Worcester Park

This being notice of a visit to Worcester, mainly in order to pay a visit to Prontaprint of reference 1, an expedition which has already resulted in reference 2. The requirement being to print off some slides about trolleys against the then forthcoming (and yet to be reported) festival to celebrate the collection of 1,000 trolleys. Something rather better than I could manage on my home printer, an elderly HP printer which cost a good deal less than a cartridge of its ink now costs.

We have lost our print shop in the High Street, and I had been poking around on the Internet to see what I could do. Mostly turning up what looked like commercial printers, rather than shops doing walk-in photocopying. What about the Rymans at London Bridge, which offered printing services and was very near the cheese shop? And which could be combined with a now rare visit to the Tate Modern to see their Kngwarray exhibition (of reference 3); an artist who came to my attention for some reason and to whom I thought I might relate.

But then I turned up Prontaprint, who looked to offer a variety of printing services. I phoned them up, sent them the slides in question and I was ready to go. London Bridge would have to wait.

Off to the station, where, appropriately enough, there was a nearly new trolley from the M&S food hall at the top of the Kokoro Passage.

Pulled out of Epsom to notice some large black spots on the leaves of some of the track-side bushes. Spots which I recall once being told were a sign of healthy air. Whatever it was the spots were would not thrive in bad air.

Gemini helpfully explains that while some black spots are associated with clean air, there are plenty that are not. A story which I had got on a visit to a former (town) gas works in Norwich. The end of my conversation with him is snapped above.

I don't know if there was ever a gas works in Epsom but we certainly have gas holders. A quick peek tells me that there is lots of heritage stuff out there about town gas, for example the booklet at reference 4 and that there is a strong connection between gas holders and gas works - but I have not yet turned up a list of gas works.

A map from 1934 - from Scottish National Libraries - shows rather more than a few gas holders and a heritage site talks about undesirable flats being proposed for the site of the former gas works. So perhaps there was one. Not, I imagine, that that has anything to do with the presence or absence of black spot on leaves now.

Arrived at Worcester Park and headed west, towards what turned out to be Old Malden, that is to say an old village, around since before the Conquest, that is to say for many centuries before New Malden turned up.

Passed the interesting pair of semis snapped above, a refurbishment to judge by the chimneys, rather than the new build that it might at first appear to be. Car Check tells me that the red car is a 2016 Ford Mustang, which I would never have known. Not even a Ford plaque by way of a clue. Google Images agrees with Car Check and adds the information that a new one might cost me approximately £55,296. Something to learn about the proper use of the word 'approximately'.

Into Prontaprint, which turned out to be a busy commercial printer, but one which also took walk-ins. Plenty of equipment visible, including the printer snapped above, an HP Designjet T2500. Rather bigger than my Deskjet. It says something about Postscript on the label, all thing when I knew about such things, more than twenty years ago now, presumably still going. Presumably capable of printing out architectural drawings and things of that sort.

I had half an hour to wait while they did my copying and lamination, so I opted for a stroll, picking up another unusual block of houses.

Onto what was once the village pub on Old Malden village green, now a steakhouse.

A village green complete with a seasonal village pond. Complete with laminated instructions, very probably from Prontaprint, about the proper treatment of the resident moorhens.

A repurposed bungalow; repurposed for Mums, toddlers and fun. I thought about taking tea but decided against.

Another unusual house. On a plot that had been left from earlier building campaigns? A catch with that being that all the houses looked to have been built between the wars.

An ash tree which looked very odd-pinnate.

As did the shoot down below.

The tree as a whole.

Google Images spot on.

Eventually, I get to the church advertised by the signage, to realise that we had visited it before, in the margins of Wellingtonia 72, noticed at reference 8. This time there was something going on inside, and a very helpful lady offered to show me around the church. Which encouraged me to display some knowledge of church buildings and affairs, but a display which left me feeling slightly uncomfortable as I did not declare my lack of faith, with the lady clearly having plenty. 

Lingering was not an option and I did not like to be snapping either. So snaps to jog the memory. And no piano in the church proper - although I dare say there was one somewhere.

[English: Old Malden, St John the Baptist's Church, pulpit. Pulpit (1883), Caen stone incorporating some Italian alabaster panels, cost £146, replacing the Jacobean pulpit. The inscription reads "To the Glory of God. In loving memory of Henry Richard and Margaret Chetwynd Stapylton, this pulpit was erected by their children. AD 1885"]

In any event, an old foundation, even if the present buildings are something of a mixture. I thought rather handsome inside in a restrained kind of way. Quite a lot of old woodwork. An unusual pulpit, the snap above of which was turned up by Bing. From where I associate to the stone coffin shaped pulpits of which we saw a lot in Florence.

