History

Land use in Claygate - 1838

In pursuing the hypothesis that it was the coming of the London & Southampton Railway (later the LSWR) to Esher (Ditton Marsh station opened on 21 May 1838) that led to the development of mansions in Claygate, there is a contrast with Peebles who romanticised the popularity of Claygate with rich families because of its proximity to Claremont. We are fortunate in having the Thames Ditton Parish Register of 1838 (Surrey History Centre (SHC), ref: 2568/7/8) which gives a contemporary schedule of beneficially owned land, together with the names of the owners and occupiers of it. It is dated 24 March 1838, just two months before the railway opened and from this record can be constructed a picture of human activity in Claygate in 1838. There are definitional difficulties, however, because what was known as ‘Claygate’ in 1838 was a land area much larger than modern Claygate. The Parish Register records a total of 2,395 acres of beneficially occupied land in the Parish of Thames Ditton in 1838 of which 700 acres is of Thames Ditton: the difference of 1,695 relates to Claygate. The very size of the differential suggests a rural sprawl, which was the greater because the substantial common land in Claygate is excluded from the list because it was not beneficially occupied except in ‘common’. What is known as ‘Claygate’ in 1838 was bounded by Long Ditton, Thames Ditton, Esher, Stoke D’Abernon, probably parts of Cobham and Hook: it included the Angel Inn, in what is now Thames Ditton and reached as far as Stokesheath Farm in what is now Oxshott but at the time was in Stoke D’Abernon: a straight line distance of some 3½ miles. It is probable that the Portsmouth turnpike formed the boundary: south of it, Claygate; north of it Thames Ditton, whereas today, of course, Hinchley Wood intervenes.

It is plain from the Parish Register that Thames Ditton and Claygate were very different from each other in 1838. Although Claygate as then delineated was 2½ times (in terms of acres) the size of Thames Ditton (it would be even more if Claygate’s common land were factored in) the gross estimated rental value of land in Claygate was not much more than one half (£3,411 compared with £6,126) of the Thames Ditton value. Although there were some farms in Thames Ditton at the time there were over 250 dwellings demonstrating that land ownership in that parish had already become diversified. In the early 19th century Thames Ditton had a long-established Thames-side wharf with good road access via the Portsmouth turnpike. The evidence of the Parish Register suggests that relatively the economic activity in Thames Ditton was considerably greater that in Claygate. Not much is known about roads in or to Claygate at the time, but then as now Claygate was not on the way to anywhere. Its heavy soil had made transport historically difficult in winter and probably marked its farms as less productive than those in the Thames flood plain; it seems likely that Claygate would have been regarded as a backwater, although the absence of its own place of Christian worship was already noticed.

In 1838 seven Claygate landowners owned 78% of the land not in common ownership; they were:

Major landowners in Claygate: 1838
	Acres
H M King of the Belgians	391
G Bankes Esq	270
Wm Speer Esq	224
Lovelace estate	>174
Wm Machell Esq	120
John Elworthy Esq	77
John Jacob Buxton Esq	67
	1323
Total acres in Claygate (excluding common land)	1695

The major uses of this land were as follows:

Land use in Claygate, 1838
	Acres
Farms	1356
Brickfields (3)	44
29 houses in a curtilage of one acre or more	178
Woodland	32
Other parcels of land (4)	62
Very small parcels of land (including 33 cottages)	23

Total (excluding common land)	1695

Naturally, it is farming that accounts for the greater part of land use. The 17 farms listed in 1838, three of which were unnamed, were:

Name of farm in 1838	Acres
Waffrons	174
Arbrook	134
Lower Couchmore	116
Upper Couchmore	114
Horridon	110
Farm and buildings	102
Claygate Green	95
Ditton Manor	90
Vale	77
Copsem	68
Ruxley House, gardens and farm	40
Beazleys	39
Unnamed farmhouse and land	18

Total farm acres in 1838	1356

Many of these farms have disappeared, but Horridon, Vale, Arbrook and Stokesheath, survive with the first two named being in modern Claygate. The Ditton Manor Farm was in what is now Hinchley Wood (with the house remaining still). Ruxley is in the list because it was a large estate, which included a farm. Peebles mentions three farms known to pre-date 1838: Titts Farm; Fee Farm and Slough Farm (TCB pps 41 – 49), which may be the unnamed farms in the above list. None of the entries in the register suggests animal husbandry, but there are frequent references to ‘arable’ and ‘orchard’ use of land.

Three brickfields are noted in the 1838 Parish Register: one of six acres occupied by a Richard Street, on land owned by George Bankes; another of eight acres occupied by James Stevens on land owned by a Mrs Waterhouse and a seemingly much larger affair connected to four parcels of land totalling 30 acres owned and occupied by a George Waffow [sic]; (Peebles has this name as George Waffew [sic]).

Relating this evidence to the brickfields known at the time of their closure, Peebles has suggested that the brickfield occupied by Richard Street was that which lay to the east of Oaken Lane on land on the lower slopes of Telegraph Hill; while that occupied by James Stevens was the one on the west side of Oaken Lane on the site of the former garden centre. The larger brickfield of George Waffow, is placed by Peebles as the Common Road brickfield, which from the 1920s was operated by Claygate Fireplaces (TCB pps 50 – 54).

Apart from 17 farms, three brickfields, many orchards, 29 houses with an acre or more of land there were, in 1838, 16 houses with no material land, 33 cottages, two workshops, a building which had been a workhouse, a smith’s shop, hothouses and four public houses: the Swan, the Hare and Hounds, The Griffin and, reflecting the widely drawn boundary, the Angel Inn in what is now Thames Ditton and a parcel of land owned by ‘the Trustees of the Turnpike’; the nature of this can be guessed, but as to its location there is no clue in the register.