Rythe Road
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Planning Applications
№ 4
| ADDRESS: 4 Rythe Road
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№ 14
| ADDRESS: 14 Rythe Road
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Historical Notes
Claygate had several farms in centuries past. There was Beazley Farm by Littleworth Common which ceased milk production in the 1950s in favour of horses; Slough Farm had a dairy herd of Red Poll Cattle and later pigs but later had horses; Manor Farm had a dairy herd of prize-winning jersey cows but later had horses; Elm Farm had dairy cows and chickens and sold delicious cream, but later had a plant nursery business and horse-feed shop; Barwell Court had a big herd of Friesian milking cows and grew cereals, but later kept horses; Horringdon Farm had one of the last big dairy herds of Red Poll cattle and grew cereals and potatoes, but but later horses and grazes young cattle for Loseberry Farm; Loseberry Farm no longer keeps a dairy herd; it later kept a house cow and young stock for the dairy herd at Stoke D'Abernon.
Titts Farm
References to Titts Farm date back to 1743, but it was likely much older than this. The farm was broken up and the land auctioned off in lots for development purposes between 1908 and 1910. It comprised some 35 to 40 acres covering the area that now contains Station Road, Loseberry Road, Raleigh Drive and Rythe Road, with the railway line, Hare Lane, Hare Lane Green and the River Rythe as its approximate boundaries. In earlier years the farm probably extended further eastwards to embrace most, if not all, of Lambs Hill, and thus one of the Oaken Lane brickfields: there are references in old deeds to the payment of an annuity of £20 during the lifetime of one owner in lieu of forgoing a one-third royalty on 'unexhausted brick earth'. It also seems likely that one or two fields lying on the other side of Hare Lane may have formed part of this farm.
Titts Farmhouse and its main barn coincided very closely with the location of what became the Orchard, Hare Lane, and the old barn in its grounds bordering Raleigh Drive. The four cottages that went with the farm no longer exist. The barn off Raleigh Drive which stood until the formation of Chadworth Way lay in a field called Barn Close in the 19th century; other fields of Titts Farm were called 'Home Close', 'Carrot Field', 'Claygate Lane Field' — on which the old Swedenborgian church was subsequently built by Charles Higby — and 'Lambs Hill'.
For many years a substantial part of the farmland was owned by John Peter Robinson of Oxford Street, London, and after he died in 1895, by the trustees of his Loseberry Estate. Tenant farmers included James Freelove (1843), William Scott (1884) and William Aspin (1900).
Part of the farmland having been purchased by Bertram White of Raleigh House, Nelson Road, New Malden, was sold by him in 1910 to Ebenezer Thorogood, a builder of Surbiton. It was from the name of White's house that Raleigh Drive got its name; Rythe Road was also part of Raleigh Drive and so named originally.
Site plans of the farm and adjoining land show that a smithy was located on the corner of Station Road and Hare Lane next to the railway bridge until about 1910.
The River Rythe
The link between the hamlets of Arbrook, Copsem and Hare Lane Green was the River Rythe. Today it is a small stream, but it would have been an imposing waterway in earlier times. It would have provided a convenient supply of fresh water for the inhabitants and their animals throughout the year, and as such these hamlets would thus have been natural areas for small groups of people to establish their homesteads. But the paths of tracks and roads changed, and the rather damp and boggy nature of these areas hastened the demise of these hamlets as land in better locations was cleared for farming and habitation. The water problem was overcome initially by the sinking of wells, the creation of ponds, and later by the availability of piped water.
Sources
- Peebles, Malcolm (1983). The Claygate Book. (Millennium edition). Stockbridge: by BAS Printers Ltd. ISBN 0-9508978-0-9.
- Many thanks also for the photos, many supplied by Terry Gale, from the Claygate Local History Facebook group.
- Claygate Life — 2004 issue 4
