History

More on boundaries

Monograph No 4: More on boundaries and old maps

Nothing of substance is known of Claygate before the Doomsday Book of 1086. From that record has been established that Claygate, although a poor place supporting a very small population, had an identity separate from Thames Ditton ( pp 1-5). Over the centuries this separateness was more in name than in any administrative sense. This changed in 1841 when a new parish was established from land that had previously been the southern part of Thames Ditton. Until 1841 it was probably inappropriate to think in terms of a boundary between Thames Ditton and Claygate in a legal sense, but in a physical sense old maps tell us that Ditton Marsh appears to lie where such a boundary might be. The word ‘marsh’ has a meaning today which is quite different from that which was current less than 200 years ago. When railway station opened in 1838 it was actually named ‘Ditton Marsh’. This was not because the land around it was boggy (even if it was) but because a large tract of land on which or near which the station was built had that name because it was a border or boundary separating Thames Ditton from Claygate. Some at least of this, perhaps the greater part, may have been common land.

When the and Southampton (later and South Western) Railway submitted to parliament its Bill for the construction of the railway it was obliged, like any other aspiring railway, to submit a map of the intended route showing the landowners affected by it. A section of the map (probably drawn in 1834 when the Bill was submitted) of the proposed railway through Long Ditton and Thames Ditton is shown below. This shows two things of interest: the route is shown going through Ditton Marsh and to the south of it, while still in the parish of Thames Ditton, is shown ‘Cleygate Tithing’

Part of map showing proposed route of London and Southampton Railway. c. 1834

An earlier road map, which was published by Carey in 1810 (reproduced below by courtesy of Burhill Golf Club), also shows Ditton Marsh. The irregular-shaped area covered by it extends from near the Angel public house to beyond the Marquis of Granby (where the Kingston By-pass and the Hampton Court Way intersect with the Portsmouth Road) and nearly as far as where Esher (or Ditton Marsh) station was built. Both the pubs are shown on the map, which shows plainly that the Marsh lies on both sides of the and includes that land which we now know as Giggs Hill Green. (This latter name is something of a mystery for there is no hill there and no one seems to know who Mr Giggs was.) The area of Ditton Marsh also covers what is now known as Littleworth Common on the south side of the and the land to the north of it on either side of the main line railway now used as a golf course. At one point the river Rythe (sometimes referred to as ‘’ in old maps) flows through the Marsh while further west the river forms the eastern extremity of it. It is in this sector of the Marsh, to the west of the Rythe, that the

Part of a map by Carey published in 1810

Over 30 years later a map by Blackwood dated 1842, part of which is reproduced below, shows Ditton Marsh as more or less the same irregular piece of land, which includes Esher station and which stretches towards Claygate as far as the end of Littleworth Road (which runs across Littleworth Common on a causeway); this is almost as far as the modern boundary of Claygate.

Part of a map by Blackwood published in 1842

A new legal boundary of Claygate was settled in 1841 soon after the consecration of and in support of the establishment of Claygate’s separation from Thames Ditton and the establishment of the new parish. The new northern boundary of Claygate was drawn east-west across what has become known as Telegraph Hill and Semaphore House, but which was previously known as Coopers Hill.

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