Honeywood Museum by Carshalton Ponds
Honeywood Walk, Carshalton, Surrey SM5 3NX Telephone: 020 8770 4297
e-mail: lbshoneywood@btconnect.com

Memories

Do you have memories of life in 20th century Beddington, Carshalton, Carshalton Beeches, Cheam, Hackbridge, North Cheam, St. Helier, Sutton or Wallington that you would be happy to remember with us?
Send us an email by clicking HERE to share your reminiscences of life in the borough in the 1900s, or write to Local Memories at the Honeywood address at the top of this page . Old photographs you would be happy for us to show would be very welcome.

Wendy Henningsson writes:

Recollections of Oaks Park and the Mansion

The first view I had of the tall oak trees was from a pram. Legend has it in my family that I started crying when my mother took me for a walk to the Oaks Park. Coming into the shade after the first part of our sunny outing, the sight of mighty tree-trunks and branches meeting thickly above our heads startled me. However, as I grew older, I happily went for walks to the Park with family, friends or visiting aunts and cousins.

Our way led downhill as far as the farm belonging to the Oaks Mansion. Opposite the farmhouse with its imitation Tudor timbered gable, there was a brick wall surrounding the vegetable garden. The wooden door in this tall brick wall was always locked. I wondered every time I passed it, what it might look like inside that garden and imagined it well-kept, well-laid out and full of exciting things. There had to be something special in there, I thought, as it was so secret.

Only many years later, after the end of WWII when the farmhouse stood empty, did it become possible to view inside the garden. Now dilapidation and decay had set in, the door had been wrenched open, it was hanging on its hinges and spreading away in front of me was – nothing. Grass-covered mounds where seed-beds had lain, weeds, nettles and brambles had taken over. On the outside of one part of the garden wall was a track leading towards Belmont; its surface was covered with black charred rubble, looking a little like coal dust; this came from the iron furnaces when Surrey’s trees were used for fuel long ago. After passing the dip in the road on a level with the farmhouse, the road then led uphill and eventually we came to a gate leading into the Park. The gate-house, or lodge was lived in for many years by a family called Gilbert. After 1945 they started selling ice-creams from the front window of the bungalow; this was my first acquaintance with “Walls ices”.

After entering by the open gate, we walked along a curved drive; on the left were smooth lawns and a handsome cedar tree also a series of flower beds on raised stone platforms with a wall at the back and in one part was an artificial stone “grotto”, with imitation stalagmites and a small cave that I could step down into. In front of the grotto there was a round goldfish pond, but this was boarded over during the war period and I used to look at it and long for the time when there would be fish in it again. We sometimes had a picnic in this area.

Following the drive towards the Mansion itself you could see high laurel hedges on the one side, these hid the outhouses from view. The outhouses contained servants’ quarters and bakery. They were used as dwellings for refugee children who came to England during the civil war in Spain in 1936. Three teachers, the “Senoritas” lived with them and a committee of local people assisted with organization and planning fund-raising efforts to support them. They held displays of Basque folk-dancing amongst other events.

The Mansion was not occupied at that time; the windows were boarded up and a brick wall built outside each window, behind which it was just possible to squeeze – an ideal hiding place when we played hide-and-seek. Shortly before the whole building was demolished, I had the opportunity to look inside and remember only the round ballroom, it was beautiful with an inlaid tiled floor which looked like marble. The ceiling was painted in soft colours, but of course it was all dusty and neglected having been out of use for so many years.

The exterior of the building was red brick and with its turrets and towers looked to be an ideal setting for drama and romance in the lives of “lords and ladies”.

The wide lawns on the north and east side of the building were always well looked after, even in wartime. In one corner was a dead oak tree which just asked to be climbed – an easy stretch up to the first level where you could stand, and then several thick branches pointing north east, south and west. It looked so easy. I surveyed it many a time, but courage failed. Beyond the tree there was more woodland and then an unmade-up track leading northwards to yet another gate.

