EPW001710 ENGLAND (1920). Station Road and environs, Thames Ditton, 1920

The AC car factory is now the Harvest Lane gated estate built, I think, in 1987/8 or theresabout. It comprises 47 2,3 and 4-bedroom homes built over eight terrace blocks.

Norman origins.



http://www.stnicholaschurch.org.uk/about-history.html

This House was Basing House situated in Watts Road, with grounds behind given over to new housing in Basing way and Basing Drive. Later (1950's?) more of Basing House grounds were sold of to housing development despite a covenent from sellers( Mr and Mrs Emsworth) that remaining grounds should be left intact as part of Basing House.

Maybe haymaking?

Hi SteveAUS,



The horse and boy makes it look like ploughing, but the ground doesn't appear to be turned over so perhaps the grass is being cut or scoured - on the historical Ordnance Survey mapping this is an open area of ground with the footpath running through, but no labelling to give a park name, field name or to indicate allotments, for example.



Yours, Katy



Britain from Above Cataloguing Team Leader

That's really interesting nutmeg. Maybe the landowner (which could have been the local authority I guess, in this built-up area) executed their responsibility for grass cutting by making hay!



Yours, Katy

This area would still have been agricultural in 1920 - compare earlier OS maps. I expect it was part of nearby Manor Farm (technically Weston Manor Farm) which was on the other side of the railway at bottom of photo. The last remnant of Manor Farm was still being worked as a farm (I remember cattle) in the 1950s, before being sold for school sports fields etc. There was much controversy about demolition of its medieval house and barns in the early 1960s. My mother (born 1908) remembered cornfields on Station Rd in her youth (earlier I wrote that it was hayfields before checking my facts - but the crop could change). This is probably haymaking as the photo was taken in June. On examining field more closely it looks as if the man with the horse is turning the hay to dry it, as he has left a darker line behind him. This is not bare earth as the soil of footpath cutting through the field is a different colour.

There is not a train line here.

Either Summer Road, or the river Thames.

Towpath and bank on opposite side of Thames.

There is not a railway line here.

... and never was!

St. Nicholas' Church

St Nicholas'Church indeed. Norman origins.



http://www.stnicholaschurch.org.uk/about-history.html

Boyle Farm Stables [Home of Compassion}

clock and bell tower on Home of Compassion chapel

This may have been a pub once but I think it is the building occupied by Wine Rack on Streetmap.

The "George and Dragon" PH is located just east of the junction of Watts Road, Station Road, and the High Street.

Thames Ditton Station