So firstly, why this walk and secondly, why the Derby I hear you say. We’ll deal with the ‘firstly’ now the ‘secondly’ later on another page.

      The Derby was born in 1780 to two titled gentlemen in Epsom Messer’s Derby and Bunbury. They’d got together sometime before and decided to put on a race for three year old fillies and named it after the Earl of Derby’s house ‘the Oaks’, now, after another dinner party (allegedly) they considered it such a good idea they thought what’s good enough for the girls is good enough for the boys, and arranged a race for three year old colts, and so, the Derby was born. Initially restricted to local horses (local Derby, you football fans) it quickly became established into an important race and with the advent of the railways soon became a nationwide event. Before the introduction of the railway network people travelled to Epsom by many different means, carriages, carts, omnibuses, shanks’ pony (on foot) etc. The main walkway from London started  at the Elephant and Castle, through Kennington Gate (Turnpike), onto Clapham Common (the Swan Inn), down the A24 into Merton, then passed Morden Hall boarding school for young men, into Sutton and the Cock Inn, then Epsom (Spread Eagle), ‘I know, it sounds like a pub crawl’ and onto the downs. This is the route of the Derby walk, plus Tattersalls Tavern, knightsbridge to the Elephant and Castle. The Monday after the Derby was known as settling day at Tattersalls, so this seemed appropriate. As mentioned before, the intervention of the railways assisted the many thousands of Londoners on their journey to the Downs, in fact in 1865 when the Epsom Downs line was first opened over 70,000 race goers were transported to the course during the festival. So, a somewhat brief history of both the Derby and the transport system but hopefully it gives you an outline of why this walk and why this particular route.  

The Idea

Many years ago, whilst growing up in Morden I was always fascinated by the continual flow of cars along the A24 from Morden town centre to Rose Hill round-a-bout in early June, where were this many cars going. The normal passage of cars along St Helier Ave in the 60s was probably quite busy, but bumper to bumper was always the norm for the first Wednesday in June. Right from then it struck me that people have gone to extraordinary lengths to make the annual pilgrimage to Epsom Downs on Derby Day, even now as I walk home from the station, I can imagine hundreds of eager Mums, Dads, club secretaries etc rising at the crack of dawn to organise food, drink, travel arrangements, count betting money etc..  And so the Epsom Derby walk 2009 was born. The route follows the selection of plates by Cruickshank called the Exodus, denoting the thousands of Londoners who travelled this road in the past and now present.