A month ago, back in the middle of January, in the margins of a visit to the Wignore Hall, I marked down a clump of Wellingtonia on the outskirts of Sutton, as one heads towards Epsom. This marking down has now been followed up.
The day chosen turned out to be dull, cold and wet. Not wet enough to put me (and my trolley) off, but I did upgrade my woolly and take a folding umbrella. In the event, despite the rain this last was not deployed. Hail and sleet showers notwithstanding.
The day started with my wondering about why I had noticed the white bricks of the new flats by Epsom Station a few weeks previously, as noticed at reference 3. No further progress.
Out of Sutton Station and headed back up the hill, towards the California public house and Epsom. To capture the first Wellingtonia of the day, No.116, neatly enclosed by the Penarth Court flats on Devonshire Avenue. Far and away the best of the clump of three there.
Another view, from the south, of the same tree.
And another fine tree in the vicinity. All in all, a road with a lot of handsome mature trees. Clearly someone had been keen on trees at some point in the past.
And then, on the other side of the main road, another Wellingtonia, No.117, enclosed by flats. This one rather tall and thin.
Flanked by a twin-trunk cedar of some sort? And in Street View, in the summer, an impressive amount of green altogether.
And the run closed with this infestation of mistletoe, in a tree in the front garden of Sutton Lodge.
Clearly an old building, now a day centre, to be found online at reference 4, run by a charity called 'The Sutton Old Peoples Welfare Committee'.
Present on this map from 1897 at the top. Note the degeneration of the Brighton Road when it gets to Belmont. Notice also the three large institutions - two schools and one lunatic asylum. There was also a gas works just above the school above Belmont. From above at least boys & infants look a lot less regimented than girls and lunatics. What does that tell us?
I think what is the girls' school is what became the Royal Marsden, Sutton branch. While the lunatic asylum is what became High Down Prison, the place which operates the Clink Restaurant of reference 5. A place we were all set to visit at the beginning of 2012 when I got pulled over by the screening people. We never got around to setting it up again. Perhaps I will now.
While by 1914, boys & infants seems to have become a workhouse, complete with mortuary, while girls is now run by the Metropolitan Asylums Board, who also have a large children's hospital a little to the east. London County - presumably different - have the asylum to the south.
Going back in time to 1871, we have the California public house, still alive and well, recently expensively refurbished. We also have the California railway station, subsequently renamed Belmont railway station. Perhaps the speculative builders of the day thought that sounded better. And the gas works is shown at the very top, above the school. The other school, the asylum and the hospitals missing. And Sutton Lodge was associated with a farm. So a lot of change in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Back down the hill to find that someone had been planting a lot of crocuses, not at their best in the cold, wet weather.
Another view of No.116.
While, getting near Sutton again, in Cedar Road we have a busy looking Friends' Meeting House. Aka Quakers Meeting House. Maybe the Quakers sold some house in town centre for a good price and relocated to the other side of the tracks?
And just past them, three more Wellingtonia, No.118. Presumably in the grounds of a large house and garden called 'The Cedars', back in 1871.
As can be seen above. Now vanished, as far as I could see.
A rather less grand place called Beechurst was probably home to No.116, but no stately homes in the way of a lot of Wellingtonia.
And I missed out on Christ Church, half way up the hill, probably quite grand, possibly Victorian High Gothic, probably locked up on a weekday.
A rather dowdy looking building was home to part of Wellingtonia 118. It turns out to be a synagogue and the website at reference 6 is rather more cheerful looking than the building. One might think that there would be more of them than Quakers.
A snack in a quiet café by Sutton Station. Tea good, bacon sandwich average. But they were very welcoming.
Some good looking Wellingtonia in a playing field between Cheam and Ewell East. To be investigated on another occasion.
A bicycle on the train, driven by a lady, with handlebars which must have been a metre across. Rather awkward and dangerous, I would have thought.
A satisfactory expedition, even if I was a bit cold and wet by the time I got home.
PS: careless map reading on my part meant that it took me a long time to find out what became of the children's hospital on the 1914 map above, a mile or so to the east of what is now Belmont. First it became Queen Mary's Hospital for Children, specialising in rheumatic diseases and non-pulmonary tuberculosis, then sadly common. Very badly damaged during the war, after the war it gradually moved into polio, cerebral palsy and what became known as special needs. A very large hospital in the 1970s, but which was then run down and closed in the 1990s, with some services transferred to the St. Helier site. See reference 7. There also seems to be some connection with the Orchard Hill college of reference 8. A quick glance in Street View suggests that most of the site has been given over to housing, with some of the old buildings being retained, with a large central area reserved for Queen Mary's Woodland, possibly run by the Sutton Nature Conservation Volunteers. Whose website, as reached from Edge, does not seem to be working this evening.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/wellingtonia-115.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/consone.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-good-programme.html.
Reference 4: http://suttonlodge.org.uk/.
Reference 5: https://theclinkcharity.org/.
Reference 6: https://www.suttonsynagogue.org.uk/.
Reference 7: https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/queenmarycarshalton.html.
Reference 8: https://orchardhill.ac.uk/.
Group search key: wgc.
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