Thames Tributary River Mole - Molesey

Thames Tributary River Mole
The Mole flows northwards on the west side of Island Barn Reservoir where it is joined by Dead River. It then turns to flow east.


Post to the west Queen Elizabeth reservoir
Post to the north West Molesey
Post to the east Molesey
Post to the south Esher Sewage Works

Approach Road
Pumping Station
Molesey Sewage Works site
Molesey Heath Nature Reserve. This is a reclaimed landfill gravel pit. Gateway from Approach Road.

Beauchamp Road
104-105 Trading post for Esher Molesey Garden Society. Founded in 1917 as the Esher District Allotments and Home Produce Association.


Down Street
Local authority housing built here on land from Summers Farm and was originally part of Dunstable Common. It was low-lying and waterlogged and thus unworkable in the winter, and was known as 'The Summers'. The farmhouse still stands
37 In the front garden is a water mains way leave marker


Dunstable Common
Once an area of common land which lay between Green Lane and the High Street


Eastcote Avenue
Flats on the site of St Frances mission church opened in 1936 and also used as a community hall. Demolished in 1971


Green Lane
Neilson Recreation Ground. A 10 acre space given to the area by the Christian Nielson, a member of the local authority in the 1930s. Nielson was a sail maker from Denmark who had come to Molesey in 1890 to work for a boat builder. He began a business in awnings and tents taking over the East Molesey Mill and one of the largest tenting companies in the country
Island Farm
Named for its position between the Mole and the Ember


Island Barn Reservoir
Built on the site a barn of Island Farm under the Lambeth Water Act of 1900. It was completed by the Metropolitan Board of Works and designed by T.F.Parkes engineer to the Lambeth Company and then redesigned by Mr. Bryan Chief Engineer. It was built by MacAlpine. Work began in 1904 and it was opened in 1911 by The Lord Mayor of London and John Burns, MP for Camberwell. It holds 992 mgalls and covers 121 acres; the embankment is 1 mile 1,200 yd. From it ran a 54 inch main which was 1 mile long to Walton Pumping Station. Water from it could be gravitated to the Knight and Bessborough reservoirs and thus it is set lower. In the Second World War it was used as a training area for amphibious vehicles, and covered with telegraph poles to prevent the landing of enemy flying boats. During work to trace leaks in the reservoir bomb craters were found in the lining. In the early 1990s it was dredged for gravel. Sheep are grazed round the perimeter.
Sailing club. This was begun by the Stock Exchange Thorpe sailing club which had become homeless following construction of the M3. They combined with Walton Sailing Club and British Airways Sailing Club provided financial backing for a new clubhouse which opened in May 1973. They were the first club to use a water board reservoir.
The Kingston Zodiac associates this whole area with Little Boy Blue – a rhyme, they say, connected to Cardinal Wolsey, who lived for a while nearby in Esher. The author draws one of the Gemini twins with a head formed by the reservoir


Island Farm Road
The Surveyor pub. Built for Fuller, Smith and Turner, and ceremonially opened by the vicar of West Molesey in 1974. Named "The Surveyor" because it was designed by the Survey House Group. On the front is a brick panel, with a relief of a surveyor, and a theodolite.
Survey House Group, head office
Trading Estate – many interesting looking buildings.


High Street
Molesey Hospital. On the site of what was originally an isolation hospital.


Nightingale Road
Named after a local family


Ray Road
4 The Molesey Scalextric Club. Formed 1978. The track was built in 2007, as a six lane gloss surface wooden routed track.
Molesey Adult Education Centre & Molesey Youth Centre.. Originally this was Central School was built in 1936 and divided into two single-sex schools in 1936, to be reunited in 1965. This later moved and the site became Rivermede School.
Chandlers Field Primary School
Molesey Pony Farm

St George's Bridge
Over the Mole to Island Barn. This was an iron bridge in iron 1910, and concrete in 1977.

Anyone looking at the history of Molesey should rush at once to the wonderful History of Molesey, on line and in print.

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