please empty your brain below
Went to The Albany with friends for lunch when The Thames was in flood a few years ago - it lies just upriver from The Swan.

It was incredibly hypnotic watching the massive flow, and eerie seeing the waters intimate relationship with the pub's interior, the terrace being completely subsumed.

Ken | 01.11.17 - 7:16 a.m. | #

Thank you,DG. I did enjoy that riverside walk with you this morning. 😉

Jo W | 01.11.17 - 7:28 a.m. | #

As a kid, I was taken to Hurst Park Racecourse. I believe it actually closed a few years later than 1960. I was certainly there after 1960.

dg writes: Ah, sorry, imprecise research. Hurst Park Racecourse in fact closed after the 4.30 race on Wednesday 10 October 1962.

IsarSteve | 01.11.17 - 7:51 a.m. | #

Thames Ditton at one time had some manufacturing and it is where Rola Celestion loud speakers were made until the factory closed in about 1975 due to being unable to expand on the site which was next to the river. The company continues as Celestion. They have speaker called “The Ditton”.

Molsey in the area where the River Mole joins the Thames area was badly flooded in 1968.

When Hurst Park race track closed and the housing estate was built the homes were early examples of “Town Houses” built on 3 floors.

Twice a year in the summer I bicycle to Desborough Island as my radio club uses the field there for setting up a transmitter for radio contests. It is one of my longer cycling trips! The new bridge is fine as you have cycle lanes over it.

Walton on Thames once had a film studios, named Nettlefold studios or Walton studios they closed in 1961. You will often see the name in old films on TV.

John | 01.11.17 - 8:01 a.m. | #

I spent a year or so working at the Thames Court pub back in the mid 90s. It was a nice walk down from the village, past Nauticalia and along past the lock - when the weather was nice. A pain when it wasn’t.

I remember also giving up waiting for the bus into Chertsey and eventually walking instead.

Strangely enough, despite living at the pub, I didn’t ever use the ferry despite watching plenty of people use it.

Rob Healy | Homepage | 01.11.17 - 8:15 a.m. | #

For many years until the late 1980s Thames Ditton was home to AC Motors - makers of racing cars, the Southend Pier railway carriages and, perhaps most famously, the blue 3-wheeled invalid carriages that used to be a common sight on the roads before the introduction of the government funded Motobility scheme.

Jona26 | 01.11.17 - 8:37 a.m. | #

Thames Ditton was also the home of a foundry, run for some time by A.B. Burton, which cast many of the late 19th and early 20th century bronze statues and monuments in London and elsewhere.

Andrew | 01.11.17 - 9:55 a.m. | #

The invalid cars and original Southend Pier train were actually built at AC's other factory, opened in 1941 on Taggs Island, one of the islands DG refers to (it's between Hurst Park and Hampton). An interesting history, at various times owned by Surrey, Middlesex, and (Mr) Kent.

timbo | 01.11.17 - 10:26 a.m. | #

oops - it was Platts Island, further upstream, that moved from Surrey to Mddx (Greater London) in 1970 (and was therefore the only part of the Esher UDC to become part of Greater London). Thames Ditton Island moved the other way.

And the trains built for Southend Pier by AC Cars in 1949 were its second fleet, not the first.

timbo | 01.11.17 - 11:21 a.m. | #

From the 1930s to the 1960s, LUT trolleybus route 2, as well as its successor, London Transport trolleybus route 602, used the name 'The Dittons' for a terminus located between Thames & Long Ditton on Portsmouth Road /St Leonard's Road.

[1930s] [1962] [2016]

IsarSteve | 01.11.17 - 1:01 p.m. | #

I feel I must add that these Southend Pier trains had three powered cars and four trailer cars, and were run in a M-T-T-M-T-T-M set up.

The power cars used Crompton Parkinson CP30 2x17hp motors and had a maximum speed of 18mph, not that this was often reached of course!

In 1986 the AC Cars trains were replaced by two new sets from Severn Lamb, based in Stratford-upon-Avon. These were originally painted red but are now blue.

Any more clarifications, anyone?

timbo | 01.11.17 - 2:00 p.m. | #

I seem to be being haunted by an alter ego, namely the "timbo" who posted at 2pm. I have been to Thames Ditton many times, (despite the injunction in the Busmans Prayer to "lead us not into Thames Ditton and deliver us from Esher") but I've never been to Southend Pier

timbo 10:26 | 01.11.17 - 4:27 p.m. | #

I forgot to mention earlier, crossing Walton Bridge you’ll see a sign for ‘Cowey Sale’. I always used to wonder what a Cowey was.

Investigation when I was old enough to drive (1990) found an excellent car boot sale on Sunday mornings which was well worth the short drive from Feltham.

Rob Healy | Homepage | 01.11.17 - 6:52 p.m. | #

Cowey is of course short for Cow Way.

The name dates back to the 17th century when the land beside Walton Bridge was used for grazing, and was approached via a wooden bridge over a small stream.

That small stream was known as the Seale, or Sale, possibly after the sallows (willows) which grew beside it.

Hence the riverbank area is Cowey Sale!

timbo | 01.11.17 - 7:17 p.m. | #

Coway Stakes is also supposed to be where Caesar forded the Thames during his second expediti0on in 54BC - the "stakes" having been stuck in the river in an attempt by Cassivelanus' forces to try to stop him.

timbo | 01.11.17 - 9:24 p.m. | #

The Elizabethan historian William Camden was certainly convinced that Cowey Stakes is where Caesar crossed the Thames, but it now generally believed that the actual site of the Roman crossing was nearer to London.

Brentford stakes a claim, but modern Westminster (as was) is perhaps more likely.

timbo | 01.11.17 - 10:47 p.m. | #

There's a picture of old Walton bridge by Canaletto. I think in Dulwich Picture museum. It has a tiny character in the mid area, by the Thames, which is the artist himself.

Marmaduke Jinks | 02.11.17 - 11:16 p.m. | #

Canaletto's picture is at http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/a-view-of-walton-bridge/

Beckenham Boy | 02.11.17 - 11:27 p.m. | #

Here is another painting a year later, by the same artist, of the bridge which includes the causeway over the marshes.
https://tinyurl.com/ybfq7ckc

John | 03.11.17 - 7:43 a.m. | #

Thanks to John and Beckenham Boy for poting up those links. Marmie.

Marmaduke | 03.11.17 - 8:31 a.m. | #

You didn't mention that Kate Winslet used to live in the moody Victorian pumping station

felix | 03.11.17 - 6:18 p.m. | #

"walk along Elmbridge's northern boundary, the River Thames,"

Up to a point DG!

So Cowey Sale is mostly in Spelthorne, even though South of the Thames. It's /owned/ by Elmbridge who had to apply to Spelthorne for planning permission for that café.

And a chunk of Elmbridge is North of the Thames. This secret area is just past the Holiday Inn - cross Walton Bridge and turn right at the roundabout to Fordbridge Rd then Felix lane and past the hotel to the river and suddenly the wheely bins say Elmbridge.

Mike D | 06.11.17 - 10:36 p.m. | #











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