Other contributions are welcome — please send them to info@rockshawroad.org.uk.
During our early years in Rockshaw Road the milk was delivered by Mr Martin with his horse and cart; and eggs and cream could be had from Harrison's farm. This is long gone, buried under part of the M23. Both houses overlooked fields and woodland, and at times the Surrey and Burstow Hunt was to be seen galloping across the fields. All that became history during the next few years with the coming of the 'estate'.
This decade was the last one that saw a rural environment along the length of the road. The street had grass edges on both sides, with a footpath on the south side that was heavily wooded from the road and down the banks to the south. This is possibly the reflection of the name Rockshaw as a 'shaw' is a wooded area (with a 'rock' being self-evident). There was little traffic in the road and was while most, but not all, houses had cars, people walked and the road was quiet. Each morning a line of commuters could be seen walking from their homes to Merstham station, to journey to London. The norm was the 8.50 a.m. train to London Bridge, and most people caught either the 5.50 or 6.09 train returning to Merstham in the evening.
For wives running the home and looking after children Merstham was self-sufficient for all daily household needs. In the village High Street were: a cobbler, Mr Smith, who was over 70 years old but said he couldn't retire as his parents were occupying the family retirement flat over the shop; a butcher; a hardware store; two antique dealers; an optician; a Co-op and two other grocers; a ladies' wear shop; a baby linen shop; a Post Office; two banks; a builder; a fuel merchant; an estate agent; a newsagent; a ladies' hairdresser; a florist and fruiterer; a bookseller; a tobacconist and confectioner; a working garage; two taxi services; and, for refreshment, tea rooms, a café and three pubs. Pharmacies were in Portland Drive and Nutfield Road. Croydon was more popular than Redhill, with the recent opening of the Whitgift centre adding to its many shops. Visits there were by train. Infants were in Victorian-style prams with four big wheels: they were taken by their mothers to seats near the guard's van and the prams put in the van by the Guard and the platform staff at the station. On return from Croydon, the train stopped on the 'down' platform where the prams were unloaded. They were on the wrong side of the railway for anyone from the village or Rockshaw Road, and were too unwieldy to be taken over the footbridge, but one of the two platform staff always appeared and as soon as the train had gone carried the pram across the lines to the 'up' platform for the mothers who would carry their children over the footbridge.
By the mid-60s a sea change had taken place in the road. Many houses had become too big for the occupants, children having grown up and left home. Those houses were sold and a new generation of families moved in with younger children, many of whom knew each other having been at kindergarten together at Merstham Grange school (run by Miss Hope-Mason). As a result, the parents knew each other and a happy relationship existed in the road. Boys generally moved on to Hawthorns school, then at Gatton Point, while girls went to Dunnotar. Thus the family relationships continued. The local gypsy family, Mr and Mrs Smith, were always accompanied by their infant son who had lost an arm. They lived in Bletchingley, at the junction with Rabies Heath Road where gypsies were housed by the local council. The Smiths were seen in Rockshaw Road from time to time asking for clothes, metal, and anything else discarded by builders who were active in many houses where the new owners were modernising their recently-bought properties. Mr Harrison owned Quarry Dean Farm, and lived in his farmhouse at the base of the valley behind Roemarten. He was a farmer, surveyor, and water diviner who became known to several residents in Rockshaw Road when he had to recover his cows after his farm gates had been left open by ramblers, and the cows were found grazing in the gardens. He had become very knowledgeable about the caves, and said that were granite workings (perhaps the 'rock' of Rockshaw); and that under his farmhouse was a quay and a canal that led through to the level of Merstham station. He contended that in years long past extracted rock and chalk was loaded on to barges at the quay and floated through to the canal to its exit near the station, where it was easy to transfer to road transport, so avoiding having to lift it to road level high above the farmhouse. He would often be seen walking with his divining rods, and said that with them he had tracked the canal under the beech hedge which was the boundary between Clavadel and Relf House.
I lived at Mill Ash Cottage for almost a year in the late 1950s whilst a new house was being built at Caterham. I remember that Mrs [Elise] Reeves, who by that time was living at Piemede, would sometimes give me a lift to school, in School Hill. Although I was no older than 8 years old I was always expected to walk back home!
