Sutton in Surrey is a major suburban district in the south of London. Sutton is within the M25 and is kind of a half-in half-out town as it forms part of both Surrey and London.
For example, it is the London Borough of Sutton, but every address here ends in Sutton, Surrey. Its main street, Sutton High Street is a major thoroughfare which has seen better days but still attracts two million visitors per month!
This always kind of baffles me but I guess as London has grown it swallowed up the nearby towns in the process. Having lived here for more than seven years now I’ve decided to delve into the history of Sutton a little more, especially its High Street.
Not long ago on a plane to Toulouse, France I came across an article about New York City and this has inspired me to write my own about Sutton.
I’ve noticed many parallels and thought it would be interesting to see how two towns so different from each other on either side of the Atlantic have developed in ways so similar in this modern day and age.
Short History Of Sutton
The history of Sutton itself stretches back thousands of years. Archaeologists have found neolithic implements in Sutton, in particular at the junction of Carshalton Road and Sutton High Street. Evidence of a Roman villa has also been found in nearby Beddington, which is now part of Sutton.
Sutton’s original name was Sudtone, which originates from the year 675 when the Abbott of Chertsey received a land grant. Sudtone meant “southern farm”, an enclosure south of the Parish boundary.
Not much was going on in Sutton except for some through traffic between central London and Brighton as well as Carshalton. Back in the day toll roads connected these towns and Sutton was at the cross roads of two toll roads.
A settlement grew out of this junction in the 1600s and when the railway arrived in 1847 Sutton really began to grow. By 1850 the population grew to 1,387 thank to the railways, up from 569 in 1801.
The town is in a hilly area and Sutton High Street climbs up one of these hills from the direction of London. At the time the horse carriages took frequent breaks at the top of Sutton High Street where we can still find some old historic buildings.
The Arrival Of Trains In Sutton
The development of Sutton really took off during the second half of the 19th century, necessitating the establishment of a shopping street to cater for the new residents. As a consequence, various shops started to spring up along Sutton High Street, one of which opened in 1860 and is still in its original place.
Pearsons Cycles has been operating in Sutton since 1860 and is now run by the fifth generation of the family.
Not far up Sutton High Street was The Arcade (1926) and Sutton’s first real department store – Pearson’s – which opened in 1935. Shinner’s did not last very long: Allders of Croydon bought it in 1979.
More recently, taken over by the shopping mall craze, Sutton built its own modern centres of consumerism: Times Square Shopping Centre in 1985 and St Nicholas Centre in 1991.
Once the construction of St Nicholas Centre completed the old Shinners was demolished. In its place rose a new structure, now housing the book store Waterstones, The Works, Peacocks and formerly Maplin (until it closed down in 2018 following the firm’s liquidation).
The Rolling Stones In Sutton
Sutton has some connections to music fame too. A famous band, none other than the Rolling Stones played several gigs in a pub on Sutton High Street called Red Lion (renamed to Winning Post).
The set list the Rolling Stones played in Sutton on 7 December 1962 has been immortalised on the internet, so if you want you can play the same tunes just visit setlist.fm.
Nowadays, Sutton has only one club remaining called “The Wonderland”, the others like New York Cafe or Chicago Rock Cafe have both closed.
Redevelopment or Redemolishment?
Although Sutton has gone through a lot of modern development (a.k.a. demolition of historic buildings) much of the town’s architecture still dates from the Victorian period. Unfortunately, today, Sutton High Street is a Conservation Area at Risk, hollowed out like many others across Britain.
While Sutton Council has made some attempts at reviving the High Street in my opinion they’ve pretty much failed at it miserably.
I’ve been walking up and down Sutton High Street for the best part of seven years and in all honesty there is very little attractive in it.
The pavement is made up of ugly grey concrete slabs with some phone boxes and bicycle lockers thrown around. On a recent walk up from the bottom to the top of Sutton High Street, I counted nearly 30 closed store fronts!
I was so taken aback by this that I decided to do a bit more research and find out what might have happened here. This is especially shocking if you know a little bit about the High Street’s history: it was here where many big names opened their first stores and took them to national success.
Firsts In Sutton
Take, for example the first Drive-through Burger King restaurant. It used to be at the bottom of High Street but closed on 31 December 2011, the year I moved to Sutton.
The Burger King opened on 14 October 1986 and at the time of its closure the Local Guardian newspaper said the following:
“Sutton Chamber of Commerce quickly moved to dispel fears a major business chain moving from Sutton town centre was a sign businesses, including restaurants in the area, were struggling.”
Now, in seven year’s perspective maybe the closure of Burger King really did foreshadow there were problems brewing in Sutton?
At the time, Martin Furtauer-Hayes, Sutton Town Centre Manager, said: “While the closure of any town centre business is of concern, we are hopeful that the site will not be empty for long.
Guess what? It is still boarded up and fenced around! Add to that another 30 odd shops and restaurants and a pretty bleak picture starts to form.
Then there’s Maplin and PC World. Everyone is blaming online shopping for the destruction of the High Street but presumably people will need electronics to shop online. Yet, even these two electronics stores could not survive on a busy High Street that attracts 2 million visitors per month!
