Old Claygate Lane
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Historical Notes
What is now called Old Claygate Lane is a highway marked on all old maps, but unlike Hare Lane has never been adopted or made up. Today it is impassable to wheeled vehicles and one can barely traverse it on foot, except in dry weather. This was not always the case, although it was always a pretty muddy lane for all that.
In 1877, Richard Jefferies in his Nature Near London describes Claygate Lane as the place where ... the very first stroll of the year should be taken. . .'. He states that the lane was some two miles long, lined on both sides with trees, stretching across farmland until it met Woodstock Lane. Jefferies remarked on the number of birds to be seen and heard, particularly woodpeckers and jays.
Claygate Lane was probably the main route that the villagers of Claygate had tramped every Sunday on their way to church at Thames Ditton since the Middle Ages. It was also the route used by farmers to take their produce to Thames Ditton, which was a small port on the Thames in bygone days. Timber, bricks and other goods were exported along this lane. At one time there was a keeper's cottage beside this lane, also several huts occupied by hermits and tramps, but all traces of these have disappeared. Either the tramps, or Jefferies's writings, led the lane to being called Trampers' Lane by some of Claygate's residents in the past.