My mother was employed as a cook/housekeeper in, I think, late 1951 or early 1952, by Mr and Mrs Reeves, the owners of Mill Ash. I was about seven years old. I remember the house very well: it was a white pebbledash building with green window frames. Mr Reeves drove a black ‘sit up and beg’ car and he occasionally used to drive me to the village for school. Mr and Mrs Belsham lived in the cottage. He was the gardener, and I think Mrs Belsham helped in the house. I have fond memories of the gardens, which I think sloped away from the side of the house down to what was a bluebell wood (where Mr Reeves used to like to sunbathe). He used to hang one of his shoes on a stick to indicate that he was there.
The house was positioned sideways on to the road with a sweeping drive past the cottage to the front of the main building. There were two huge fir trees on a large area of grass to the right of the drive. An above-ground air raid shelter had been built of concrete, to the rear of the house. It had a centre door, which was reached by passing along a passage protected by the solid outside wall. When we were there it still contained two iron-framed beds and I think there was also a gas mask.
I only have vague memories of the interior of the house. The kitchen looked out on the back garden, and the kitchen door opened on to a courtyard, with the house on one side and an array of sheds on the other two. These sheds were built as part of the house: some backed on to the garage. The open side of the courtyard faced the air-raid shelter, which was reached by a long straight path with a vegetable garden on either side. Between the shelter and the road there were more sheds, a small greenhouse and a huge pile of household fuel - I'm not sure, but I think it may have been coke. The room off the kitchen was mainly our sitting room, it was a sort of squared 'S' shape. One end looked over the vegetable garden, the middle held a large table for general use and at the other end we had our 'winter quarters' - there was a built-in bread (?) oven with an open fire surrounded by dark red gloss bricks. There were no windows at that end;, I think it backed on to the hall. The house had three floors: my mother and I occupied a large bedroom on the top floor, which also had a bathroom. There was one other bedroom.
Mr and Mrs Reeves were often visited by their son and daughter-in-law. I had to call them Mr and Mrs Jim, to avoid confusion. Mrs Jim was very kind, not only to my mother but also to me. I still have the Victorian box she bought as a present for my mother, and she always made me feel special. It was Mrs Jim who told my mother that Mrs Reeves planned to re-employ her previous domestic help, so for us it was time to move on. I think we left Mill Ash sometime in 1954. I remember Mrs Belsham standing outside the cottage waving a white handkerchief as we disappeared into the distance. The Belshams left the cottage a few years later and retired to Mrs Belsham's home town of Oban before moving south again to be near their son in Kent. My mother and I kept in touch until Mr Belsham died in Margate in 1980, seven years after the death of his wife.
As well as the windmill that stood on Rockshaw Road, which was demolished when the second railway line was built, there was another mill just below the Road, in a field accessible from Old Mill Lane at Station Road. The field was called ‘Fair Field’ (it had been for many years the site of the Merstham Fair) and there was a house and some workshops there. These all gave way to the development of houses at the corner of Rockshaw Road and which are appropriately named ‘Fairfield Cottages’. In 1937 a John Lane was living in the Old Mill House and that was demolished before WW2, which would tie in with Fairfield Cottages being started in 1938.
On the northern side of the road, the first mill had given way to a house and garden occupied by Col and Mrs Neighbour. There were few houses on this side,
and no more until one got to ‘Innesfree’ (the senior Spaldings). This house was destroyed by a doodlebug, killing all inside. It is now known
as The New House. The areas between and behind the houses were farmland and in the distance the chalk quarry stood out proudly, beautifully white. During
the war it was a landmark for the German pilots trying to bomb the railway. After Innesfree there was a field, then a small sort of nursery place with an
outbuilding and Miss Pocock’s house (Brambles, or the like?) [Roemarten] and, after more farmland, a small rough lane, now overgrown, leading to Mr Peter’s
farm. The lane led to stables and to Quarry Cottages – two of the village school-teachers, Mrs Spray and Miss Howard, lived here. The Peters also established
the Greystone Lime Works. Sadly the only things left of the farm and stables now seem to be a few poor fruit trees. There is no sign now of the buildings
having been here.
After the lane there was a further field and then the Pilgrim’s Way footpath. Next to the footpath were two old cottages, one of which was occupied by the
Morleys.
