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Downside
Downside maps
Historic maps of Downside and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Downside maps
Downside area books
Displaying 1 of 16 books about Downside and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Downside
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Surrey memories
Happy Motoring
I believe the white building to the centre left in picture is the Thompson & Taylor garage. I worked there briefly (about 1 year), the manager then was a Huw Edwards? I think, but the name of T & T was very well known in motor racing circles & particularly with the nearby Brooklands motor racing circuit. There was a huge old car Napier Railton I think, memory going, which was kept in the showroom & with which the land speed record was won sometime in the 1930's. Stirling Moss was an occasional visitor as he had then just purchased a very special cooper mini, and John Cooper (Cooper Cars) also came & went, and to top all that the great legend Juan Manuel Fangio once visited, sadly I was so in awe & so very junior I didn't think to ask for any autographs.
Hatchford Church
My father, Capt. F.C. Dyer used to play the organ at Hatchford Church until his death in 1950. It was a pump organ and Bubbles was the name of the hunchback who pumped the organ. We lived in the Semaphore Tower up on Chatley Heath and would walk down through the woods and through Hatchford Park to the Church every Sunday for the Church Service. Capt. Dyer is buried in the third grave (unmarked) from the south west corner of the church foundations ~ the church itself having been subsequently demolished due to dry rot in the roof.
Ann & Vic Norman's Shop
My mother Joyce Stannard worked at the shop in this picture in the foreground with the canopy next to the wine merchants. When she started it was a little wool shop owned by Miss Wright - she sold it to the Norman's who expanded and did dress design upstairs. My brother Nigel and I attended the Infants school in Hoggs Hill Lane followed by the Primary School which was behind this row of shops. There was a sweet shop on the opposite corner to the post office where we were allowed to spend 2d on sweets after school. We lived in Coveham Crescent and walked to school daily through the rec - along by the allotments - out to and along Anyards Road. These photos of Cobham have brought back many memories.
The Tilt
Does anyone remember the little sweet shop on the Tilt. I do, and remember walking home from St Andrew's School in Cedar Road, along the little alley onto Stoke Road, across to the Fire Station and up towards the Running Mare. The little shop sold sweets and ice lollies and buttons! The Frith photo is great, it shows the cottage that was the shop and is now a cottage again.
Thompson & Taylor
In the 1950s the Railton Mobil Special with which John Cobb had taken the world land speed record in 1947 was displayed in the showroom. Reid Railton, the car's designer, was associated with Thompson & Taylor. The garage was also an Alfa Romeo dealership and to see beautiful red Guilietta coupe's in the showroom with 5 gears, twin overhead cam engines and twin carburettors in the 1950s when my mother stopped for petrol in her 3 gear sidevalve Ford Anglia was a schoolboy's dream.
The Shop on Cobham Tilt
My grandfather owned the shop when it was a grocers shop from the early 1950s to the early 1970s. I vividly remember sitting in the shop while he served customers. Dad used to deliver goods to customers on a trade bike. Although we no longer live in Cobham, it still makes us very nostalgic when we drive past nowadays but it is strange to see the shop as a cottage again.
The Shop on Cobham Tilt
My father Clive Impey,was demobbed from the forces in 1946 and at the time the shop was a shoe repair shop. He converted it to a greengrocers shop and during the next few years it became a general store. My mother Jocelyn worked and helped out in the shop. Although we lived in D'abernon Drive, I spent most of my childhood around the Tilt and the River Mole, fishing! My father sold the shop in 1972 to a customer's son-in-law and it stayed as a shop until it was converted to a residential cottage. My memories are so vivid of playing football on the Tilt green with all the other local lads.