I know, in the case of Maplin there were other factors too like Brexit, a weaker currency, blaming online shopping and so forth. But, in a prime location at the top of Sutton High Street for a store to fail there must be something else going on.
Another first in Sutton was the Waterstones cafe. According to the Woolworth’s Fans website Woolies Buildings, it was the first in-store cafe to be tested in the UK. It is still successful and from time to time even I visit it although I am not a big coffee drinker.
Then of course it was here that the first All Bar One opened in December 1994, growing to a chain of 50 stores today. The Sutton All Bar One is still thriving and most times I walk past it seems busy and inviting.
Investment Works In Sutton
Sutton Council says that “recent investment in the High Street has involved environmental improvements with new paving, street furniture, lighting and also a de-cluttering of existing signage and street furniture”.
It adds that “the modern treatment of the shop fronts at ground floor level is on the whole poor and detracts from the historic character of the High Street”.
I presume the redevelopment program of Times Square Shopping Centre was part of the facelift of Sutton High Street.
According to an article by Enjoy Sutton, a council website that’s supposed to attract businesses and visitors to Sutton, the redevelopment saw two contractors going into administration before opening again with a refurbished TK Maxx and a new Poundworld.
If you don’t know, Enjoy Sutton is an initiative by Successful Sutton. What is Successful Sutton you might ask? Their website says this:
“Successful Sutton is a business-led initiative to bring the various business interests in Sutton town centre together to represent a unified voice for the retail, office, leisure and night-time economy sectors through the creation of a Business Improvement District (BID).”
The Successful Sutton Business Improvement District (BID) went live on 1st October 2012. I remember this clearly as I went on a walking tour organized by Successful Sutton, and lead by Chas Bailey, a local tour guide.
Times Square Redevelopment
I am not an expert in procurement and how business refurbishments are carried out, but I wonder how not one, but two firms could be given business then go bankrupt within a time frame of three years?
According to the Local Guardian, “Macmillan and Wright Limited went into administration on July 4, just over one year after Longcross Construction Limited, which originally started building works, went into administration in June last year.”
Lumina Retail Estate Capital bought the shopping centre alongside neighbouring Times House for £13m in April 2014 from Buckingham Securities, which had made a substantial loss, having purchased the properties for £40m before the financial crisis.
At the time, the Local Guardian quoted Ross Feeney, chief executive of Successful Sutton as saying: “Once it is completed I know it will be a significant visual enhancement to the high street, and I would urge the owners to work as hard as they can to get it back on track.”
As far as I know, as of 8 July 2018 parts of the complex are still closed and Poundworld is holding a closing down sale as it has gone into administration! Full of good news!
Railway Station And Surrounds
Sutton being a suburban town with an important railway station, many commuters drive here and then take the train to central London. This was quite a simple process until 2013 when there was a huge public car park near Sutton station. But then for some reason the council decided to sell it to Subsea 7, a huge international firm working on undersea construction projects.
At the time I was working at nearby Quadrant House, which is a massive office block just behind the station. I know that several of my colleagues used the parking structure on Brighton Road for their daily commute and we even organized a petition against the sale of the car park.
The council at the time said it was necessary to close the structure because there was overcapacity in town and that it was important to bring new jobs to Sutton.
This did not really make any sense to me as demolishing the car park nearest to the station is complete non-sense, plus Quadrant House was already half empty in 2013 so it could have housed many extra workers for a new or old business in town.
Subsea 7 Headquarters
But there is a twist to the story: guess where the old Subsea 7 headquarters were? Yes, you are right, in Quadrant House! So not only have they demolished an important car park, a couple of minutes from the station, they also facilitated the moving out of Subsea 7 from one office block into another just across the road! This is what I call complete bonkers!
Representatives from Reed Business Information told the council that up to 250 of its staff use the Brighton Road car park every day and that it feared the sale of the car park would not only have a negative impact on staff, adding “up to 40 minutes” on commuting time, but would also leave nine floors at Quadrant House empty due to the exodus of Subsea 7.
Five years later there is still a huge sign on Quadrant House offering offices to let, all the while Subsea 7 is in its shiny new HQ just across the road! At the same time, nearly 5,000 new homes, a new retail space, hotel and offices are under construction in Sutton, all near the railway station! I wonder where all those people will park their cars?
The council said that there are plenty of other parking opportunities in Sutton, but the problem is they are all a long walk away from the station and offices.
Brighton Road Car Park Sale
The Brighton Road car park was one of the most convenient locations when driving in from the South where most commuters live yet that’s what they decided to sell for a meagre £3 million as reported by the Local Guardian.
I’ve also discovered plans for a night market, a complete revamp of Sutton High Street and surrounding area and a (botched) redevelopment of the railway station “Gateway”.
Sutton station is a pretty big junction of several railway lines and in 2011/12 there were 6.06 million entries and exits here.
I’ve used this station a gazilion times but accessing it has become much more difficult for me since a major redevelopment of the public areas outside the station.
Sutton Council decided in 2015 to redevelop the area around Sutton Railway Station in co-operation with Transport For London and Southern Railway for £1.3 million.