After the two cottages was a small field (subsequently to become part of the de Rose’s garden), and then a small lane (still called Rockshaw Road).
There were only five cottages – The Firs (de Rose), Ockley (Cox), Upland (Waters), Fairmead (Blowes – my family) and Lynwood (Spalding). There
were no houses on the opposite side and the meadow (with Straddling farm animals) was only a very short distance from our front gate. The houses on the opposite
side were built post-war.
I believe someone wrote in a book that there were no woods in the area. That is quite wrong. There was a lovely wood very close to our houses (a little piece
of it still remains) and we children (6 or 7 of us before the war) would play there, build small camps, pick bluebells, primroses, red campions, wild white
anemones, etc., without coming to any harm. There was a small family of gypsies at the far end of the wood and sometimes they would come to the houses asking
for water or ‘got any stale bread missus?’, and sometimes to sell their wares – clothes-pages, firelighting sticks, mops. Our parents always
obliged and sometimes handed over a few treats as well. [Another reminiscence tells of the family, whose name was Smith - their infant son had lost an arm.
They lived in Bletchingley, at the junction of Rabies Heath Road. Local gypsies were housed here by the Council, but only the Smith family came to Rockshaw
Road and they would ask for clothes, metal, or whatever else had been left behind by the many builders engaged in modernising and improving the houses.] There
was another gypsy, an old man who lived on his own. We called him ‘Old Swearard’ (for obvious reasons!) but we kids all loved him and he would
sit us around his fire and tell wonderful stories. Beyond the wood there were hilly meadows, and we had great times in winter sliding, tobogganing and snow-balling.
Alas, when the M23 was built most of the wood disappeared.
I remember the Bensons at The Red House (he became a Lord); but when I was a little girl Admiral (later ‘Sir’) David and (Lady) Lambert lived
there, and if we were both walking down the road at the same time (he to the station and me to school) I was allowed to walk with him across the station
meadows! After Sir David’s death Lady Lambert moved to Quality Street and I used to visit her when I was on holiday.
When war was declared Mr Bowring, from The Georgian House, offered all the local children the chance to go to his brother in Newfoundland, who would find homes
for them ‘for the duration’. None of us said we would go and just as well as we would have been on the evacuee ship that the Germans sank not
far off Liverpool.
Monica de Rose [of the Firs] told me how her mother was walking down the road one day, going to work (she was a nurse). It was raining and she had her umbrella
up, when suddenly a monkey jumped from a tree and landed on the umbrella! Mrs de Rose didn’t know where it had come from or where it went to, and enquiries
revealed nothing. Monica couldn’t remember how far along the road her mother was. Monica was my first real friend – I was about 2½ and
she 3½ and we’re still good friends now.
Rockshaw House was a huge mansion at the top of the road, but on the other side, with a ‘Lodge’ and iron gates as one went in. I didn’t see
all of it but I went to a function once in the main hall. It was a vast, beautiful room with a minstrels’ gallery. The house had a sad happening during WW2
when it was taken over by the armed forces. One night one of the young soldiers committed suicide by throwing himself from the gallery. Strange to tell, not
long afterwards when one went down the road towards Warwick Wold, whatever time of year and whatever the weather, a cold breeze wafted across the road. With
the old house having been demolished, the breeze is no longer there – I have investigated!
The Crystal Palace, built originally in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition in 1851, was moved in 1852 to the South London area that took its name. In 1936
the Palace sadly burnt down, leaving just the two towers standing. On the night of the burning word went round that there was a glow above the Downs and at
its height, from Rockshaw Road some of the flames could be seen shooting up.
Before the war very few cars were to be seen and those there were came from the ‘big’ houses. The rest of us had two feet or bicycles on which
to make the journey to the village and back. Fruit and vegetables were brought round in a van, occasionally meat or fish. The was the Walls ice-cream “Stop
me and Buy one”, and occasionally the ‘Rag-and-bone’ man with his horse-cart. On one occasion my mother was struggling home with two or three
heavy shopping bags and ‘rag-and-bone’ man stopped and said “come on, ducks, I’ll take you home in style!” Mortified, but very grateful,
she accepted. When I heard about it I said “Oh, Mummy, how could you – what will my friends say?”
After what had been called ‘The Crisis’ in 1938 war with Germany was eventually declared at 11.00 a.m. on 3rd September.
