Pit House
Cheam Road, Ewell

Pit House in the 1970s when it was Seymour’s Garden Centre
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum

Background

The pit in the name of this building comes from the crater left behind from quarrying for chalk.  Chalk was formed between 65 and 99 million years ago from the skeletons of fish, seashells, and plankton.  The Romans used chalk in road construction, to help preserve dead bodies, and in skin lightening cosmetics.  In the Middle Ages it was used for quicklime, whitewash paint and making bricks and builder’s putty. In agriculture it was used as a fertiliser. Its mild abrasive qualities mean it has also been used for cleaning and polishing metals.

It has been claimed that chalk from the site was used in the foundations of Nonsuch Palace and that the wall of The Durdans was largely built of chalk blocks taken from the pit.

Pit House

There were two cottages with the remains of a lime kiln on the site of present day Pit House. By the late 1700s the pit was exhausted and around 1805 the cottages were turned into a Gentleman’s residence.  This was achieved by the addition of two wings. In 1858 a further extension added servants’ quarters  and a stable block.

Pit House was last used as a private residence in 1935.  It was then regarded as ‘primitive’ – there being no indoor toilets just 2 privies in the courtyard.  By the 1970s the house had fallen into a very bad state of disrepair and was about to be demolished when Seymour Nurseries stepped in and saved it by taking a 99-year lease on the property.

Pit House is now a Grade II listed building officially described as:

Early or mid-C18. Altered and extended in early C19, and extended further in mid-C19. Elevation to Cheam Road is masked by part of the early C19 extensions. 2 2 storey stucco wings with no windows, flanking 1 storey top-lit vestibule, entered through a stucco doorway with Tuscan pilasters and entablature. On garden side main block is stucco. 2 storey. Parapet. 3 ranges of early C19 sashes with glazing bars, central one tripartite. 3 French windows on ground floor with Gothick glazing bars. Early C19 red brick extension to south east. 2 storeys. Pitched slate roof. 2 bays, of which 1 breaks forward, has door on ground floor, round arched sash with glazing bars on 1st floor and parapet to roof. Other bay has segmental bow with sashes and glazing bars on ground floor and semi-circular relieving arch above this framing. 1 casement with glazing bars. South east elevation of this block has a 1st floor canted bay with sashes and glazing bars, projecting over garden on 2 iron columns. Mid C19 red brick, 2 storey extension to NW. Internal joinery nearly all early C19.

  Location of Pit House on the 1932 Ordnance Survey Map

Known Owners & Occupiers

• 1801 Inclosure Award – Owner – George Messer sold to William Bailey
• 1838 Occupier – F J Cater
• 1841 Owner Occupier – Mrs Mary Amelia Higgins (A British Subject born in the West Indies who is a Land Proprietor)
• 1851 Owner Occupier – Mrs Mary Amelia Higgins
• 1861 Mrs Mary Amelia Higgins.  Occupier – Hugh Jackson, a Solicitor
• 1871 Owner  – Mrs Mary Amelia Higgins.  Occupier – Tothill Family
• 1878 Owner  – Mrs Mary Amelia Higgins.  Occupier – Evans late Kachel?
• 1881 Owner  – Mrs Mary Amelia Higgins.  Occupier –  Francis A Currey, a Solicitor
• c.1885 Owner  – Mrs Mary Amelia Higgins thought to have died or sold freehold
• 1899 – Occupier Francis A Currey
• 1913 – Occupier Francis A Currey
• 1922 – Occupier Francis A Currey

Borough Memorial Plaque

Pit house is the first “stop” in the Ewell Heritage Trail devised in 2005 to celebrate The Rotary Club of Ewell’s 50th Anniversary (and the centenary of Rotary International). Like most of the other points of interest on the trail, it is marked by a Borough memorial plaque, as illustrated below.

PIT HOUSE.
(The plaque notes that “This was a chalk pit in the Middle Ages, with cottages
rebuilt as a house in 1805.”)
Photographs by Roger Morgan © 2023