Stoneleigh

Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.
Stoneleigh Broadway c1960

In 1860 John Jeffries Stone paid £19,000 for property in the parishes of Ewell and Cuddington, between the present London Road and Kingston Road, stretching northwards towards Worcester Park. In the seventeenth century this had been part of Nonsuch Great Park, subsequently known as Worcester Park.

For his £19,000 Stone acquired about 1,100 acres of fields and woods, together with four farms: Sparrow Farm, Cuddington Farm, Coldharbour Farm and Bowling Green Farm. The sites of these farms can be seen on the maps below but please be aware that they are large files and may take a while to download. For copyright reasons we are not able to use more modern Ordnance Survey maps and therefore unable to overlay the old field boundaries on a map showing the layout of streets built after 1933. Google Maps have a modern maps of the Stoneleigh Area (Opens in a new window) with statellite images. Large scale maps can be seen at Epsom and Ewell Local and Family History Centre (Opens in a new window).

The area which is now Auriol Park was sold in 1870 as plots for "substantial houses" but these were never built and it was purchased by Epsom Urban District Council in 1934, initially being used as storage by the local coal merchant, then as allotments during the Second World War.

On John Stone's death in 1879 the property was left in trust for the benefit of his son Edward and nephew Frederick and their heirs, with the recommendation that the land should only be sold in whole or part as building land.

In 1882 the Trustees of John Stone's estate sold a mansion, referred to as "Stoneleigh", which had been built on the site of Bowling Green Farm, close to what is now Ewell Park Way.

A few houses appeared fronting the London Road, opposite Nonsuch Park and in what is now Park Avenue East but, until the early 1930s, what is now Stoneleigh was still mainly fields and woods.

However, in 1931, much of the land was sold for building purposes by what had become the Stoneleigh Estate.

A station was at the centre of most new 1930s suburban estates, which depended on easy public transport and Stoneleigh was no different. Stoneleigh station was opened in 1932 on the existing line from Waterloo and Wimbledon to Epsom and beyond. It was originally to be called Stoneleigh Park, but the 'Park' was dropped before it opened as it was thought that a fourth 'Park' station following Raynes Park, Motspur Park and Worcester Park was one too many. The developers provided the necessary land and shared the construction costs of £7,550 with the Railway Company. The new footbridge and ticket office was completed in 1941.

The Estate Agents claimed that fast, electric trains ran every 20 minutes in the rush hour and every half-hour at other times and made the journey to Waterloo in 27 minutes. Over 100,000 passengers used the station in 1933 and this had trebled to more than 300,000 in 1935; three quarters of them traveling to London, and complaints about overcrowded rush hour trains began in 1934.

Several building firms were involved in the development of the Stoneleigh Estate, which fairly soon afterwards was renamed Stoneleigh. Although building work had only just started at Stoneleigh, it had been in progress somewhat earlier on the Ewell Court Estate. This was the inspiration for the advertisement painted on a wall, which could until recently be seen from the platform at Stoneleigh Station, proclaiming "You can buy a Wimpey Detached House for £728 freehold 17/5d weekly 12 minutes from here". We understand that some estate agents/house builders used to give a free ticket at Waterloo to Worcester Park or Stoneleigh, where on arrival the prospective buyer was whisked by car to the new estates!

Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.
The Stoneleigh Hotel c1955

Much emphasis was given to its healthy situation in the country, and its good train service to London. Comparison was made between the smoke and fog of the 'Metropolis' and the clean, fresh air of Stoneleigh with the prospect of walking to the station to the "trill of the lark"! A minimum purchase price for houses of £500 was guaranteed as '"cheap houses" meant inferior tenants, which would not tone with Stoneleigh Park.

A shopping centre was considered to be essential for the new Stoneleigh Estate and by November 1933 the first block of some 18 shops was completed on the south side, with a further 15 following in 1934 together with those in Station Approach. Shops were also built on the opposite side of the Broadway, although some were not let when the Second World War started. Some plots on this side of the Broadway remained undeveloped for some years. The site where the Library now stands had originally been intended as the site for a cinema but this was overtaken by the construction of the Rembrandt Cinema on the Kingston Road. Local resident Derek Phillips has an excellent website recording some aspects of our local history including the Rembrandt Cinema (opens in a new window).

Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.
The Rembrandt Cinema on the Kingston Road. Date not known

The first residents' association was the Stoneleigh Park Residents' Association which was formed in March 1933 but this straddled two council areas and was short lived. It was superseded in October 1933 with the formation of a Stoneleigh Residents' Association and Social Club which represented residents in the Epsom and Ewell Council area. The early associations were fast growing and very dynamic with 600 members by early 1936 rising to 1400 by 1939 making it the largest RA of it's type in Surrey.

Stoneleigh did not escape the ravages of the second world war as one local resident recalls on our Reminiscences of the War page which also has links to maps of local ARP posts and bombs dropped in the area.

A second shopping centre, Cunliffe Parade, was provided for residents on the western side of the railway but they had to wait until the Gamecock was built in 1955 before they had an alternative to the Stoneleigh Hotel.

For an account of growing up in the early days of Stoneleigh do read our Stoneleigh Remembered page.