35 
would be tapped, and compensation would have to be 
paid, and he recommended the Company to have another 
line surveyed, and the present South Hastern Line 
through Merstham Tunnel was the result, this tunnel 
being adopted both by the Brighton and South Eastern 
Railways. 
The present Oxted Railway Tunnel was carried out 
without opposition from any of the landed proprietors, 
who dreaded being damaged by means of the diversion 
of the underground waters from their estates, or even 
by any of the riparian owners on the Wandle, although 
considerable injury has been inflictel on the River 
Wandle proprietors by reason of the diversion of a 
portion of the waters from their watershed. 
We may now refer to what the Author has called the 
Marlpit Lane Bourne, Brighton Road, which has this 
year again flooded the lands at Red Lion Green, 
Smitham Bottom, and there disappears into the ground. 
The present origin of this Bourne is due to the con- 
struction of a culvert which conveys the water from 
Merstham Tunnel when the springs are high. It is 
recorded that when sinking the shafts in connection 
with the Merstham Tunnel, water was met with, which 
obliged the contractors to drive an adit through the 
gault below the bed of the tunnel to tap the springs, 
and that when this was done the springs in the neigh- 
bourhood were drained. The Merstham Mill Head was 
dry for some years till the tunnel was finished. After- 
wards the water from the adit from the tunnel was turned 
into the Old Mill Head, and now the mill works again 
not from the original springs but from the tunnel. 
It appears also that in the construction of the Clayton 
Tunnel on the Brighton Line an adit was driven and a 
darge quantity of water was liberated in a similar manner. 
Present Oxted 
Tunnel. 
Considerable 
injury to 
River Wandle. 
Marlpit Lane 
Bourne. 
Merstham 
Tunnel. 
Clayton 
Tunnel. 
