Kingston's Drove Roads
Many of you accompanied Lucy and myself along the drove roads of Tolworth for a picnic during 12.8.18. Earlier this week Bruce 'of the drove roads' www.localdroveroads.co.uk - arrived at Tolworth Station from his home in a small village at Carmarthenshire. Ironic, as it was the arrival of the mainline railway in the 1840's that made our local trackways redundant for the movement of cattle. Our first stop was to walk the old Kingston Road to the 'Moated Manor' site aided by some context provided by the writings of Richard Jefferies - a former resident of Ewell Road (where there is now a blue plaque above Stack and Bonner). R.J. wrote of the cows walking along the Ewell Road with their heads moving from side to side c1877. This would have been post - drovers, as by then the railways were used for moving cattle around the country, so these animals might have walked from Surbiton Station. We disturbed the usual buzzard as we op...