found along the length of Nonsuch Park, although most were close to the large 'Stoneleigh' house. Later history Between the world wars, demand for housing on commuter routes into London meant the area grew rapidly. Maps from 1931 show the land was mainly "Meadowland and permanent grass" with patches of "Forest and woodland" and "Heathland, moorland, commons and rough pasture". Stoneleigh railway station was opened in July 1932, on land acquired from the Stoneleigh Park Estate in July 1931. Stoneleigh railway station was originally to be named 'Stoneleigh Park' to denote that it was an area of market gardening, but this did not happen, probably due to the next three stations on the line north all being called 'Park' (Worcester Park, Motspur Park and Raynes Park). The first houses were built in 1933 and the first shops on Stoneleigh Broadway opened in November of the same year. The Stoneleigh Hotel, now a Grade II listed building, opened in November 1935 and additional shops were built on the Broadway in the late 1930s. In 1938, Stoneleigh Methodist church was completed, the same year that the Rembrandt cinema opened next to the railway line on the Kingston Road. The cinema operated for 60 years until its closure in April 1998. The building was subsequently demolished and replaced by flats. The red-brick Anglican church of St John the Baptist, next to the station, was built in 1939. Two large schools (Stoneleigh East and West) were built in Stoneleigh in the 1930s to accommodate the large suburban growth in the area. These schools still exist under different names. The vast majority of the Stoneleigh area had been built on before construction was halted by the onset of World War 2 in late 1939, with almost all the new homes being semi-detached. A small section in the northwest of Stoneleigh Broadway was built in the 1960s. Additionally, an area in the far north of Stoneleigh was developed into housing around this time following the closure of the Worcester Park Brick Works. Geography Stoneleigh comprises the residential areas either side of the Mole Valley Line including Stoneleigh Broadway towards its midpoint, which is from Epsom town centre. The suburb has no high rise buildings. It contains or borders two mostly dual carriageway primary A roads; the A240 Kingston Road and Ewell Bypass in both the Auriol and Stoneleigh wards, and the A24 in the Stoneleigh ward,