Claygate Common

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O X S H O T T

March 2025

WOODLAND WORKS BRING LIGHT AND WILDLIFE

Claygate Common has a rich history and today covers 14 hectares, with a wonderful variety of trees, wild flowers and wildlife. But maintaining and improving this special place requires active management. And so, during the autumn and winter, volunteers have been carrying out small woodland works under the supervision of the Elmbridge Countryside Team to improve habitat and biodiversity.

Until the late 1800s, Claygate Common was an open grazed common, bounded to the west by Fee Farm and to the north-east by Rucksley Farm (as it was then spelt). It later hosted the nine-hole Claygate Golf Club and was then home to the local cricket and football clubs un􀀮l they moved to the Recrea􀀮on ground.

Over the years, footpaths through the common became dark and overgrown as holly, sycamore and yew thrived. Although native species, their spread needs to be managed and selective thinning has widened the footpath margins and let in more light, which will help restore ground flora, such as woodland anemone, bluebells and celandine, which in turn support insect life. Volunteers have removed non-native species such as rhododendron and laurel as they would grow to dominate.

The cuttings, or “brash”, have been stacked into piles which will create habitats for nesting birds, small mammals, and invertebrates, including solitary bees. Work will pause in March to give the wildlife peace and quiet during the nesting season, and will resume in September. If anyone would like to help maintain this special habitat then please register by emailing countrysidevolunteers@elmbridge.gov.uk and the Countryside team will provide updates on next season’s sessions.

The team thanks everyone who has volunteered so far, looks forward to seeing new faces in the autumn, and hopes that everyone will enjoy the common!

source: Claygate Courier, March 2025 issue, page 15

Historical Notes

CLAYGATE COMMON was enclosed in 1838 and acquired by Esher Council in 1922. At some point in the late 19th century Lord Foley, who owned the land, had a nine-hole golf course built. It was a popular local facility, but it closed after the outbreak of war in 1914.

Map depicting the race course by the Common

Between the wars, there were racing stables on the far side.

Cricket and football were played on the Common before the Recreation Ground was opened.

Fee Farm

In the latter part of the 19th century Fee Farm comprised about seven acres of which nearly three acres were orchards, and the rest mainly meadow and arable land. It had a cottage, the usual farm buildings and a paddock. The area covered by the farm was bounded on the east by The Causeway and Coverts Road, on the south and north by what later became Woodlands Close and Cornwall Avenue respectively, and on the west by Claygate Common. It is quite possible of course that the farm was somewhat larger in earlier times, as in 1838, when James Scott was the tenant, the farm had a rateable value of £21 which would have been rather excessive for a farm of that size.

On the farmland, opposite the 'Corner Shop' and roughly where the house called 'Two Trees' now stands, was a smith's shop and a yard built some time before 1709 by John Romain. In 1709 it was occupied by the widow of Richard Perkins for a yearly rent of 2s.6d. for 41 years, subsequently by William Wood, then by John Woodlatch, and finally by Stephen Humphrey who obtained a seven-year lease of the shop in September 1893. In that year, and for at least the previous 20 years, James Taylor was the tenant farmer, but in the following year Edward Dalton took over the tenancy, while the Foley family were the landlords.

In April 1920, Lord Gerald Henry Foley sold Fee Farm and its land, including the shop, to George and Rundle Brendon for £1,300. They in turn sold it to Percy and Charles Mitchell of Seaton, Devon, for £2,750 in October 1923. The Mitchell brothers were builders and in the late 1920s/1930s Fee Farm Road was created, but not made up, and houses were gradually built along either side of it. Fortunately, the farmhouse itself survived and was not demolished for redevelopment as might easily have been the case in those days when the preservation of old buildings was not so controlled as it is today.

In the mid 1930s, a strip of land on the northern boundary of the farm was acquired by Esher Urban District Council to create an easier and safer access to Common Road from The Causeway. This short stretch of road was built in 1938 and named Cornwall Avenue after an adjacent house called Cornwall House, which together with Newlyn, had been built two years beforehand. Most of the houses along this road were given West Country names, presumably either at the inspiration of the Mitchells who came from Devon, or perhaps because the householders thought that West Country names would harmonise with the name of this road.

1896 OS map of Fee Farm and Claygate Common

Source

• 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.