IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Summer Road, EAST MOLESEY, KT8 9LR

It's extraordinary what old Ordnance Survey maps can tell us about the history of a location. Here we have the River Ember flowing in the concrete flood relief channel built in the 1970s. But go back to 1872 and the Ember would have looked much narrower, flowing and meandering like an ordinary river. However a footbridge crossing of the river already existed here at that time, linking East Molesey with Thames Ditton, and the track to and from the crossing followed the present-day alignment of Summer Road, even though there were no houses along it at that time. By 1898 a ford and a footbridge are shown on the mapping here, while most of the houses on the south side of Summer Road had been built. By 1920 most of the houses on the north side of Summer Road had been built along with Summer Gardens on the south side. Access across the river was still via the ford and footbridge. But by 1938 the ford is no longer marked on the map and the alignment of Molember Road and its first few houses are shown. Whether or not an actual road bridge was ever built across here I do not know.

The electricity substation is in a wooden enclosure. As its name suggests, Molember Road is located between two rivers, the Mole and the Ember.

The River Ember is a short section of the River Mole running through East Molesey. After the 1930's the River Mole distributary was re-routed into the River Ember. River Ember : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Ember Distributary : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributary More details relating to the bridge and are here : https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/939042 This photo was taken using the wide angle lens on the Huawei Mate20 X mobile.

The broad sweep of the River Ember is viewed here looking upstream from the Summer Road footbridge. The river clips across the north-western corner of this grid square, with Thames Ditton on the left and East Molesey on the right.

Esher Road (B3379), showing the bridge carrying the road over the River Mole at East Molesey.

From the bridge visible in Image], looking downstream. The house are on Molember Road, a cul-de-sac named after the fact that it runs along a narrow near-island between the Rivers Mole and Ember.

Pedestrian bridge across the River Ember at East Molesey, linking two sections of Summer Road.

The steel girder and latticework bridge, which is in need of some paint, carries the B3379 Esher Road over the River Mole. On the right is a newer footbridge. For an earlier view of the bridge from the other end and before the footbridge was built see http://www.moleseyhistory.co.uk/pictures/pages/A07_0074.htm

Esher Road (B3379), approaching the junction with Walton Road and Bridge Road at East Molesey.

Near the corner of Esher Road.