Worcester Park

Worcester Park is a suburban town in South West London, England. It lies in the London boroughs of Sutton and Kingston, and partly in the Surrey borough of Epsom and Ewell. The area is southwest of Charing Cross. The suburb's population was 16,031 at the time of the 2001 census. The suburb comprises the Worcester Park ward, an electoral area of the London Borough of Sutton with a population in of , as well as the Cuddington ward, an electoral area of Epsom and Ewell, which had a population of 5,791 at the time of the 2001 census.

The Worcester Park post town, which is coterminous with the KT4 postcode district, covers all of the suburb and also extends into Old Malden.

The Beverley Brook runs through Worcester Park, alongside Green Lane and past Green Lane Primary School and Cheam Common Junior School for the special needs, traversing up to Cuddington Recreation Ground. Green Lane appears in the Domesday Book. The Huntsmans Hall (now The Brook) was situated on what was the far boundary of a hunting ground for Henry VIII.

Demographics

In 2011, around 78% of residents of Worcester Park ward were White, with 3.6% mixed race, 4.8% Asian or British Asian, 2.0% Black and 3.3% Chinese or of another ethnic group.

History

Worcester Park takes its name from the 4th Earl of Worcester, who was appointed Keeper of the Great Park of Nonsuch in 1606. The area was once part of the Great Park which covered around 1100 acres and was adjacent to the Little Park which contained Nonsuch Palace of Henry VIII. Both parks were originally used as deer parks. Henry VIII had obtained the land from Sir Richard de Codington.

During the ownership by Sir Richard de Codington, there was a manor house on a site which was later replaced by Worcester House and is now the site of Worcester Close. There was also a church of St. Mary on roughly the same site where the church of St Mary the Virgin, Cuddington, now stands.

In 1809 Worcester Park was acquired by William Taylor. He used a mill on the banks of the Hogsmill River to continue the manufacture of gunpowder which had been carried out on and off in the area for several decades. Manufacturing continued until the 1850s when the mill blew up.

In 1890 Worcester Park Baptist Church was formed in Longfellow Road. It moved to its present location on The Avenue in the 1950s.

Cheam Common Infants and Junior schools

Cheam Common Infants and Junior schools are pre-World War II school buildings. Air raid shelters were found underground during an extension to the main building of the junior school. The school is located at the top of the high street.

Parker's Field

Possibly belonging to T Parker & Sons, Landscapers, who were based at what is now a housing estate at beside Worcester Park Station, Parker's Field was a popular toboggan run until a housing estate was built on a large part of it in the 1970s (despite being Green Belt).

Rowe Hall

The Scout HQ next door to Cuddington Primary School in Salisbury Road at was built in 1958 and named Rowe Hall in honour of a long serving scout leader, "Miss Ivy Rowe". This headquarters was erected after the previous building was destroyed by arsonists and still serves the 2nd Cuddington (Rowe) Scout Group. Miss Rowe was the third-form teacher at Blakesley School, a private primary school owned by Mr and Mrs Eric Dudley, and highly esteemed Akela of the 2nd Cuddington (Blakesley) Cub pack from its founding in the early 1940s to the 1960s.

Worcester (Park) House

In the 1950s, the ruins of an ornamental lake with a multi-arched bridge and balustrade were still visible in the woodland at the foot of a hill in Parker's Field. The house itself was not visible, nor were there any ruins apart from the lake and some mounds of bricks. The lake itself had drained into the Hogsmill River, but no source of incoming water was visible. The lake dried up in the late 1940s following the rechannelling of the river.

Close to the bridge remnant to the south-west of the bridge was a ruined domed structure, all that remains of an ice house. However, it was filled with soil and other debris which prevented any investigation.

Locals presumed the house to be named "Worcester Park House", and have suggested that Blakesley School was the original house, while historical sources suggest "Worcester House". However, the map of 1871 shows a building labelled "Worcester Park House" to be alongside the lake, to the west of it, on land that was, in the 1950s, overgrown with trees. Documents from HM Land Registry show that the name of the building for Blakesley School was Worcester Court.

Nearby places

In literature

Worcester Park is the site of the enormous launch structure built to pioneer manned flight in the short story "The Argonauts of the Air" by H. G. Wells