'It has got lost': Woman reveals secrets of springs in Ewell

Valerie Brewer, 74, who has lived in Ewell Village since the age of four, said she used to drink the spring water which bubbled up through the gravel and sand outside Bourne Hall Park.

Last Monday, Mrs Brewer returned to the spot at the war memorial in the high street -where the road has been engulfed in dirty flood water for more than a month.

Valerie Brewer, 74, in the Spring Tavern in London Road, Ewell

Afterwards, sitting in the aptly named Spring Tavern on London Road, near where she lives and just yards from the flood, she said: "It had a little metal cup that used to hang there.

It’s not like the water now. It was fresh, sweet water."

Mrs Brewer, who has watched the village change around her since she arrived there in 1944, said the development of roads and buildings combined with over-pumping and a lack of dredging over the years had all helped create the conditions for this year's flood.

She explained that the nearby ponds had been lined with clay to retain more water after the springs started to dry-up.

This happened after Sutton Water Company station at Fitznells pond started extracting a lot more water.

But she said: "With this rain we have had it seems the springs are working again, but with all the things they have done to the water course, it has got lost."

In the past, she said the Hogsmill river and the ponds had been dredged. 

She said: "The dredging saved Ewell Village, even then we also had a water splash. We have now got an upset water course that has got quite lost."

She believes the flooding could have been prevented had the water course been properly dredged and sluices gates opened at the site of the old flour mill - now the Samaritans - if they still exist.

Mrs Brewer remembers a time when water flowed freely from the springs, on both sides of the high street, under the path to the horse pond then into the river where it powered a flour mill.

It went down past a paper mill to the meadows, through the weir, under the gunpowder bridge and on to Ewell Court House.

She said: "The part of the river from the mill to the weir and on to Ewell Court House was dredged several times a year.

"All the weed and the dirt from the river would be left on the banks allowing insects to go back into the river. We did have kingfishers, fish and herons."

The river then runs to Tolworth and into Kingston where it meets the Thames. She said the river originally started at Diana’s Dyke in Nonsuch Park, where there is now a borehole, and filled Blue Gates ponds.

She said: "The Castle school’s previous owners had a natural pond. Some pupils were able to swim in this."

Mrs Brewer believes the Hogsmill River got its name from the former butchers in Ewell Village, run by the Cracknells, plus the nearby mill.

Her grandmother, who was head cook for Sir Arthur Glynn, told her about the creation of Bourne Hall Lake.

She said: "Bourne Hall had springs under the bank of grass, which were very strange to walk on.

"The family decided to make a pond to help drain it. The daughter of the family fell into the pond and a dog pulled her out. Nobody knew where it had come from so that is why it is on the monument at the gateway.

"It was a very beautiful house. Next there was a school, they had a badge with a red dog."

Ewell’s name is reportedly derived from the Old English for river spring and a Saxon presence has been confirmed by early burials.

A Roman road, called Stane Street, was arranged to take advantage of the springs.

The Upper Mill, closest to the springs, is thought to be on the site of a mill referred to in the Domesday Book. In the 1980s it was rebuilt and converted to offices.

A paper and corn mill was some 300 metres downstream and gunpowder mills could be found further along the Hogsmill.