In our lane everyone gathered to discuss the ‘awful situation’, wondering what would happen and whether our husbands or fathers would be called
up. Some preparations had already been made, because the first thing that happened was sirens being tested. The noise gave us all a heck of a shock.
The ‘phoney war’ went on for some time, during which all householders were told about essential blackout curtains and blinds, that there would be
rationing, that there would be shelters – first, garden ones called Anderson shelters (after Sir John Anderson, who lived in Rockshaw Road) [Pickett Wood]
and then Morrison shelters issued later in the war.
A call went out for householders to have evacuees from London. My parents took in a brother and sister, but they hated being in the country and didn’t
stay long. Later, an Italian lady, Elena, was billeted with us, having been employed at a factory somewhere – but she was more interested in her French
Canadian boyfriend! She stayed for about 18 months.
An air-raid wardens’ post-cum-first-aid unit had to be organised and Mr Toms [Whitmore] allowed this to be done in his garage. It was reinforced and
then had large sandbags placed all over and around it; inside was a mass of radio and technical equipment as well as a full range of medical supplies from
bandages to stretchers, and buckets full of sand, inside and out. I don’t remember who the wardens were – certainly among their number were Mr Toms
and Ernie Blowes, and possibly Mr Houlder and Mr Port.
Nothing could have prepared us for the noise of the air-raids – the particular drone of the German planes, the screaming of the falling bombs followed by the
explosions. Compared to London we got very few, but we got enough. During the Battle of Britain daylight raids the kids in our lane would stand by the front
door watching the dog-fights, cheering loudly if we saw a ‘Jerry’ brought down.
The worst night-time raid for us was the night they ‘fired’ London, during May 1941. This was before the Morrison shelters were delivered and we
spent most of the night under our dining-room table of in the cellar, if we had one. During a slight lull some of us had a quick peek outside and, for the
second time in modern history, looking up to the Downs we could occasionally see the actual flames as an enormous bomb exploded. It was almost daylight before
the ‘all-clear’ went.
Another of our noisy nights was when a huge ‘mobile’ anti-aircraft gun was parked at the top of our lane and was firing rapidly.
We always knew when there was going to be a daylight raid, because all the fighters would go up from Kenley, Biggin Hill and one or two other smaller air stations.
Morrison (or ‘under-table’) shelters were made available in about 1942. They were made of solid steel tops and framework with wide steel mesh
fixed to both ends; the sides were similar but removable. All were held in place by metal hooks. They were delivered (luckily for us) before the Flying Bombs,
or Doodlebugs, began to arrive. When we heard the first few everyone thought it was a plane crashing, but that occurred rather too often and we realised
that they were something rather more dangerous. Then during the days people, especially the children began to watch out for them. If they were heading in
your direction or you saw one dropping you immediately dashed indoors into the ‘Morrison’.
There was one big disaster in the Road when one of those ghastly things came straight down into Innesfree, killing everybody, all senior members of the Spalding
family, inside. Apart from any neighbours around who rushed to help one of the first to arrive was a very young St John Ambulance cadet (he must have been
about 15 at the time) by the name of Keith Gaffney. He had been working in Church Hill, and had seen a previous flying bomb go over and crash near Kingswood,
then he saw this one fall. He realised it was somewhere in Rockshaw Road and knew he had to go and help. When he got to Innesfree he knew that there could
be nobody left alive inside so he started to help clear the rubble and dig out the dead. They got four people out, but there was a fifth body that was completely
pinned between two walls. When he had done all he could, he went across the road to Rondels to look for my father Ernie whom he knew worked there. Ernie
had been working on the car on the garage forecourt when the bomb fell and the blast picked him up bodily, throwing him through the garage, out through a small
door, along a garden path and dropping him on the (grass) tennis court. That was where Keith found him, shocked and with some minor cuts and bruises. What
an amazing escape, and what courage for a young teenage lad!
On one occasion a German pilot, who had baled out from his aircraft, had the misfortune to land on the narrow strip of land between the two railway tunnels. With nowhere to run to, he was soon captured!
We were woken in the early hours by the thunderous roar of hundreds of planes overhead, all painted underneath with black and white stripes for camouflage.
