New Malden - History

History

New Malden was established entirely as a result of the arrival of the railway when what is now called New Malden railway station was opened on 1 December 1846 on the main line from Waterloo. However, when Queen Victoria visited distinguished residents in the Coombe Hill area, the royal train always continued to Norbiton station where the platform was at ground level.

Building started slowly in the area north of the station, gathering pace in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with two- and three-bedroom terraced houses. Further out are larger detached and semi-detached houses from the 1930s. The road up the hill to Coombe, Traps Lane, is thought to derive from a farm owned by a Mrs Trap.

Two miles (3 km) to the south is the former village of Old Malden from which it gets its name, whose origins go back to Anglo-Saxon times, the name being Old English for Mæl + duna = the cross on the hill.

Under the District Councils Act 1895, The Maldens & Coombe Urban District Council was created (the plural relating to Old Malden and New Malden). In 1936 Malden and Coombe was granted full Borough status, with its own Mayor, and had the rare distinction of a civic mace bearing the royal insignia of King Edward VIII. In 1965, the London Government Act 1963 came into force merging the boroughs of Malden & Coombe and Surbiton with Kingston upon Thames to form the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

At the end of the high street there is a roundabout known as the Fountain Roundabout because it has a fountain which was originally used for drinking water by horses. The Fountain Roundabout has The Fountain Public House on one corner. From the roundabout are four exits; one to the high street, one to Kingston upon Thames, and two others which go to the main A3 London to Portsmouth Road which has been the main route from the south of England docks to Central London for several hundred years.