Place:Worcester Park, Greater London, England

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Worcester Park is in South West London, England covering both the extreme north west of the London Borough of Sutton in Greater London (east of the railway line that runs through the area) and part of the Borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey (west of the railway.) The area is south west of Charing Cross. The suburbs population totals 16,031 at the time of the 2001 census. The suburb comprises Worcester Park ward, an electoral area of the London Borough of Sutton with a population in of , as well as the Cuddington Ward, an electoral area of Epsom and Ewell, which has a population of 5,791 at the time of the 2001 census.

The Worcester Park post town, which is coterminous with the KT4 postcode district, covers all of the suburb and extends also into the south eastern periphery of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

The Beverley Brook runs through Worcester Park and alongside Green Lane down past Green Lane Primary School. Green Lane itself appears in the Domesday Book. The Huntsmans Hall (now Midas Touch) was situated on what was the far boundary of hunting ground for Henry VIII.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Worcester Park takes its name from the 4th Earl of Worcester, who was appointed Keeper of the Great Park in 1606. The area was once part of the Great Park which covered around 1100 acres and surrounded the Little Park which contained Nonsuch Palace of Henry VIII. Both parks were originally used as deer parks. Henry VIII had obtained the land from Sir Richard de Cuddington.

During the ownership by Sir Richard de Cuddington, there was a manor house on a site which was later replaced by Worcester House and is now the site of Worcester Close. There was also a church of St. Mary on roughly the same site where the church of St. Mary the Virgin, Cuddington, now stands.

In 1809 Worcester Park was acquired by William Taylor. He used a mill on the banks of the Hogsmill to continue the manufacture gunpowder which had been carried out on and off in the area for several centuries. Manufacturing continued until the 1850s when the mill blew up.

Cheam Common Infants and Junior schools

Cheam Common Infants and Junior schools are pre World War II school buildings. Air raid shelters were found underground during an extension to the main building of the junior school. The school is located at the top of the high street.

Blakesley School

Blakesley School was a private primary school run by the Headmaster Eric Dudley. It closed in the summer of 1958, when the land was sold for housing. It occupied the land at bordered by the portion of Delta Road which was then not surfaced, Delta Close (then a gated track and public right of way leading from Delta Road to Salisbury Road), and Grafton Avenue, again not surfaced, heading towards the church. It occupied a substantial plot of land and was a "modern manor house" style building referred to on local maps as Worcester Court. The surrounding wall is said to go back to Henry VIII's reign.

Parker's Field

Possibly belonging to T Parker & Sons, Landscapers, who were based at what is now a housing estate at beside Worcester Park Station, Parker's Field was the best toboggan run until the top half was built on in the 1970s (despite being Green Belt), when it became unusable.

Rowe Hall

The Scout HQ next door to Cuddington Primary School in Salisbury Road at was built in 1958 and named Rowe Hall in honour of a long serving scout mistress, "Miss Rowe", who was a teacher at Blakesley School. This headquarters was erected after the previous building was destroyed by arsonists and still serves the 2nd Cuddington (Rowe) Scout Group.

Worcester (Park) House

In the 1950s, the ruins of a splendid ornamental lake with a multi-arched bridge (at ) and balustrade were still visible in the woodland at the foot of the hill in "Parker's Field" (situated between Grafton Road and Old Malden Lane, and behind the still rather ramshackle stables in Grafton Road).

The house itself was not visible, nor were there any ruins apart from the lake and some mounds of bricks to be found. The lake itself had drained into the Hogsmill River, but no source of incoming water was visible. The lake dried up in the late 1940s following the rechannelling of the river.

Close to the bridge remnant to the southwest of the bridge was a ruined domed structure, all that remains of an ice house. However, it was filled with soil and other débris which prevented any investigation.

Locals presumed the house to be named "Worcester Park House", and have suggested that Blakesley School was the original house, while historical sources suggest "Worcester House". However the map of 1871 shows a building labelled "Worcester Park House" to be alongside the lake, to the west of it, on land that was, in the 1950s, overgrown with trees.

Documents from H M Land registry show that the name of the building for Blakesley School was Worcester Court.

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