On and on they flew over. We hadn’t yet heard any news but it was clear that something big was up. Then word got out – ‘Invasion of occupied
France along several fronts’, at which there were loud cheers.
As daylight arrived the next noise that brought everyone out of doors was the sound of marching feet. a number of divisions – Royal Engineers, Royal
Signals, and Canadian troops – were marching along the Road. The pavement and the opposite side of the road became filled with all the householders and
children cheering and calling out – “Good luck!”, “God bless!”, “God speed!”, “We’ll miss you!”
and, of course, there were many thoughts and prayers for those who would be killed or injured in battle. A number of households had opened their doors to
the troops so that they could relax, write letters or just socialise. The Canadian troops at The Mere were very friendly and sometimes very generous, sharing their
food parcels from home, especially the sweets with the children. Two of the soldiers even took my friend and me to Purley Ice Rink and taught us how to
skate!
Air raids and flying bombs continued and the Wardens’ Post was still a hive of activity. There were lighter moments: one was when my father saw something
white in the distance, and on investigating found an unexploded parachute flare with a slightly scorched parachute still attached to it. First, the flare was
made safe; and then the parachute was removed. A few ladies along the road benefited from new silk underwear!
The Germans had another lethal weapon to let loose on us – the V2, which was a rocket missile. Mercifully none fell in the Road but I had a miraculous
escape at Hayes, in Kent, one day when I had gone to visit my aunt and uncle. I was walking on the common when a rocket exploded only a few hundred yards
away. I was knocked off my feet, and the next thing I was aware off was trying to extricate myself from a large gorse bush! Luckily I was unhurt except for
several embedded gorse needles.
Yippee! the end of the war in Europe. Rockshaw Road had no street parties, but everyone smiled and said “what wonderful news”; and we simply
got on with our lives.
Keith Gaffney, mentioned above, was not a resident of the Road but had other connections with it. At one time he used to visit all the ‘big’
houses and, alone, sang Christmas Carols at the door. He was invariably invited in for a mince-pie and a drink, and occasionally invited to a party.
At one of the houses – possibly Piemede [more likely to be Withyshaw] – there was a small private theatre with an outside awning, plush velvet
seats, curtains and lighting. One of the elderly residents of the house [possibly Annie Passmore] had, in her youth, been a ‘Gaiety Girl’. Keith,
who was a member of several Drama Groups, not only performed there but also wrote one or two plays and musical entertainments.
In the same year, 1945, a new Youth Club opened at Broadmead, in Station Road. It was officially opened by the Mayor the following year. Mr Toms, Mr Houlder
and my father were all on the governing committee together with the resident warden Bill (Skip) Williamson. I was a great success.
One annual event was the migration of baby frogs from the mere and stream below the Road. They made their way up to the road in their thousands, and it was
impossible to walk anywhere without treading on some of them.
A very sad incident took place in the late 1940s or early 1950s, when a lady was murdered on the Station Meadows footpath [between Clavadel and Oakwood].
It is believed that the victim was one of the maids from Oakwood. I was cycling home, to Fairmead, late at night having come off the last train from London;
I was stopped by a policeman, who asked where I was going. He then told me there had been an ‘incident’ and he would walk home with me the rest of
the way.
After the war the Road changed. More houses were built on the northern side and what had always been farmland became overgrown. The M23 took part of Ockley
Wood and also some of the Quarry area. The brilliant whiteness of the quarry, which at times had been a marker for enemy aircraft during the war, is now completely
covered by overgrowing trees, shrubs, grass and weeds. The M23 and M25 too some of the houses, too, at the top of the Road.
Other houses changed hands; some have been divided or turned into flats. Innesfree has been rebuilt and is now aptly named The New House. After Mr Savory died,
Rondels was sold for about £10,000.
I have recollections of being taken for a walk one winter's afternoon and going into a cottage for a cup of tea; it was entirely lit by gas. My father once
took me on the footplate of the narrow gauge railway that ran through Merstham tunnel under Rockshaw Road next to the main line that serviced the chalk quarries.
Another is hordes of people skating on Albury Edge's lake; this would have been just post WW II, when the lake had been re-established (it had been drained
during the war so that it would not be a navigation mark for aircraft). One house, white-coloured plastered exterior walls on the north side of the road
further towards the A23, was partly demolished by a V1 Buzz Bomb.
