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Books > Around Cheam, including Sutton, Ewell, Banstead and Epsom Photographic Memories
North Cheam, the Queen Victoria c1960 (ref. N258063) | The original inn, which stood on the site of the London Road tollgate, was replaced in 1936 by this impressive roadhouse with its large forecourt and function rooms. In the 1950s one of the latter was the weekly venue for the North Cheam Jazz Club, which featured a youthful George Melly and the Mick Mulligan Jazz Band as a regular attraction. This building was demolished in 1964 when the site was redeveloped. |  Add your own Memory
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North Cheam, London Road c1955 (ref. N258045) | Here we have another view of this heavily traffic-ridden main road with its shopping parade. On the right, Raymond's hair salon proudly advertises its offer of 'perms from fifteen shillings'. Although this equates to 75 pence in today's currency, it would have represented a substantial outlay for most women in the 1950s. At the far end of the parade is the prominent sign for the Granada cinema, which had opened in October 1937 showing the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical film 'Shall We Dance?'. The cinema seated two thousand people, had a Wurlitzer organ, and boasted that its patrons would breathe air which had been 'laundered in a synthetic mountain stream'. | Add your own Memory
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North Cheam, London Road c1955 (ref. N258039) | The broad expanse of the A24 London Road heading towards Stonecot Hill and Morden is lined with parked cars and bicycles outside the shops. On the extreme right is the local branch of the shoe chain Freeman Hardy & Willis, with F W Woolworths next door. | Add your own Memory
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Banstead, the Station c1965 (ref. B391114) | The station, on the branch line from Sutton to Epsom Downs, opened in 1865, and the white stuccoed house, now a builder's offices, dates from around the same time. The small confectionery kiosk was one of a trio servicing the requirements of commuters, with other branches at Sutton and Epsom. The roof of the station no longer bears the white lettering, and the building is almost a mile from the town centre itself. The road almost immediately makes another sharp bend over the railway line below, before passing the Cuddington Golf Clubhouse and continuing on to East Ewell. | Add your own Memory
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Banstead, High Street c1955 (ref. B391013) | Much of Banstead High Street was rebuilt during the 1920s with a series of shopping parades. The leafless lime tree in the middle distance occupies the spot where the village pond once existed, while All Saints' churchyard is concealed behind the trees on the extreme right. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, St Dunstan's Church 1890 (ref. 27584) | The church of St Dunstan, relatively new at the time of this photograph, had been built in 1862-64 by G A Pownall in florid French Gothic style alongside the old medieval church, which was largely demolished after the new building was completed. Only the east window and chancel were preserved as the Lumley Chapel, which can be seen on the right of the picture behind the small fir tree. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, the Lumley Chapel, interior 1890 (ref. 27586) | This photograph shows some of the numerous monuments housed within the Lumley Chapel that once formed part of old Cheam Church. The carved alabaster tomb of the first Lady Lumley, who died in 1592, dominates this view of the chapel's south side. She was the daughter of Henry Fitzalan, the eighteenth Earl of Arundel, and is depicted on the panel above the tomb's marble top kneeling at prayer. The two front panels show her three children, with the family's coat of arms emblazoned on the damaged end panel. On the extreme left is the carved memorial to James Bovey and his wife. He was probably connected to Cheam School and died in 1695. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, St Dunstan's Church 1932 (ref. 84917) | The brick and ornamented stone interior of the church was augmented by the chancel screen, installed here in 1931, which was designed by Ryan Tenison and had formerly stood in the chapel of St John's College, Battersea. When that chapel was demolished, the screen was presented to St Dunstan's rector, the Rev Canon Wesley Dennis, who had previously been the principal of the college. At the same time the chancel walls were panelled, new altar rails were installed, and a new pulpit was erected. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, The Old Cottage 1925 (ref. 77066) | This timber-framed Tudor cottage originally occupied a site in Malden Road (now the Broadway) closer to the main crossroads, but it stood in the way of the eventual widening of the street. In 1922, it was completely dismantled and re-erected further north; however, it is regrettable that its original 'rye dough' infilling (clay mixed with rye straw) was replaced with Portland cement. It has more recently succumbed to the demands of Mammon – it is now a bridal shop. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, the Broadway 1932 (ref. 85087) | We can just see the old cottage of photograph 77066 again in its new location, on the left and partially concealed by the leafy tree. Next to it is the large building occupied for many years by Messrs Sainsbury's Cheam branch. The number of privately owned motor vehicles in the picture demonstrates why the widening of the roadway became necessary during the rapid development of the village in the 1920s and 30s. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, Ewell Road 1925 (ref. 77054) | An open-topped bus trundles along the Ewell Road towards the crossroads of the village, passing the petrol pump of the small garage near the entrance to Park Lane, and with the trees on the edge of Nonsuch Park in the background. The newly constructed offices of the estate agents Soar & Soar flank one side of the Lloyd's Bank branch, whilst behind the rear of the Hamptons furniture van on the right of the picture is the upper floor of the United Dairies premises. The Cheam Brewery had previously occupied this site from the 12th century, and its cellars lie underneath the triangular grassed areas marked by white posts with linking chains. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, Ewell Road 1932 (ref. 85088) | A lone policeman in his high-buttoned tunic directs traffic emerging from the Ewell Road to cross the junction with Station Way, The Broadway and the High Street. On the left of the picture is the new building housing the local branches of the stationers and newsagents W H Smith & Son (still there today), Boots the Chemists and Teekoff, the tea and coffee merchants, with flats above; it occupied the site where Cheam Court Farmhouse had stood until the end of the previous decade. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, High Street 1927 (ref. 79469) | Two cars enter the Ewell Road from the main village crossroads watched by a policeman on point duty at the foot of Station Road (later renamed Station Way). The creeper-covered house on the right is Cheam Court Farmhouse. Behind the police officer is the Plough Inn, which belonged to Cheam Brewery, and was demolished in 1935 along with an adjoining draper's shop run by W D Harris. Above the third vehicle, making its way down the High Street towards the junction, is the sign of the original Harrow Inn, which was demolished in 1934 and replaced by the present building. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, the Old House c1955 (ref. C70061) | The old Tudor timber-framed cottage formerly stood slightly further to the south, before being purchased by Epsom Rural Council in 1922 when it was dismantled and transferred to this present site. It had earlier been used as offices by the Cheam Brewery. During the reconstruction process, it was discovered that the timbers had previously been incorporated into an earlier building, leading to speculation that it had once stood in the village of Cuddington before that settlement was demolished by Henry VIII to make way for his Nonsuch Palace. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, High Street 1934 (ref. 86078) | A lady walks briskly across Station Way towards Cheam Court and the local branch of Teekoff, which had a sister establishment in the Cheam Road at Sutton. Beyond, and on the same side of Ewell Road, two suspended lanterns mark the premises of a branch of the Home & Colonial grocery chain. A branch of the Co-operative Stores faces its competitor from across the road, next to the shop with its awning lowered. The car in the middle of the road is turning into the forecourt of Cheam Motors, whose impressive new showrooms are surmounted by a large clock. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, Ewell Road c1950 (ref. C70007) | This relatively tranquil view of the Ewell Road looks towards the cross roads and the foot of the High Street from the forecourt of the imposing showroom and garage of Cheam Motors. Beyond the rebuilt Harrow Inn, the southern side of the High Street is occupied by a large billboard as it awaits its subsequent development, and the roof of the Catholic church is just visible. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, the Broadway 1938 (ref. 88276) | This view was taken looking north along the Broadway from the crossroads, showing the extent of the redevelopment carried out by the Onyx Property Investment Company over the two preceding decades and which, while witnessing the demolition of many of the old original buildings, tastefully attempted to capture the Tudor style in its modern architecture. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, Ewell Road c1955 (ref. C70058) | On the left, two uniformed schoolboys, probably from either Sutton Grammar or Sutton High School, are about to pass the hedge in front of Cheam Hall as they make their way towards the main junction. On the right, the gleaming curved glass frontage of the Cheam Motors' garage and showroom reflects the passing scene. But the two lines of vehicles waiting for the traffic lights to change on this stretch of the A232 linking Cheam to Sutton and Croydon give a foretaste of the steadily increasing road usage in decades to come. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, Station Way 1938 (ref. 88278) | The popular Century Cinema was built in 1937 on the corner of Kingsway Road and Station Way. As an independent operation it did not have access to the jealously guarded right to exhibit films for the first time, and flourished on a regimen of re-runs and foreign films. 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', for example, starring Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey, had initially been released to the major cinema chains in 1935. Nevertheless, the Century survived until 1960, when it finally closed for business. But the main auditorium was not pulled down for another thirty years, when the whole site was redeveloped. | Add your own Memory
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Cheam, the Crossways c1950 (ref. C70009) | This view of Station Road, by now renamed Station Way, shows that while the local branches of W H Smith and Boots the Chemists still occupy their premises below the flats of Cheam Court, the corner shop previously occupied by the branch of Teekoff, whose roasting coffee beans used to scent the air, has been replaced by the estate agency of Parkins & Co, providing a competing service to Soar & Soar on the opposite corner. At the bus stop in Ewell Road, a double-decker on the 408 or 470 route via Sutton to Croydon and Warlingham prepares to take on passengers. | Add your own Memory
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