Bears

Last week to eat and drink at the Bear of Oxshott, recently refurbished by Youngs and said by the likes of TripAdvisor to be the haunt of footballers and their trainers. Presumably in the area on account of the Chelsea training centre, a place which I am told is also home to squads of physiotherapists and psychotherapists as well as footballers. Not to mention the odd oligarch, an oligarch who spread a bit of money about the area to soothe householders who were not sure about wags and flashy cars taking over their expensive suburb.

That aside, the Bear turned out to be a perfectly respectable establishment, well up to the usual high standard of Youngs pub eating, only let down by their bread basket, which turned out to be made of some sort of quilting rather than wicker and which contained hot toasted bread which was probably not long out of the freezer. Not in the same league as Terroirs in that department at all. See reference 2. On the other hand they did manage to deliver wine which was not in a bucket without fuss. Then let down again by having no Calvados. Not in the same league as Terroirs in that department either. But I carp: I imagine the proportion of pubs serving Calvados is very small and the blog can only manage, apart from Terroirs, a restaurant in Kingston called Frère Jacques, which we used to like and which has now gone under. The Epsom branch of Oddbins, also gone under. And the Taillevent restaurant in Cavendish Square if I get tired of Terroirs. See reference 3.

On the way out of the Bear, we were struck by what appeared to be a between the wars building, not unlike a regular suburban house, but now well wrapped in various sheds and extensions. With the back garden largely given over to cars, but still containing some quite large trees. So I got to wondering about the history of the place - and, for once, google was unable to deliver many of the goods. The place barely existed at all as history, although there were plenty of tripadvisors and footballers.

The postcard snipped above being the best it could do. But we have now established that the pub existed in 1905, looking nothing like it does now.

Next stop Ordnance Survey, via Bing, which established where the place was; the squarish plot (visible if you click to enlarge) just to the right of the beer mug handle. I then wondered about old maps.

Bing turned up the National Library of Scotland as the place for old Ordnance Survey maps of England, which it certainly was, offering online access to what it described as 'Surrey XVIII (includes: Cobham; Fetcham; Great Bookham; Leatherhead; Stoke d'Abernon.) 1871'. With money only changing hands if I want a paper copy. And so we get to the snip above, suggesting that the pub was a smithy in 1871.

Digressing, bing quite failed to turn up Oak Shade House, the park of which is visible top right, complete with ornamental lake just off-snip. The best he could offer was houses for sale in what he was pleased to call Oakshade Road. More luck with B.M.208, which the Library suggests is benchmark, which I assume is like the modern trig point, and which seems to agree roughly with the metres of the modern Ordnance Survey map. With thanks to Dr. Richard Oliver.

Next thought was the population census, with the census record no doubt telling us what the site was used for at ten year intervals. There, however, money does start to change hands, with online access to census records looking to have been offloaded to companies offering family history services. So that day's hunt was called off.

But not before I discovered that the google camera team last visited the place before the present round of refurbishment. Perhaps Youngs had only just moved in. The present appearance of the place is rather different, although one can still see the older building peeping out at the top - with it looking as if the building in the postcard with which we started had been knocked down to make way for the new.

Then a few days later, happening to be passing Bourne Hall library on one of my morning perambulations, I thought I would try their local history department, which included two older lady volunteers who were fully up for the hunt, if ultimately unsuccessful. Plenty of stuff about Epsom and Ewell and quite a selection of books about Surrey in general. But none of it very strong on pubs, and certainly not on pubs in Oxshott.

Next stop Esher library, next to the other Bear, which might do better than Bourne Hall library.

PS: presumably all the talk of footballers is to make us think that we might spot a celebrity while we tuck into our grub. Nothing to do with their taste - or not - for fine dining.

Reference 1: http://www.footballtraininggrounds.com/chelsea.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/cheese-hunt.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/wigmore-two.html.