Happy June! We are back with Clive on the historical bus route through Sutton, continuing where we left off last time, at the Grapes [blog available here].
Part Three: From Terminus to Depot
We turn the corner at The Grapes and find ourselves in Benhill Avenue, which runs as far as The Broadway (known as Alexandra Terrace until the 1870s) at the junction with Lind Road and Thicket Road. It was originally called Benhill Street: the part from Brunswick Road to Lind Road was renamed in 1905, and the rest not until after 1938. Nowadays, Benhill Avenue makes a dog-leg at the junctions with Throwley Way, but before the construction of this new one-way road, it would have made a double curve – left then right – to bring it to its present route. It then continues to curve gently until its junction with Lind Road. Why the curves – why not run straight from the High Street to the junction at The Broadway? The answer seems to lie in the location of Sutton Manor House in Manor Lane (the next turning off the High Street); Benhill Avenue/Street curves to go round the Manor House’s large garden. The Manor House no longer stands but here, we can see the ghost of its garden.
The start of Benhill Street is also the terminus of tram route 7. There’s not much to show for it: the two tram lines merge into one on the north side of the road, and then just end. A plan to extend the route up the High Street was never implemented. Here there is no platform and no shelter for those waiting for the tram. A simple sign on a lamp-post tells us the destinations (Croydon, Carshalton and Wallington) and the fares.
The most striking feature is the church that faces us, at first sight blocking our route. This is Sutton Congregational Church, also known as the Benhill Street Chapel. It was opened in 1859, when the minister was the Rev. Isaac Jacob. The congregation moved to a larger church in Carshalton Road in 1890; the Benhill Street building continued to house other church activities (e.g., Boy Scouts) until damaged by bombing in 1941. It and the site were sold in 1947.
As we turn the second curve in Benhill Street we see that the north (left-hand) side was built up first, when it was known as Clifton Crescent. Here stood a row of substantial houses, all swept away by the building of the Benhill Estate around 1970. Four of their names look familiar – Newlyn, Glenrose, Clevedon and Denewood – as they were given to four of the blocks in the Estate. The other blocks in the Estate were named after houses in Brunswick Road and Cressingham Grove. Just before Benhill Wood Road was Clifton Crescent Wesleyan Chapel.
It was built in 1867 but superseded in 1884 by a new and larger church building Carshalton Road, close to the Congregational Church. The old church building, or at least its hall, survived in the hands of the Salvation Army, first as a ‘barracks’ and later (from the 1920s) as a ‘citadel’ at 73 Benhill Avenue before the building of the Estate, when the present Salvation Army church at the corner of Throwley Way was built. Beyond Benhill Wood Road this part of Benhill Street/Avenue was called Benhilton Crescent; one of the houses here is remembered in the name of a care centre – Oakleigh.
We note three landmarks on the right-hand side of Benhill Street/Avenue: The Conservative Club, the Sutton Adult School (now the Thomas Wall Centre) and Potter’s Nursery. Let’s look at each in turn. The Conservative Club was built as the Sutton Unionist Club about 1908, and was recently replaced by a block of flats (Clarson Court). In the early 1920s it had changed its name to the Sutton Constitutional Club.
The Thomas Wall Centre stands unchanged since it opened in 1909/10. A contemporary account said “By the generosity of Mr T. Wall, a very handsome and commodious building has been erected in Benhill Avenue for the purposes of Sutton Adult School. The large hall provided accommodation for about 1000 people, and there are smaller rooms for the multifarious and active agencies connected with the School. At the side is a fine building also presented by Mr Wall, in which are a gymnasium, library, billiard room, boys’ room, music rooms, etc., the whole forming, it is believed, the largest and best-appointed set of buildings for the Adult School movement in the country.”
Catherine Hodson of Sutton Writers tells us “Thomas Wall was born in Jermyn Street, Piccadilly, in 1846 and joined the family business of Walls Sausages. Thomas took it over from his father and ran it with his brother. The sale of sausages fell in the summer months so after the First World War they started making and selling ice cream as well. The family moved to Sutton when Thomas was a teenager and lived on Sutton Common Road until his mother died. In 1897 he moved to a large Victorian house called Blythewood in Worcester Road. He supported may charities and established the Thomas Wall Trust to help students with their education. He founded the Adult School in Benhill Street, the Thomas Wall Nursery School in Robin Hood Lane and Hillcroft College in Surbiton”. Wikipedia gives a more nuanced account: Thomas suggested the idea of making ice cream in the summer of 1913, but shortages brought about by WW1 prevented its implementation. In 1920 he sold the company to Mac Fisheries, which in 1922 was taken over by Lever Brothers, who started producing ice cream under the Wall’s brand name. Thomas died at home in 1930 at the age of 83, but his name lives on in Sutton.
Finally, at the end of Benhill Avenue/Street, just before The Broadway, we come to Potter’s Nursery, recorded in Church’s Directory of 1880. There has been a nursery here since at least 1867, but by 1890 it had moved south to the other side of Manor Lane; the new Nursery Road led up to it. In 1880 it was managed by Thomas Hogg, who founded a successful business here, with an outlet in the High Street. He has just boarded the bus, so I shall ask him to tell us the stories of his life and of Thos. Hogg & Son (which I can remember as a florist in Mulgrave Road) in our next episode.
We have now reached the junction where our route becomes Lower Road, and we enter the area known as Sutton New Town, bounded roughly by Lower Road, Lind Road, Vernon Road and St. Barnabas Road. This mid- to late-19th-century working-class area is characterised by terraces of small houses and a multitude of pubs, two of which we pass in Lower Road: the Woodman Inn (now a Tesco express) and the Lord Nelson Inn. Their stories are told in The Past on Glass & Other Stories Pub Histories: Sutton New Town (Part 2) – Lower Road. Opposite the Woodman Inn stands a large barn-like building. I once thought this was the original tram depot. It isn’t. It was built around 1906 as a warehouse for the firm of Amos Reynolds, becoming their furniture repository in the 1930s.
Lower Road ends at the junction with Benhill Road and St Barnabas Road; we note that until 1896 this road was called Benhill Road all the way to Carshalton Road. After St Barnabas Church had been built, this part of Benhill Road was re-named to reduce the confusion apparently caused by its great length. On the corner we see Crossways, the location of the Friendless Girls’ Home which was used to house Belgian refugees in 1914. It was replaced by the present Benhill Court after World War II. We cross over to Westmead Road, where we will end this episode of our journey at the former tram/trolleybus/bus depot, which survives remarkably complete to this day. Just before we reach it, we cross the former parish boundary between Sutton and Carshalton. Elsewhere it is indicated by small marker posts, but I can find none here.
The Past on Glass & Other Stories... 