My father was employed as under-gardener by the wealthy Sellon family at Albury Edge, where he met my mother Gertrude Collinson who was employed in domestic
service as a parlourmaid.
They fell in love and when Mr Slogrove, the Head Gardener, died my father was offered the post and the Lodge. He married my mother and on their wedding night
they walked down Rockshaw Road from Chaldon (where he lived) to their new home at Albury Edge Lodge.
The Lodge is an attractive building, half-timbered in the same style as Albury Edge, but it certainly lacked the amenities of the larger house. There was no
hot water or heating; just a cold tap and a rather ugly plain mustard-coloured sink. There was no bathroom, just a tin bath and the water was heated in a copper.
There were two large wooden troughs adjacent to the sink. Mrs Slogrove used to do the Sellon’s laundry – there was also a mangle in the scullery
and the lawn next to the cottage was always referred to by my father as the ‘laundry ground’. It must have been a very arduous and unpleasant
job. When the Sellons asked my mother to take the task on my father flatly refused to let her do it and that was the end of the matter.
There were four gardeners employed: my father as head gardener; the under-gardener, a Mr Ernest Payne; a chauffeur-gardener, originally my mother’s brother Mr Collinson; and later, a Mr Jack Morley whom we all liked very much. There was also a gardener’s boy, Sydney. There were four servants in the house: a cook, two maids and a Nanny who stayed on after the children grew up. This Nanny had a somewhat exalted opinion of herself and used to call my Dad Port, much to his annoyance. On one occasion he placed what was then known as a ‘whoopee cushion’ under the cushion on her chair. When she sat down there was a vulgar noise of breaking wind, much to the amusement of the rest of the domestic staff and the discomfort of this rather pompous Nanny! These maids also used to play a prank on the chauffeur. When he called round at the front door to take Mrs Sellon out in her Austin Tourer they would sprinkle powder on him from the upstairs window – before Mrs Sellon appeared, of course.
The Sellons always had Austin cars and Mrs Sellon must have been a very tough old lady. In the early 1930s she owned an Austin 12 Tourer – there was no heater and was very cold in the winter. The chauffeur used to wrap a very heavy rug around her before they set off. Eventually this Tourer was sold to a vehicle body repair firm, Ryders, which until recently was still in Merstham. This car was followed by an Austin 16 saloon. It was very comfortable and occasionally Mrs Sellon would stop and pick us up on the way home from school. She used to say, in her beautiful well-spoken accent, “How lucky you are to have a ride in my car!” She was a kind person and we working-class children were invited to her Easter Egg Hunts in the garden along with the children of the well-to-do in the area. At Christmas she came round with her sons and daughter, Mr Robert, Mr David, and Miss Rachel, with very grand Christmas presents for us all.
My father had quite a responsible job. Albury Edge had a very large garden with a rose garden, croquet court, tennis court, a large vegetable garden with a fruit enclosure, poultry, geese and ducks. There were swans on the lake, a very large orchard and cultivated hazel trees. The lake had a dam at its west end and this had to be maintained. There were clusters of bamboo canes by the water’s edge and masses of rhododendrons. It was a beautiful place, especially in the springtime. He was also responsible for the central heating; that was, keeping the large coke-fired boiler going and also supervising the large greenhouses that were heated by a similar boiler. These greenhouses were very pleasant places to be in during the cold weather and the other gardeners from the local houses would visit my Dad there for a chat in bad weather; Mrs Sellon suffered from severe arthritis and couldn’t get down to the bottom of the garden. It was a very pleasant club-like atmosphere there.
At the end of the road, in Piemede, lived a gentleman, Mr Bowley. He owned a large red Grosser Mercedes supercharged sports car, the same type as Hitler used to go around in. He completely disregarded the 30mph speed limit and by the time he was passing our cottage he was probably travelling at about 60mph with the supercharger emitting a banshee-like scream. Most impressive!
Tanglewood was owned by the Moy family. Mrs Moy was a beautiful brunette and was driven in style in her yellow-black Silver Eagle Alvis by her chauffeur Mr Arthur Clapp.
