Ewell Court House and the Bridges Family

In the late 1730’s, Alexander Bridges of Lindfield in the County of Surrey, brought his bride, the former Miss Johanna Bull, to live in Ewell. They took up residence in Avenue House. Built in 1690, it was a timber framed structure with brick facings and shaped Dutch gables typical of the 17th century. Its position was shown on ROQUE’S map of Surrey 1763. Two water colours - each of different elevations — are preserved in the British Museum. The house had extensive grounds through which the Hogsmill River flowed. There was an abundance of flora, willow and elder trees, and with the river well stocked with trout, attracted many different birds, including herons, kingfishers, ducks and geese.

Bridges great-grandfather, known as Alexander I, was living in 1630 in Lindfield, just beyond Balcombe in the County of Surrey. His eldest son and eldest grandson became known as Alexander II and Alexander III respectively. The former had sons and daughters, one of whom married a man named William Barnes who owned an estate called LANGSHOTT in Honey in the County of Surrey. This was bequeathed to his nephew when he died childless. Thus, Alexander IV was a man of property before he came to Ewell.

In 1566 Queen Elizabeth I had made a Regulation whereby gunpowder could only be manufactured in Surrey. Three Surrey men in 1562 had made tenders for its manufacture. They are said to have established five new mills at great cost. One of them was named HOGGE and it is possible that he gave rise to the naming of the HOGSMILL RIVER. In 1754 Alexander IV applied for a license to utilise the water flowing through his land as a source of power supply for the manufacture of gunpowder. This was granted on the understanding that no trout less than seven inches long would be taken out of the river. Through a system of channels and sluices along the river he located four water wheels, each driving two mills, using power amassed from a water flow of 4,200,000 gallons per day. Old maps of 1802 and 1866 show the locations of the mills and ancillary buildings.

The gunpowder mills brought prosperity to Alexander IV and his descendants. When he died in 1781, the property passed to his son Alexander V. When he died, the property passed to his eldest son Henry, inherited at an early age under the guardianship of two of his uncles. His ownership of the estate is shown on the 1802 enclosure map produced as the result of the Enclosure Act 1801.

On his marriage in Ewell in 1808, Henry Bridges bought Beddington House, He was knighted in 1819. On his death his property passed to his son, Rev. Alexander Bridges, who became Rector of Beddington for many years until his death in 1891

Managers were subsequently appointed to run the mills until they were taken over by J. C. Sharpe in 1855. Ten yearly Census returns list the names of local workers at the mills. The Census of 1871 records that John Carr Sharpe of Avenue House employed 156 hands. This return also lists for the first time the names of females who were actively engaged on the manufacture of gunpowder and ammunition.

Records show that in 1768 four men were killed in an explosion at the gunpowder mills. In 1771 a young man David Skinner was suffocated when he fell on a heap of gunpowder. Thomas Burton was killed in an explosion at the mills in 1791 Other explosions took place at various times causing consternation amongst local residents. In the 19th century some dwellings were erected in Ewell to house mill workers who had to be attracted from outside the area, some of these are still in existence.

An extract from the note-book of the Rev. Sir George Glyn BART and Vicar of Ewell reads:

April 20th 1863

An awful catastrophe occurred last Wednesday morning the 15th at 6.00 a.m. Three men, James Baker, Henry Hockham and a single man Weverman only lately come, had just begun work in the Corning House at the powder mills when it blew up and instantly scattered their bodies in mang1ed pieces over the adjoining fields. Baker had left a widow and six children. Hockham, an elderly man, has only left a widow and two daughters grown up, one married, one a widow. Baker and Hockham were buried in the new churchyard on Saturday ... A sum of £200.14.6 was subscribed and invested in Ewell Savings Bank in the name of the Vicar and churchwardens for the sole benefit of widow Baker.”

Read the report of the inquest following this tragedy.

A descendant of the Bridges family still retains a paperweight made from a slab of glass found two miles from the place of the explosion.

In 1870 the noise of an explosion was heard in Horsham. The churchyard at St. Mary’s Church, Ewell, contains tombstones bearing inscriptions of death caused by explosions.

Inscription
A tribute to the memory of William Dine Horscroft aged 25 and Lewis Hills aged 21. Who was killed by an explosion at the Ewell powder mills on the 23rd September 1865. "Be therefore ready also for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when we think not."

After the closure of the gunpowder mills in consequence of the Explosives Act of 1875, Avenue House remained vacant until the marriage in 1879 of John Henry Bridges, the son of Canon Bridges, to Edith Tritton. In was then re-designed to form the core of the present imposing structure now known as Ewell Court House. The Architect was J. ALICK THOMAS whose work includes the listed Parish Church at Cuddington. Parts of the existing structure were enclosed in the new building, and part of the original roof can still be seen where it forms a light well skylight.

Before 1900, John Henry Bridges carried out some further modifications. He established many greenhouses on the site to grow all his own produce; even including bananas, grown at high cost. Through his father, John Henry was a keen cricketer, archer and all-round sportsman.

Within his grounds there were two tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course, an archery ground, a bathing pool and a boat house. One of the mills was converted to a turbine house from which he generated his own electricity.

The estate included a large lodge to Kingston Road, from which an avenue of elm trees led to a small lodge by the drive into the mansion. A laundry building was constructed nearby. All the lodges remain today.

The Bridges family were benefactors to and involved in life in Ewell. Ewell Parish Church Vestry minutes from 1774 up to 1797 record the name of Alexander Bridges as being active in the Church and with dealing with the poor. Henry Bridges was a High Sheriff of Surrey and in his Will he left £1,000 in a covenant to provide money for the poor in Ewell.

Reverend Canon Bridges spent much of his later years in Ministering at Beddington Church, on which he spent a great deal of his own money.

John Henry Bridges was a Justice of the Peace at Surrey, Chairman of Ewell Parish Council and served on Epsom Rural District Council. For 10 years he was churchwarden of Ewell. A keen cricketer, he and some of his sons played for the Ewell cricket team. He celebrated feast days with village treats on his lawn. Such events as Alexandra Rose Day were made the occasion for garden fetes. He established a fund and donated a plot of land on the then Ewell Court Estate on which All Saints Church, West Ewell was built in 1893/1894 a daughter church to the Parish Church in Ewell. Since its dedication in 1894 he was Hon. Secretary of Council.

Several generations of the Bridges family are buried in the local churchyard. Although inscriptions on some of them are illegible due to weathering, church and parish records have enabled the relevant parts of the Bridges family tree to be completed.

Of the gunpowder mills and buildings, except for a mill-stone preserved nearby, little trace exists. Their locations can, however, be identified by the nearby listed pack-horse bridge. Water extraction has long since depleted the waterway it once crossed. The bridge is one of the few remaining examples of its type. A remaining out building was, unfortunately, demolished a few years ago to make way for a nearby housing development.

A local building explosion commencing in 1930 took away a large area of the Ewell Court Estate. In 1935 the local Council showed great foresight in buying Ewell Court House and some of its ground. It is now almost completely surrounded by present day housing. Thus, in Ewell, Ewell Court House is the only reminder of a bygone age, a bygone industry, and is memorial to a family who had influence in a rural society in times past.