please empty your brain below
Many a decent Sunday lunch had at the Star after a couple of hours walking round the commons.

And in adjacent KT21 you have Ashtead Common, all in Surrey but the curiosity of being owned by the City of London.

andy c | 05.04.23 - 7:44 a.m. | #

The William Bourne pub used to be called something else in the 80s - or at least it ran a small nightclub or disco that had its own "with it" name.

The only club I have ever been ejected from (for dancing too energetically rather than anything too antisocial).

Steve

Steve Conway | 05.04.23 - 8:14 a.m. | #

Instead of looking daggers at you, I wonder why that woman didn’t just ask you politely if she could help you.
I also wonder if someone who reads your blog will recognise the road and her, and might inform her that she is now famous? 😉

Jo W | 05.04.23 - 8:15 a.m. | #

Once again, there have been subtle boundary changes - across the road from the Star was once a chapel, firmly in Kingston, but the replacement house is now in Mole Valley. The boundary of Stoneleigh actually used to include all of Richlands AVenue and half of Gayfere and Rosedace Roads. Should you ever visit Wickford, the Chelmsford-Basildon district boundary wanders around several housing estates in Runwell.

felix | 05.04.23 - 9:35 a.m. | #

Two of my former postcodes covered here, albeit living on the Surrey side in both instances.

Steve; wasn't it simply the Bonesgate, although I don't recall the nightclub during my time in the area? (As an aside I too was reprimanded for energetic dancing once, at the nearby Ace of Spades.) Local rumour said the name Bonesgate originated from a Mr. Bone who owned a hostelry accessed by a gate across the stream.

There used to be an airstrip at one of the farms in the Malden Rushett area.

Tim | 05.04.23 - 9:49 a.m. | #

The airstrip still sees occasional use; the farm which contains the aircraft hangar (and windsock!) has a coffee hut where I've sat with excitable children watching a small plane take off or a helicopter land!

andy c | 05.04.23 - 10:34 a.m. | #

In that area was the railway used to bring coal to the Boiler House for the 5 mental asylum's (as they were called then) just across the fields, a sub line from Ewell West. (It was all fields in my day ;-)

Tim and Steve
I have a funny feeling it was called Sinatra's. But I could be wrong. I used to go to the Bonesgate quiz at one point. A bingo style card and you could only "score" the answers on your card.

Marmaduke Jinks | 05.04.23 - 10:48 a.m. | #

Those 'extraordinary bubbles' in Headley Close - perhaps that was mistletoe. A thriving outbreak can look very much like your description.

Richard B | 05.04.23 - 11:28 a.m. | #

I find it fascinating that the Post Office (probably back in GPO days in the main) where able to take a practical and logical approach to boundaries, whereas most administrative areas are the result of historic accidents, the routes of watercourses and the activities of major landowners back in the day. Altering them to make any sort of sense normally falls foul of a combination of snobbery and a concern about the level of council tax.

Andrew S | 05.04.23 - 3:00 p.m. | #

my grandparents lived in KT17, but (not far) south of the line on the Broadway in Stoneleigh

Al__S | 05.04.23 - 9:30 p.m. | #

I once went to a wake at the Star, following a service at the Leatherhead crematorium. A member of the family told me that the crem had recommended it when they asked about 'somewhere cheaper'.

Peter | 07.04.23 - 8:43 p.m. | #











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