The connection with Merton college, noticed at reference 8, was confirmed; a college which still has what used to be called the advowson, the right to nominate a new vicar when there is a vacancy. And it turned out that the present vicar one of the the successors of the Preston, a second career man from the world of defence, who had St. Barnabas in Epsom and whose son knew one of mine at school. I learned that the fine extension built on the front of St. Barnabas, with which I had a slight connection through TB, had more or less wrecked the church finances. Originally put together by a pious old lady, who did not care for the arrangements then in place in the borough, this before RSPB had been invented.

'... So, while there is no record or inscription that explicitly says, "Here stood an Iron Age temple," the combination of the ancient place name, the continuous occupation of the hill since the Iron Age, and the known pattern of Christian conversion strongly supports the idea that the site of St. John the Baptist church was indeed a sacred or spiritually important spot for the people living in the area before the Roman period'.

That the site, perched above the Hogsmill, was thought to have been sacred back in the days before the arrival of the Romans. Gemini agrees, although he does not turn up anything specific - which I suppose is asking a bit much.

That the church had changed ownership several times, once belonging to the diocese of Rochester to the east, once to Winchester to the south and now to Southwark to the north. Maybe there were others...

Also that the large building across the lane from the church, looking a bit like a barn conversion, was actually nothing to do with the church.

Back to the print shop where I found that they had done a good job of turning my four slides into one double sided laminate.

Slide 1. The beginning, something over a decade ago.

Slide 2.

Slide 3. With the Sainsbury's collection of retired trolleys at Kiln Lane in the background.

Slide 4. With a page from Wanzl's website in the background. The manufacturer of nearly all the trolleys that I collected. And the ticket from the last trolley bottom right.

Headed back to Worcester Park, calling in the fine grocer previously noticed at reference 2, where I picked up some flatbread and a couple of necks of lamb. The necks were cut up for me, very neatly, on the spot, with a behind-the-counter bandsaw. The like of which I had not seen since buying goat in Balham - noticed indirectly at reference 10.

Back to Epsom, where I tried another of Gail's ham and cheese rolls. Which tasted a bit too cheesy on this occasion. Maybe it was too soon since I had had the last one.

Enlivened by a pair of pigeons having sex in front of me. In the market square of all places.

Wetherspoon's terrace was more or less empty, despite it being warm enough. I suppose people were put off by the threatening clouds above. That said, there clearly had been a smoker at some point.

Later that day. Very good it was too, but BH was not revealing the secrets of the craft - although preparation clearly involved meat, potatoes and water. Some of the flatbread is visible left.

The debris.

The broth, which served, as I recall a day or so later.

As well as doing well, the two necks were good value, certainly compared with the price that Ben the Butcher charges for the stuff. Probably better than Sainsbury's, although it does not seem to appear there very often.

PS 1: a snap from the same map as the gas works above. Maybe I will check what has happened to the parcels of dead land. And was the thin triangle some device to block something the original developer did not want?

PS 2: more gas works to be found at reference 11: there was indeed gas production in Epsom.. I don't suppose that production at the East Street site stopped at the end of that story in 1912, as I don't suppose there were mains connections to other suburban centres at that time.

References

Reference 1: https://www.prontaprintwimbledon.co.uk/. Do not be confused by the 'wimbledon' in the address. They are in Old Malden, that is to say on the road between Worcester Park and New Malden. Turn right out of Worcester Park Station.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/10/google-images.html.

Reference 3: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/emily-kam-kngwarray.

Reference 4: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/gasworks-and-redundant-gasholders/heag281-gasworks-redundant-gasholders/.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Malden.

Reference 6: https://www.millerandcarter.co.uk/#/. Worcester Park according to these people.

Reference 7: https://thelighthousecafe.co.uk/. 

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/wellingtonia-72.html.

Reference 9a: https://www.stjohnsoldmalden.org.uk/.

Reference 9b: https://www.stjohnsoldmalden.org.uk/about-st-johns/heritage.

Reference 9c: https://stjohnschurchmalden.blogspot.com/. A dormant blog; presumably whoever did it moved on, or out.

Reference 10: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-stroll-in-south-london.html.

Reference 11: https://eehe.org.uk/33281/gas/.

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