please empty your brain below
This was where I went to primary school in the early fifties and for a while around 1990 I was the booking clerk at Woodmansterne Station, when the position was morning only. I would often walk there from my home in Carshalton in the early hours for an 0600 start, which was very much cross country.
As you rightly say the station is some way from the village, which was once served by a local bus route operated by Banstead Coaches but now TFL route 166.
There was a suggestion the station could have been called Clock House (as in the nearby estate) but there is of course already a Clock House Station.
My maternal grandfather occupied one of these Smallholdings, number 5, which was located between the cross roads and the Oaks Park. He grew and sold flowers. He was a native of Croydon.
When my parents married immediately after the war they did not have anywhere to live, but my granddad agreed they could live at 5 Smallholdings and on 2nd July 1950 their second child (me) was born and I lived there for just over the first eight years of my life, walking to Woodmansterne School in all weathers, including heavy snow. Of course no telephones in those days, though we did have someone who escorted us to school, walking along the edge of the Oaks Park.
Happy days and all part of my own and my family history. The address was Carshalton and I am a resident of Carshalton today.
I really ought to do them again soon.
dg writes: In short, competing train companies.
I think there is also a considerable height difference. Actually they are joined up. There is a high voltage cable between the two.
DG,
I have wondered if anyone else has used Mother Kitty's who was male or didn't have a young child. Now I know. Very welcoming and good value but I always have my coffee and cake outside.
Amazed you found this place. Very conveniently a few minutes from the terminus of the 434 bus and only a few minutes walk to countryside. The road might be private as far as vehicles are concerned but is public access for pedestrians.
Probably from the fine art greetings card company (named after the founder Graham Woodmansterne, not the village).
And in uncovering that fact, I've discovered:
a) they print their cards on the site of the John Dickinson paper mill in Croxley.
b) the Woodmansterne website is using my family's photo of Croxley Mills without permission!
c) I need to email them about it...
I was particularly impressed with the photograph for Mayfield Lavender Farm but your previous article really did it justice and well done for that.
The height difference is 46m, and they are now about 2km apart (They used to be closer, but Epsom Downs station was moved about 500m north in 1989), so an average gradient of 1 in 40 would be needed. Steep, but not impossible with electric traction, but you would require substantial earthworks at the Tattenham Corner end, or a 2km tunnel.
There is also the small matter that the racecourse passes just 100m beyond the buffer stops at Tattenham Corner station!
This has bugger all to do with Woodmansterne, sorry.
I knew Cane Hill had closed and am glad it has. The place had a terrible reputation many years ago. They used to let the less ill patients out for a wander on Saturday afternoons when I was doing my Saturday job in Waitrose in Coulsdon.
Today we would say these poor people were suffering from dementia, Alzheimers and the like. Yesterday they were loonies and treated with amusement and disrespect by many.
And finally, I am amazed the Jack and Jill lasted as long it did!
Many thanks for stirring up old memories DG.
Perhaps I ought to wander in and say, "The usual please!"
Thanks for the update.
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