Safety First
In theory it was a good idea but the delivery again leaves some questions. For one, as you approach the station from the direction of Mulgrave Road the left side pavement (which was widened and re-paved as part of the project) is regularly flooded after it rains, making the walk to the station impossible. Now, since they’ve spent all this money to make our commute safer and faster, I wonder why they never thought of creating proper drainage for the pavement?
Now if it rains heavily I have to actually walk in the centre of the road, otherwise I have to wade through the ankle-deep water that reaches all the way to the shops’ threshold. I wonder how the shopkeepers feel about this as well? Not that there are many to ask as two of the shops have closed within the last fortnight!
And if that’s not enough, the “experts” at Sutton council decided to do away with the designated pedestrian crossing right in front of the station! There used to be the yellow flashing light and zebra road markings, so when I got to the edge of the pavement the cars stopped.
Now guess what? They removed the road markings and the lollies and not a single car stops voluntarily! Not surprisingly, one person has already died after getting run over. I was very shocked to find signs after the accident looking for witnesses.
Death Outside Railway Staton
It happened in April 2016 and a spokesperson working for the London Ambulance Service said that “crossings and the road layout had been rearranged in the past year and he claimed there had been an increase in accidents since.”
He added: “We’ve had motorbikes knocked over, pedestrians hurt and there have been a lot more of them.” The poor old lady was 91 years old probably wasn’t aware of the truck coming.
But my friend, much younger in his 20s was also nearly knocked over when trying to cross the road on the way to work – but instead of an apology the driver was screaming all sort of expletives at him pointing out there is no “f***ing” zebra crossing here you f***ing pr**ck!
To Cross Or Not To Cross The Road
So now if I want to cross over to the station I either have to wait an inordinate amount of time for a car to stop and risk missing my train, or risk my life crossing the road! It still baffles my why on earth that crossing has been erased from the road? Maybe they used the same logic they used when they sold the car park?
Councillor Simon Wales, Chair of the Sutton Gateway Board, which is co-ordinating the project, said on 26 February 2015:
“With the aim of truly showcasing the borough from the moment people step out from the station, the project will make the area more attractive, accessible and safe. We are creating an environment that is welcoming to commuters and breathes new life to the area.”
Well, to me this part of Sutton is neither attractive, nor safe but I will let you be my judge! What is worse is they’ve spent £34,000 on a stupid clock which is not even punctual and was covered in bin bags for weeks!
Talking About Bin Bags
Sutton council also recently decided to merge its rubbish collection with neighbouring boroughs and it did not work out too well! For a long time there was rubbish piling up in our back garden and people could not figure out which bin was for what. And that is pretty much still the case!
In the end Sutton council had to issue an apology and say “We are sorry“! The only problem is before they said it the council wasted millions on developing this new, botched system of collection.
Not All Doom And Gloom
Anyhow, not all is doom and gloom here! I recently discovered that the restaurant which I’ve been walking past for seven years is Michelin listed! The Brasserie Vacherin (please tell me how to pronounce it) is apparently pretty good, although a bit pricey for me!
Then, another apparent success story is BedZED, a zero emission housing estate in Beddington. I must admit I have never heard of it but this afternoon I will cycle that way to check it out. They built the Beddington Zero Energy Development in South London between 2000-2002, including 82 houses, 17 apartments, and 1,405 m² of workspace.
It was later even shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2003. Check out their website for more info, the buildings actually look quite nice so I am looking forward to seeing them.
The Future Of Sutton High Street
And the future? Sutton Council has grand plans to develop Sutton into “a destination of choice because of its distinctive offer that makes it stand out from its competitors”.
In a swanky brochure Sutton Council says that “Sutton will be known for the human scale of its high quality High Street, its strong local heritage, a range of small independent retailers and the vibrant and bustling range of cultural activity and entertainment for people of all generations supported by a diverse and rich dining offer.”
Wow, I can’t wait to see this new and diverse Sutton! I hope they will do a better job at it than the Brighton Road Car Park, the rubbish collection, the Gateway redevelopment and a long list of other botched projects!
UPDATE 1: Local Sutton MP Paul Scully tweeted me pointing out that Brasserie Vacherin is pronounced as “Vasheran” and that they have a set meal starting from £15.
So I decided to give it a go and try what’s on offer. I had chicken liver pate with some toast, then chicken escalope with Ceasar dressing and a chocolate pot for dessert. I also had a glass of white wine. The total came to almost £55 for two, with £19.95 for the three course set meal and 12.5% tip on top.
UPDATE 2: Since publishing I’ve cycled to the BedZED complex and it looks nice – I would definitely move in here if I could afford it!
UPDATE 3: I’ve received a couple of comments on Twitter mentioning that Sutton has many positives and not only the negatives which they say I’ve focused on in this post. I would like to point out that I’ve enjoyed living in Sutton, which is one reason why I’ve stayed here for seven years now. Sutton has good connections to most airports in London and plenty of shopping and cafes even though many have closed in recent years.
It is also here where I swore allegiance to the Queen and the Country when I received my British citizenship, so in all honestly I have nothing against Sutton!