Epsom Common
Epsom Common is recognised nationally as important for wildlife, designated by English Nature as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Local Nature Reserve. Epsom Common is approximately 435 acres in size and is the largest Local Nature Reserve in Surrey.
Click the links below to find out more about the Common.
Epsom Common has a variety of habitats: woodland; grasland; scrub and remnants of heathland. Consequently, there are more than 400 species of trees and plants, which provide habitats for a range of mammal, bird and insect species. Due to the variety of insect life, around 30 species of Britian's 60 native butterflies have been recorded on the Common, there are over 100 species of birds such as blue tits, great tits, wrens and woodpeckers and herons are commonly seen at the Great Pond.
Epsom Common is important for its lowland heath and its status as a Site of Special Scientific Interest is for a range of rare flowering plants, such as the Common Spotted and Southern Marsh Orchids. There are also pollarded oak trees, which are several hundred years old and are home to a number of rare insects, such as the Purple Emperor and the White Admiral butterflies.
The Common has several ponds, Stew Pond, Great Pond, Stamford Green Pond, Baron's Pond and Blake's Pond. 
There are also many small ponds dotted around the Common, which often dry up in summer. This is just enough time for amphibians like frogs and newts to spawn and breed before the water dries up and they have to leave for the safety of damp places. The Great Pond is protected from fishing and is kept as a wildlife reserve for pondlife, amphibians and resident wildfowl such as coots, moorhen, mallard, tufted duck, great crested grebes, swans and herons. The water is also visited by less common wildfowl in the winter. Stew Pond is the only pond in which fishing is allowed and is used by the CALPAC angling club.
There is also a population of roe deer on the Common.
The Common was part of the Wildwood which once covered England. Romans lived in Ashtead, and Stane Street, a major Roman Road, is only a mile away. The first historical records show that the Abbot of Chertsey was the Lord of the Manor, and there was a large fishpond which has now been re-built as the Epsom Common Great Pond. For many centuries villages were organized so that there would be the common (strip) fields, crofts and gardens of the village, and the remainder would be called the Common Waste, and would be used for grazing by those with Commoners’ Rights.
This is the background of Epsom Common: commoners would have rights for grazing, firewood, gravel and clay extraction, etc. Newton Wood was enclosed by the Lord of the Manor as hazel coppices, (this was an extremely valuable crop for nuts). Oak trees were often pollarded to produce straight 4 inch diameter beams, and to allow grass to grow underneath them, so that cattle could graze there. Fame and Fortune arrived in 1618 with a severe drought, when a boy tried to make his cattle drink from a spring on the Common, but they refused. A well was dug, and the salty water was first used to treat external sores. When people drank the water, it was found to have a rapid effect on constipation (this was a major problem in those days due to the diet being mostly of meat).
People began to visit Epsom to take the waters; the Assembly Rooms, hotels and bars were built, and horse-racing began at Epsom to entertain the visitors in the afternoons. There were several springs, and the area was called The Wells, as it still is today. In 1621, an area of 450 yards diameter around the Well was cleared by the Lord of the Manor, and Commoners Rights on this were cancelled. Famous visitors to Epsom at that time included King Charles II, Samuel Pepys, John Constable, and later all the great names connected with horse racing. It was also believed that Nell Gwyn was from Epsom. The old well went dry in the 1740s, and was closed up and forgotten, and the Wells Estate was build in the 1930s on the previously enclosed land around the well. On old maps, a windmill is marked near to Wells Road, and there was a brickworks near to The Jolly Coopers public house. The railway to Leatherhead was built in 1854. Christ Church was consecrated in 1876 (being built following a donation of £8,000 by Elisabeth Trotter).
The Epsom Common Working Men's Club was founded in 1880, with the help of Mr Strange, then the Lord of the Manor. The Manor Hospital was the first of the local hospitals to open, in 1899, to the relief of many of the Commoners, for whom life was precarious and jobs scarce. Many of the houses within the area of Stamford Green and Woodlands Road seem to derive from squatter’s rights in Victorian times, and life was doubtless hard, with muddy roads and horse-drawn carts. The majority of people kept poultry, grew their own vegetables and were relatively healthy. The Hospital Clusters themselves were built because it was thought helpful to get the 'mentally handicapped' and the 'mentally disordered' people out of the dreadful conditions in the inner London slums, and out into ‘the good life’ of fresh air and exercise.
Epsom Common is now owned by Epsom and Ewell Borough Council and was bought for £4,000 in 1932, from Lady Henrietta Strange. In an attempt to grow crops to support the War effort - 144 acres of Epsom Common were ploughed during World War II, but the results were very poor. Grazing of the Common by the Commoners effectively stopped in the 1930s. There has since been a natural process of invasion by colonizing species, in the 'woodland progression' to scrub, then birch, then oak.
Today Epsom and Ewell Borough Council manages the Common to allow good public access whilst at the same time maintaining and improving the ecological diversity of the site.
The nature conservation value of Epsom Common is recognised by English Nature, the Government’s wildlife advisor who designated the Common a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1955 and a Local Nature Reserve in 2001.
For more information about the history of Epsom Common see the publication ‘Epsom Common’ produced by the ECA.
Epsom Common lies on a very thick layer of London Clay, up to 200ft thick and almost impermeable to water, unlike the nearby chalklands of Epsom Downs. There are deep valleys which were carved by long extinct rivers that traversed the area millions of years ago, and these valleys let quantities of water run off much of the Common, but for them it would be almost totally waterlogged.
Epsom and Ewell Borough Council, as owners of the Common have a management plan which proposes the clearing of areas of invading scrub thereby allowing small habitats of a more open state to be maintained as it used to be. This should encourage the more interesting and rare plants to flourish, such as the common spotted and southern marsh orchids. 
To this end grazing has been re-introduced as part of the process of keeping scrub down. It is hoped that the experimental return to traditional management will be successful and increase diversity of the
Common.
The ECOVOLS, the volunteer group of the ECA carry out a variety of conservation projects on the Common - see Get involved for more information.
The Common lies to the south-west of Epsom and is easily accessible from Christchurch Road, Dorking Road and Wilmerhatch Lane and Woodcote Side. There is a car park off the Christ Church Road known as Stew Ponds Car Park, which is a convenient and popular place to start any walk.
Epsom Common borders Ashtead Common, a National Nature Reserve owned and managed by the Corporation of London. There is a 3 mile (4.8km) hard surfaced, all-year horseride and pedestrian track around the edge of the Common, which also makes for ideal cycling. A large network of footpaths covers the entire site, some are wide grassy paths that are also designated horserides for the summer, but the majority are small quiet tracks.
We hope you enjoy exploring Epsom Common and viewing its wildlife and beauty. To allow others to enjoy their visit, please leave things as you find them, keep your dog under control, take your litter home and follow the Country Code. Motobikes, quad bikes, cars, camping and fires are not allowed anywhere on the Common.
Click the map to enlarge the photo.
For more information about Epsom Common see Epsom and Ewell Borough Council website. The Council produce a colour leaflet of Epsom Common which contains a map of the footpaths on the Common.
