more interventionist. It has certainly got a lot faster.

Passed one end of the stream running out of the Common on the way and I was interested to see that despite the bout of heavy rain yesterday lunch time, the stream was present but not running today, near 24 hours later.

So did the water come through last night? Was the Common dry and just soaked it all up? Did the rain not extend to the Common?

And while we are on water, I saw a young frog in one of our micro ponds yesterday afternoon, the first time I have seen one for ages. He was swimming around what looked like a bit frantically, so I supplied a small plank for him to use to climb out, should that be what he wanted.

PS 1: a lot of public houses in Epsom are named for Derby winners and I had thought that the Eclipse was one of them. However, checking, I find that while Eclipse was a very famous 18th century race horse, he never won the Derby, although three of his offspring did, including the horse called Young Eclipse. See references 2, 3 and 4.

[north is roughly the diagonal bottom left to top right]

PS 2: BH disputed this story, claiming that Eclipse did win the Derby and was owned by the chap - one Dennis O'Kelly - who owned the house and stables which used to sit on the north side of the top of West Hill, dark green in the snap above, now vanished in favour of a much newer preparatory school. He probably also rented some or all of the light green as paddocks for his horses. But it seems fairly clear that O'Kelly just missed taking the first Derby in 1780, but took the second with Young Eclipse in 1781. The culmination of his career in Vanity Fair, a successful dealer in flesh, both human and horse. But his beginnings were humble, to say the least of it, and despite becoming a colonel in the militia, he was not allowed into the Jockey Club. See references 5 and 6. Perhaps the name of the public house, closed shortly before we arrived in Epsom, was a mistake.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/trolley-587.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(horse).

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Eclipse.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_Stakes.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_O%27Kelly.

Reference 6: https://eehe.org.uk/?p=25646.

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