The Red House was owned by the Edinger family during the early part of the last century. My two aunts Ethel and Elizabeth Port were in domestic service there, and their rooms were on the third floor with small windows. My aunts always said how cold they were there. A bell was installed in their rooms, which was rung at an early hour by Mr Edinger to ensure that hot water was brought to his room for washing and shaving. My aunts loathed that bell!
Some famous people lived in Rockshaw Road: Sir J Anderson and Christine Keeler, a rather naughty girl; Sir Harold Webbe lived at Ash Pollard, one of the houses demolished for the construction of the M23. In the two old cottages opposite Noddys Hall there lived two families, the Morleys and the Standens. Mr Morley didn’t come over as a very nice bloke and my Dad didn’t have much time for him. The Standens were very nice people and liked by everybody.
My mother was Bertha Ethel Morley, who was one of 12 children of Arthur and Rose, and who lived at 65 Noddyshall, Rockshaw Road. They were brought up Chapel as St Katharine's Church was deemed for the rich and upper classes by my mother’s father and not for the common folk. My mother married Frederick William Holden, whose family lived at 14 Ashcombe Road. After they married they moved to 64 Noddyshall where my brother Robert William was born. He was christened at St Katharine's church against my mother's father’s wishes but because my father was Church of England. The house had no running water or reasonable sanitation but the condition of the house was the same as the house my mother had been brought up in next door, so expectations were not excessive. My mother was in service to the Colman family (I think) in Gatton Park from the age of 12 and had the normal hard life of that time.
The council deemed 64 Noddyshall 'not fit for habitation' in 1937 and as they had built some council houses at Wood Street in South Merstham the family transferred there. My sister and I were born there. By then my father was working on the railway as a lengthman, a job arranged by his father who was a relief station master living at 14 Ashcombe road. The houses were all railway owned. When my grandfather died my father’s sister Nellie and his mother Mildred plus Nellie's son Anthony continued to live at 14 Ashcombe Road.
My mother eventually took a job at Lowood, in Rockshaw Road, as housekeeper with the Johnston family, who had at that time a gardener, a cook, plus my mother as housekeeper, and a ladies’ companion who kept Mrs Johnston's diary and helped with the children. My sister spent a great part of her early life at Lowood as Mrs Johnston only had boys. We as a family have a great affection for Lowood (my house in New Zealand is also called Lowood) and Rockshaw Road during the late 40s and 50s as we all stayed at the house during the six-week summer break when the Johnstons (being of Scottish origin) went to their Highland holiday home and my mother looked after the house. My sister was married at St Katharine's and had her reception at Lowood paid for by the Johnstons. My brother and I used to walk the large dogs that most of the houses in Rockshaw Road owned for much needed pocket money.
The coming of the LCC council estate and the M23/M25 changed Merstham beyond my mother’s understanding and in 1972 she emigrated to New Zealand to be with myself and my sister and brother. She died in 2002 at the age of 90, but before she did we arranged for a professional biographer to take down her life story, which we have got in book form in New Zealand. The experiences she had in service evoke a different time that has now gone but never the less still remain interesting to her children and grandchildren who read her story in disbelief at the conditions that nearly all working people and especially rural folk had to endure.
I lived at Rondels until some years after the war). I kept a diary intermittently and recorded that the first doodlebugs were spotted on 16th June 1944. One fell on my father Guy's flour mill at Thornton Heath the following day. Later that year, on 3rd August, one narrowly missed Rondels but hit Innesfree across the road. I can also remember skating on the Mere during the winter around that time.
Rockshaw Cottage was home to Percy (usually known as Jim) and Florence Helen (Nell) MANNING from the mid-1930s. It comprised four rather large rooms, two upstairs and two down. There was also a very small scullery, that later also housed a bath. The WC was outside. It was a reasonably large building, but limited by having only four rooms. Cooking was by means of a 'Rayburn' stove and oven, which made the living room uncomfortably hot in summer, but cosy in winter.
The rest of the buildings in this block were the stables and garages (formerly the coach-house) and a number of storage rooms and workshops. To the front of the Cottage, facing east and beyond the drive in from Spring Bottom Lane, was a wide and deep pit, which we knew as 'The Dell'. This 'Dell' was one of five such holes set at intervals across the grounds of Rockshaw. By the mid-1950s only two were left unfilled, and they have probably all gone by now. One explanation was that these pits were excavations made in preparation for the proposed (but never implemented) Surrey Iron Railway extension to Godstone [at the start of the 19th century]. I never followed the reasoning behind this suggestion, and thought that they were probably quarries from which the local firestone had been extracted from below the chalk.