On the other side of this tree-lined drive were large meadows where cowslips grew. One day when I went to look for these yellow flowers with my sister I was surprised to see bomb craters, huge mounds of white chalk had been thrown up in circles round the craters in the middle of these grassy green meadows.

Oaks Park inspired mixed feelings; on the one hand the whole layout of the park and its aspect were beautiful; there was a wonderful feeling of freedom to be able to run across the wide green lawns with the trees surrounding them. The clear fresh air of the North Downs and the quietness of the Park made it a delightful place to visit. However, because the Mansion stood empty and the out-buildings became neglected after the Basque refugees had moved away, there was also a sad and haunted atmosphere about the place. It seemed to me even more sad when I heard that the building was to be demolished – the whole character of the place was about to be changed for ever.

Kay Grimwood writes:

I lived at number 68 Windborough Road from 1956-1961 then moved to Stevenage. We lived next door to Dr. and Mrs. Eichwald who had grand-children who were actors Kika, Petra and Paul Markham. I fondly remember the Gem shop and Jubilees, also the "wreck" park. We lived with my parents and grandparents. As a treat on a Saturday we would go to the small-holdings to see the animals. My grandparents were Winnie and Wally Blakey and they had a son Tony as well as my dad John. I would love to hear from anyone who remembered my dear grandparents. Oh, and my dad told us he took Cliff Richard to school on the back of his bike!

Click HERE if you are able to expand on Kay's memories for her.

The following memories of local transport in the area were offered at an exhibition held at Honeywood in the summer of 2006. We thank those who wrote for the time they took to do so, and for the fascinating reminiscences they have provided. Photos Sutton Local Studies Collection: click on them to see the larger images.

Audrey writes:

A trip on the tram towards Croydon from Carshalton in about 1929

I was very excited that my baby sister and I were about to go for a ride on a tram! My parents both enjoyed travelling about as much as they could in those days, but when my father was at work mother really enjoyed taking us to places at every opportunity.

We must have walked from our house in Camden Road to Ruskin Road to catch the tram to Croydon. I was too excited about the journey to recall any detail such as tickets, the driver or the conductor but I think we went to sit upstairs so that I could have a good view as we rode along towards Croydon. I seem to recall that the seats upstairs were wooden and that one could tip the back-rest to face whichever way the tram was travelling (as they do in Blackpool still).

The motion of the tram was very unpleasant to me, and as we progressed I felt more and more ill as we had to stop and start fairly frequently for passengers to get on and off. (In later years using other modes of transport, I now know this feeling to be akin to sea-sickness, but being so young and inexperienced of boat travel I was unaware of the reason then.)

The excitement quickly wore off, so that my mother must have realised that something was wrong as I got quieter and quieter till she noticed that I ws looking decidedly ill. We hastily left the tram near Croydon Airport. The journey home is a complete mystery to me. I have no recollection of it.

Later, when trolleybuses replaced the trams on this route, I went for a ride on one. Sadly I felt ill on that too. Trolleybuses would glide along and be too smooth. I hated the feeling. Many years later, when travelling in Italy, I discovered that going for a ride on a single decker bus, which was really a ‘boneshaker’, was my most enjoyable bus journey, because it didn’t glide, it wasn’t smooth and it shook me about as it bounced along!

Michael Barbour writes:

Because they were electric powered the trolleybuses were very quiet. They could get up to quite a good speed and I remember one really fast ride along the side of Figgs Marsh. In traffic, however, where they had to stop and start a lot they could be very jerky, a bit like Croydon Tramlink!

Peter Beddoe writes:

In 1956 my mother and I came over from Epsom to Sutton on the train. We then walked down Sutton High Street past the Gaumont cinema until we reached Benhill Avenue. We then walked along this road until we came to the trolleybus garage. I remember that we asked one of the mechanics in the garage whether we could go round the garage and he took us for a free conducted tour so I could take all the numbers of the trolleys in the depot. I seem to remember that there were long pits which the trolleys were parked over for inspection. We then went for a short trip on a trolleybus.

