Box Hill memories
Here are memories of Box Hill and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Box Hill or a Box Hill photo.
Sometime in The 1950s
Imagine my delight as a child to discover there was a swimming pool on top of Box Hill!
Although we lived in Sussex we would often have "days out" in Kent or Surrey.
Box Hill was a favourite, and I remember a swim on a particularly hot day, it was my first experience of an open air swimming pool. The photo is just as I remembered it and I would love to know what is on the site now, and when it was closed.
Photo Ref 88353 Upper Farm Camping Site
I am the boy on the bicycle in the foreground of this view of The Upper Farm camping site. I am a member of the family that ran The Upper Farm business. My father built the swimming pool which is featured in other photos.
Bernard Burbidge
Work
From leaving Bookham I moved to Dorking where I worked for the same family at Dorking High Street, Earlswood Lakes and their Wimpy bar at Box Hill, it was good. I lived over the shop, the tobacconist, and I know and love Dorking.
Memories of Surrey
St Nicholas School
Formerly St Nicholas School. I attended St Nicholas School from 1952 until 1956. I have a photograph taken in 1955 where at the age of 7 I was on the football team, The sons of the singer Joan Regan attended the school and were my best friends. I contacted Box Hill School a few years ago and apparently they had no record of St Nicholas School which is a pity. The headmistress's name was Miss T Garrard. It was a gentile co-educational boarding school. I often wonder what happened to the students and when the school closed.
NOSTALGIA
I lived in Dorking from 1945 to 1964 and was having a nostalgic browse through web sites associated with the area and found this photograph.
I went to St Nicholas Preparatory School, as it was then, from 1951 to 1954 as a day boy, catching the bus from Dorking every morning. My memories of the place are vivid and I certainly remember Miss Garrard but, to my discredit, I cannot remember the names of any of the other staff or pupils who were there at the same time.
Are there any more of us out there and have you got any photographs?
Reply to Andrew Davis
I had a chum at St Nicolas School who lived in a flat in Dene Street, Dorking. I remember taking the bus home with him for tea. After we roamed around the town for a bit before I caught my 470 bus home to Epsom. My memory of names is not good but Andrew Davis sound very comfortable to me - I reckon I was at that school between 1950 - 1953. For many years we had a pewter cup at my parents' house with glass bottom. It celebrated Coronation year and it was presented to me in my last summer at the school for some achievement at the annual sports day. I wonder if you are my old chum from way back then, Andrew?
Sweeping Staircase
I also have memories of St Nicholas, and was a pupil at the school from 1949 aged four, till 1952. Miss Garrard was the headmistress, and I seem to remember she was very kind. I had a kindergarten teacher who was absolutely horrible, very spiteful. I can't remember her name and I wonder if anyone else does. I do remember watching with another pupil, from the top of the staircase, her being taken to hospital on a stretcher. We were so pleased to see her go and rather cruelly were laughing, as we were extremely glad to see the back of her. She used to lift me up by the ears and put me in the corner, not a very pleasant memory to have!
I also remember we were allowed visitors every third weekend and my mother would take me to tea at the hotel at the bottom of Box Hill. We also received tuck boxes from home and these were shared out... Read more
St Nicholas School, Mickleham
I remember Miss L Garrard, the Head Mistress, Miss T Garrard her sister, and their adopted son Malcom Daverney (?). He had an open top MG sports car, and one day I had to go to the Dentist in Dorking for emergency treatment and I got taken by him in the MG. I was quite a celebrity for that. There are names that spring to mind: Catherine Collard, Jean and Pauline Hassell, Danny and Rusty Howell, whose mother was a famous singer in those days, Janice Bayliss (unfortunately killed in a motor bike accident in her late teens in Italy). I remember being allowed to build tree houses in the shrubbery. We had a Brownie Pack and we went on wonderful nature walks. I was Angela Mills in those days.
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