The 'bad girls' who lived in Rockshaw House around the start of the War were cared for by nuns, but this episode probably lasted for little more than a year. The girls found it easy to abscond from the house and were often found sleeping rough in the surrounding grounds and countryside. My wife Kathleen was taken away, as she lay asleep in her pram outside the Cottage, by two of these alleged delinquents, and this caused something of a furore. When they were finally discovered, going along Rockshaw Road towards Merstham, the girls claimed innocently that they had thought it a good idea to take the baby out for a walk.
Then the Army came, in the shape of the Royal Corps of Signals. The Manning family found itself living in the middle of an Army camp: Jim was still looking after the gardens, and he was under pressure from the Surrey War Agricultural Committee to produce more food by bringing more and more land under cultivation. Evidence of the Army's stay could be found 20 years later, from signs stencilled on doors and walls of the stables and the other outbuildings, indicating "No. 1 store", "MT store", etc. The family got on well with the Army. I was always intrigued by my wife's claim that she had never eaten margarine, even during the war years! It seems that fresh fruit and vegetables were traded for tins of butter, mainly with the Officers' Mess. A more lasting link was made in 1947, when Peggy [the Manning's eldest daughter] married Thomas BUTLER, a former soldier who had trained at Rockshaw before being posted to Iraq.
When the war ended the House became a furniture depository for Batchelar & Son Ltd. Jim acted as general caretaker during this period, in addition to his role as Head Gardener. Much of the furniture and effects stored there had a ex-colonial feel to them and this no doubt reflected the changing times as the British Empire began to contract. By this time the Bothy was no longer used for living accommodation and it became a store, mostly for potatoes and other root vegetables. The loft area above the stables was the fruit store and every autumn the produce from the orchard was brought here and carefully nurtured to last throughout the winter months.
Rockshaw House was demolished, probably during 1952-53; my wife and her younger brother witnessed this daily, with great interest. By 1956 a large parcel of land had been bought by Mr F H Bourner, who built the present house. Mr Bourner had previously been the occupant of a cottage elsewhere on the Kohn-Speyer estates, but by the mid-1950s he was running a very successful business in Crawley manufacturing the 'Supa-tap', which he had invented. The boundary [of his land] was not marked by walls and fences, but the only person permitted to cross the line was Jim Manning on his short cut to 'Sarmans'. Jim made it clear to all the family that the boundary was along the old croquet lawn, and that the family should not cross that line. The Bourners employed a Spanish couple (Tony & Maria) as gardener/handyman and cook/housekeeper, and they lived in a flat in the new house complex.
In 1956 Mary Ann [second daughter of Jim and Nell] became Mrs Cyril CORSTON, and moved to Redhill. Their eldest son John was married to Joan WRIGHT and, for a while, with the blessing of Mrs Kohn-Speyer, they lived in a flat that had been converted from the space above the coach-house. Following the birth of their second child they moved to Merstham and later to Redhill.
When Mrs Kohn-Speyer died [1959] her family began the disposal of the remaining properties, but Jim carried on running the gardens for a further year. In April 1961 Mr Bourner bought the residue of the original Rockshaw House estate from the Kohn-Speyer family, and this included the Manning's family home at the Cottage, Rockshaw Lodge, the by now virtually uninhabitable Bothy, several outbuildings, two large quarries, an orchard, and all the greenhouses, as well as the land which comprised the kitchen garden. Around this time Jim Manning became ill, and after some hospitalisation and surgery he gave up gardening at the age of 1961. He moved out of the Cottage in 1962, together with his wife Nell and children Kathleen and Jimmy, who were by now young adults. In June that year Kathleen married Clifford UNWINS and Jimmy married June MORGAN (aka QUINTON).
Rockshaw Cottage no longer faces 'The Dell', which was filled many years ago. The Bothy has become a small cottage; Rockshaw Cottage has been modernised; the stables and garage have been converted to dwellings. There are now three houses: Rockshaw Cottage, The Coach House, and The Stables. The Lodge remains much as in the past, at least outwardly.