Belmont Local History

An edited version of article text below appeared in Sutton Guardian, edition 20 August 2009.

Below is the FULL article text

BY ROLAND SPARKES

Around 1700, Banstead Downs was a well-known venue for horse racing. The site of the present-day race course at Epsom Downs was not established until the late 18th-century when the famous ‘Oaks’ and ‘Derby’ races were first run.

In May 1648, during the English Civil War, a group of Royalists gathered on Banstead Downs under the pretence of attending a horse race.

The famous diarist Samuel Pepys records “a great horse-race and foot-race” at Banstead Downs in May 1663. 

In August 1698, an issue of the ‘London Gazette’ contained the following advert: “Banstead Downs Plate, of £20 value…  Any horse may run for the said Plate that shall be at Carshalton, Barrowes-hedges, or some of the Contributors’ Stables 14 days before the Plate-day”.

Writer Daniel Defoe described Banstead Downs in the early 18th-century as, “being so near London, and surrounded as they are with pleasant villages, and being in themselves perfectly agreeable, the ground smooth, soft, level and dry; they conspire to make the most delightful spot of ground, of that kind in all this part of Britain”.

He added: “on public race days they are covered with coaches and ladies and an innumerable company of horsemen, as well as gentlemen as citizens, attending the sport; and then adding to the beauty of the sight, the racers flying over the course, as if they either touched not or felt not the ground they run upon”.

It is difficult to determine the position of this race course and it may have existed in varying forms and at slightly different locations over time.  Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that Banstead Downs then encompassed a much larger area than it does now, particularly to the south and south-west.

John Toland, writing in 1711, referred to “…the fine grounds of the new orbicular race, which may well be termed a rural cirque...the four-mile course over the Warrenhouse to Carshalton…”.

Rev. Thomas Cox in his History of Surrey of about 1720, also refers to a four-mile course for horse racing, situated “from north-east to south-west, which is much frequented”.  Such a feature appears on Robert Morden’s county map of 1722: it is a straight course.

Around the same time, a German visitor wrote that horses ran twice round the course in one race.  He also mentions a hut where the races began and finished near, and where horses were rubbed down at the end of a race.

A small-scale county map of 1729 shows a small building called ‘Rubbing House’ in the vicinity of what is now Furzedown Road near Banstead Road South.  So could this be the hut referred to above?!

These roughly contemporary sources could indicate a race course that, in the early 18th-century, ran from the east of Belmont, south-westwards towards, if four miles, near the site of the present race course at Epsom Downs.

   COPYRIGHT: ROLAND SPARKES 2009