Belmont, Sutton

Belmont
St. John's Church (C of E), Queens Road, Belmont, Sutton
Belmont Location within Greater London
Population	10,048 (2011 Census. Ward)[1]
OS grid reference	TQ253620
London borough	Sutton
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	SUTTON
Postcode district	SM2
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
UK Parliament	Sutton and Cheam
London Assembly	Croydon and Sutton
List of places UK England London 51°20′36″N 0°12′09″W / 51.34328°N 0.20239°W / 51.34328; -0.20239

Belmont is a village in the London Borough of Sutton, in South London, England. It is located off the A217 road and near to Banstead Downs in Surrey. It is a suburban development situated 10.8 miles (17.4 km) south-southwest of Charing Cross.

History

Belmont did not exist until the late 19th century.

The village of Belmont strongly owed its development to the presence of Banstead Asylum.^[2] Although located in the parish of Banstead, the asylum was much closer to the village and railway station of Belmont than those of Banstead. The site is now occupied by HM Prison High Down.^[3]

Belmont Hospital and the South Metropolitan District School

Belmont Hospital was a psychiatric hospital. It closed and was demolished in the 1980s. The site is now occupied by the 'Belmont Heights' housing development, which is situated to the west of Brighton Road, to the north of Belmont village. Belmont Hospital opened after the Second World War. The premises had previously fulfilled a number of different institutional purposes.

• The
  foundation trust, and operates facilities on two sites, including one in Belmont, Sutton. The original buildings on the site were first used as the Banstead Road branch of the South Metropolitan District School, which was a 'district' school for children of workhouse inmates in south London. In the 1890s, girls were kept at the Banstead Road site and boys were kept at a site in Brighton Road, which was built in 1851. The Brighton Road site later became Belmont workhouse and Belmont Psychiatric hospital, before being demolished in the 1980s. The Banstead Road site later became a sanatorium
  , before the southern half of the site was acquired by Royal Marsden in 1962.
• The
  Institute of Cancer Research is a public research institute and university located on two London sites and specialised in oncology.^[4] It was founded in 1909 as a research department of the Royal Marsden Hospital. It established its Belmont, Sutton campus site in 1956. It joined the University of London in 2003.^[5]
• Sutton Hospital

In addition to Belmont Park, Belmont contains two

• field scabious
  .
• Belmont Pastures is a Grade II Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation. It is a long narrow triangle north of Belmont railway station. It is an old meadow which formerly belonged to Belmont Hospital.

Just to the south of the village is Banstead Downs, which extends for around a mile further south towards neighbouring

Station Road is the main commercial street of Belmont Village, containing a range of mainly independent shops and restaurants. It runs for about a quarter of a mile from Belmont Station in the east to St John's Church in the west. One mile to the north lies the larger economic centre of Sutton.

Nearest places

• Sutton to the north
• Cheam to the west
• Banstead, Surrey
  to the south
• Carshalton to the east

Transport

• David Bellamy (1933–2019), botanist, author and academic.
• Robin Hull (1905-1960), music critic
• James Hunt (1947–1993), World Formula One motor-racing champion 1976.
• Lord Judd
  (1935-2021) former director of Oxfam. As Frank Judd he was MP for constituencies in Portsmouth from 1966 to 1979.
• Don Lusher (1923–2006), trombonist and jazz band leader
• Lord Ritchie-Calder
  (1906–1982), journalist and environment expert
• Lionel Tertis (1876–1975), viola-player
• Barry Wordsworth (born in Cheam 1948), orchestral conductor – music director.

References

Further reading (local history)

• Belmont: A Century Ago by Roland Sparkes, published December 2009. Paperback.
  ISBN 978-0-9563424-0-9. [1]
  . This is first book dedicated to the history of the village. The introductory chapter provides a resume of Belmont's history and development in the Victorian era and the early 20th century.
• Articles by local historian Roland Sparkes for the Belmont Local History group (established 2009). E.g. Belmont: 1865 – A description of the Belmont area as it existed in 1865 [2]^{[permanent dead link]}, and Dr Carl Warburg, his Belmont laboratory, and his famous fever drug[3]^{[permanent dead link]}.
• Sutton Guardian newspaper – heritage page articles and features. [4]
• Sutton Scene (London Borough of Sutton's official newsletter), Oct/Nov 2009 edition. Feature on Belmont. [5]
• Two booklets have been produced about the history of Belmont's churches, both now out of print: (i) Splendid the Heritage: the story of Belmont and its Methodist Church (Craig, 1965); and (ii) A Village Church: the story of the first 75 years of St John’s with Belmont Methodists (Reed, 1992).
• The Brighton road; the classic highway to the south by Harper, Charles George, 1863-1943 [6] Page 159 refers to the position of Belmont on the road between London and Brighton and the 1796 marking of "Little Hell" on the maps.

External links

• Belmont Local History group, [7]
• Map of Belmont area, Streetmap website, Streetmap.co.uk [8]