I happened to pass through Cheam a few days ago, emphasis on "pass through", so I don't have a particularly detailed write-up on Cheam and its landmarks. However, I still think the few parts I saw and photographed could fill out a blogpost.
Cheam began as a rather small village that rose to prominence as the site of Henry VIII's hunting lodge, Nonsuch Palace. You can see his legacy in the road names here - Anne Boleyn's Walk and Tudor Close, to name a few. However, the palace was gone by 1662, and the area largely remained a village - in 1801, it was home to 616 residents - until the railways arrived in 1847. Now, Cheam is home to nearly 10,000 people, and has the nearby town of Sutton for company. There's even a North Cheam now, which I went to briefly and which is a standard high street affair.
Cheam is also the site of the former Stane Street, a Roman road which started by London Bridge and ended in Chichester, and which would connect Cheam with Ewell and Merton if it existed today. The modern roads consist of a dual carriageway into Banstead, and an arterial road heading to Croydon and Sevenoaks, if you were curious. As such, Cheam Village doesn't feel village-like at all, indeed it doesn't particularly feel like London either; we're not far from the London border too.
Onto the station, which helped change the area forever. Cheam station is nothing remarkable, coming at the end of a footpath amongst various houses. There are no ticket barriers, and the platforms were unnervingly far from each other. There's an actual reason for this, however - they wanted to install overhead cables and add a platform, though that never happened due to the First World War. And yes, Cheam is part of the former London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (which I've mentioned countless times on this blog).
If they had their way, Cheam could have been part of the Tube. There were plans for the District line to run to Sutton, and Cheam would have been one of the beneficiaries. However, opposition from various railway companies meant this was never to be. One can only wonder what Cheam could have looked like now, especially as it's unlikely it will ever get a Tube line now.
However, Cheam still has decent railway links either way. Head westward for Epsom, head eastward for the City. Or head out of the
station, and directly ahead of you is a pub. When I came to Cheam, it
was Halloween, so it was appropriately decked out with three skeletons
hanging on its front. There are local businesses, as expected, one shop
with a Daily Mail sign for instance.
Not that Cheam doesn't have its charm, even if it's not particularly village-like. Its village sign is nice, and dates to 2001, though I doubt Cheam felt like a village even then. You have the coffee shops expected of any suburban town, after all, and Cheam School, the oldest prep school in the UK, has been here since 1645; the King went here once. Cheam is unsurprisingly not like it was under Tudor rule, though there are several remnants of Tudor architecture.
Take the Whitehall, which was reputedly once used by Queen Elizabeth I to hold a council meeting after hunting at Nonsuch, and which was also where Cheam School was founded. It's now a local museum, one I'd love to visit if I had more time. The picture attached isn't of the Whitehall, it's of Whichcraft Wools' knitting shop, which was built in 1550 and is a fine example of Tudor architecture nonetheless. It would seem odd amongst supermarkets and pubs, but then again Cheam isn't like many other suburbs.
And there's even a golden postbox, in honour of cyclist Joanna Roswell winning a gold at London 2012. It was initially in Carshalton, but her family asked Royal Mail to move it here, where she grew up, and I think Cheam deserve this honour, Carshalton is already fascinating as it is.
.HEIC)
It would be hard to ignore Cheam Park, which makes up Cheam's western border. It's a lovely open space, with hills and trees which are perfect for dog-walkers and autumn appreciators. It being autumn, there was a mix of greens, yellows and oranges, and leaf litter obscuring the ground. Cheam Park House used to stand here, and housed the Bethell family for a while (it's also known as Bethell House). During the Second World War, it became a gas mask factory, before being bombed and later demolished. The main building that thus stands here is the cafe, though I didn't opt to fill myself with whatever caffeinated drinks they had.
.HEIC)
After this, I crossed the border, and you can find out what I did there in a few days.
🔝
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