The History of the Club
Derek Phillips wrote: As well as the general store, on the south side of Chessington Road was the Church Sunday School previously known as ‘The Chapel at the Hamlet’ and was an initiative of Sir George Glyn while he was Vicar of St Mary’s Ewell. It was later taken over by Sir Arthur Glyn and is recorded as the Social Club on maps by 1919... After some Black Cottages by the side of the Sunday School/Social Club were pulled down and replaced by shops, Mrs. Tyrell from Poplar Farm had one of these. http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/WestEwellHistory.html
A licence (SHC 6832/3/1/19) granted by Bishop of Winchester, 4 Nov 1865, to the Sir George for performance of divine service in the school chapel in Ewell Hamlet, seems to give a date for the building of the school. This follows very shortly on the building of West Street School, 1861, and it is possible that there was some money left over.
On the OS map of 1868 it is ‘School (licensed for Divine Worship)’, and it appears again on the maps of 1896 and 1911 as ‘Sunday School’. In these early maps the building tends to be disguised by the long building to the southeast (referred to above as the Black Cottages).
A postcard, 2006.018-374, shows the site in c.1910 – the building ought to be there but again is obscured by the long weatherboarded and tiled building immediately to the southeast
Tom Pocock remembered that, in the 1910s or 1920s: The shop opposite Plough Road was a bakery run by a Mr. Turk. Past the shop was a row of cottages which ran the length of the way back from the road to the private railway. They had gardens in front (where shops now are) and the row was called Downs View [This name appears to be a misunderstanding as Downs View Villas were further to the southeast]. Then came the club and the other houses, which have not altered.
In 1923 the Ewell Boys School register included the son of John Miller, Club House, West Ewell. This is the first reference to the Club (unless Derek’s map of 1919 turns up).
Kellys Directory for Surrey has entries for West Ewell Social Club, telephone number Epsom 246, as follows:
(1924 no entry)
1927, 1930 and 1934 F. J. Rawson, hon. sec.
1938 W.V. Hitchens, hon. sec.
There is a rough oil painting of Arthur Glyn (1990.135-007) from the West Ewell Social Club. It was thought to have been painted by P. Swann of 22 Heatherside Road. (If Sir Arthur is in his fifties in the picture, it would have been painted in the 1920s; cf. 1990.087-001, which shows him as he was in 1923).
The 1933/4 photo of the winners of trophies (1991.154-020) features in cutting 80/185 (Herald 28 Nov 1980), where it says: The picture was lent to us by Mrs. Elsie Harvey of East Street... whose late husband Tom stands second left, back row, next to Mr. Harry Worsfold, centre.
GP 0808 copies a photo of a charabanc outing from the Club, but there are no further details.
The first clear photo is 1989.033-008, taken after 1935 when the cottages were pulled down and Jubilee Parade was built.