Although this is not directly related to Sutton I did go for a ride on one of the last trolleybuses on May 8^th 1962. I broke my journey up to London to college at Raynes Park and caught the 604/605 to Wimbledon. Unlike the Sutton trolleys the ride was very smooth. All you felt/heard was the pneumatic air working the brakes.

Dawn Donkin writes:

From 1955 until 1959 my sister and I travelled on the trolleybus from Putney to Hammersmith (626) to attend school. I was seven years old and she was 5 years old in 1955. Mum usually did the journey to school with us for the first few years but we came back on our own.

We took great delight in standing on the corner of Hammersmith Broadway to wait for the trolleybus to slow down so that we could leap on board! – unthinkable now. They were always delayed because the trolleys came off the wires or needed to be moved so that the trolleybuses could pass one another.

(Interestingly, it would then have been possible to travel from Sutton to Hammersmith by trolleybus with just one change of bus – from the 654 to the 630 at West Croydon – ed.)

John Parkin writes:

I was born in July 1950 on the ‘Smallholdings’ otherwise known as ‘Telegraph track’ in Carshalton, and our family never had a car, so journeys were always made by public transport, notably trolleybus 654, boarding at the ‘Boundary Corner’ stop. Occasional journeys to Purley (maybe to see the newly released Norman Wisdom films) would be by bus route 234 (RT operated) or 234A (RF) from the Woodcote green stop, opposite what is now Wallington High School for Girls.

I was not quite nine years old when the trolleybuses finished, but I have many memories of journeys on them because, on a regular basis, we travelled on Saturday afternoons into Croydon for shopping, perhaps including Surrey Street Market and on Sunday mornings to the former George Street Congregational Church, which was subsequently demolished. We would alight at Reeves Corner and on return we would board at the stop shared with the 630 trolleybus route, which ran to ‘Near Willesden Junction’. I also recall occasional Saturday morning journeys with my older brother into Sutton for the Saturday morning pictures at the Granada. Oh happy days!!

There was one conductor who always called out “any more fairies” and I was told in later years by Johnny Gardner (then a bus driver at Sutton Garage and who had been the last person to be trained as a trolleybus driver at Carshalton) that he also used to call out “Sutton Gripes”. When someone corrected him – “The Grapes” – he retorted, “Well, have you tasted the beer?!!”.

On the day of the London closure, 8^th May 1962, I was still at Carshalton County Secondary School (as I think it was then known) and I made my last journey on a London Trolleybus in service in the capital on either a 604 or 605 from Wimbledon to Raynes Park. With my brother I had taken part in a tour of much of the remaining London system a year or two previously.

My interest in trolleybuses has continued throughout my life and I visited as many provincial systems as I could before the final demise of trolleybuses in Britain in Bradford in 1972, I toured both the Reading and Bournemouth systems when preserved London trolleybus 260 operated under the wires in those towns. My first closure was the joint Manchester/Ashton systems on New Year’s Eve 1966/67 and I left school a couple of days before the end of term in 1968 to witness the end of trolleybus operation in Huddersfield. I also visited Maidstone, Derby, Walsall, Tees side and Cardiff.

In more recent years I have ventured abroad to see modern trolleybuses operating in many countries, including the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland and Portugal.

I am a regular visitor at places in this country where preserved trolleybuses continue to operate – Sandtoft, near Doncaster; the Black Country Museum. near Dudley and the East Anglia Transport Museum at Carlton Colville, near Lowestoft. Indeed over the weekend of 10/11 September 2006 I was at Carlton Colville to witness the operation of preserved London trolleybus 1253 from the London Transport Museum collection, which was on short-term loan not having operated under power for some 40 or more years and unlikely to do so again.

My email address is appropriately Trolleybus654@aol.com.