One Clandon man is looking for volunteers for a very unusual project. Chris Taylor, 52, is hoping to keep Surrey’s hidden Dragon alive. But he needs some help.
The legend of the dragon of West Clandon goes a long way back. It is thought to have been first documented in “The Gentleman’s Magazine” in 1776. (A replica is in the village church.) As part of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee commemorations in 1977, there was a dragon cut into the slope of the A246 ( Epsom to Guilford) just west of the crossroads with the West Clandon – Newlands Corner road.
Work on cutting the dragon started and finished in 1977 but the area has needed care since then. During the 1980s, the dragon gradually disappeared under grass and undergrowth, despite annual “scourings”, including in 1989 by a patrol of Boy Scouts from the Royal Grammar School, Guildford.
Since then the dragon has continued through a cycle of restoration, decay and restoration, but Chris wants to make sure that the dragon never disappears again. He remembers it fondly from his childhood, but it wasn’t until he moved back into the area that he got stuck in.
He told SurreyLive: “When I came back, I was moving from a career into going self-employed and I was just looking around at different things to do and this came up. There was a quick call out for volunteers. It was right at the beginning of the most recent of restoration projects, which happened about four years ago. I just sort of got in there.
“I remember as a child, I remember driving past it all the time. It was just pure timing that someone found it on an ordinance survey map, as a chalk figure, knew the road quite well and thought, well, it’s not there anymore. Let’s go and have a look. We cleared all the verge and everything else and started to come across some old women planks that they’d use to try and hold the dragon together. Slowly but surely, we started to uncover it on the side of the road.”
The site needs some maintenance by a team of volunteers
(Image: Chris Taylor)
However, maintaining a large chalk dragon is simple. Chris said: “Thankfully there was a vague outline, although we really had to start again. We knew the measurements and there was an old drawing that we managed to find. From there, we kind of mapped it out, paced it out.
“Luckily a fair amount of it was remaining. It was completely overgrown. We had quite a lot of brush to get rid of. As we took the brush away, we were coming across these little boards holding the chalk up because it’s quite a steep slope.”
From the initial discovery the pair had to get to work. They used some metal edging, the kind of put along driveways, to redraw the dragon itself. Then used a process called scouring which is where you remove the top layer of the chalk.
Chris said: “It’s an ongoing process. It’s going to take annual maintenance and part of that maintenance process is this scouring where ideally we need some fresh chalk. We’ve had offers before but really, it’s just a bit of a piecemeal approach because the site is quite tight. We can’t just order up 12 tons of chalk and have it dumped by the side of the road, we’re kind of having to piecemeal it onto site.”
“It’s tricky actually because there’s not a huge amount online. There’s a few YouTube videos. The National Trust get involved in some of the chalk figures in the country and, and they have a process. But what they have is scouring parties, where 200- 300 people will come to site and there’s 20 tons of chalk to process and they take a weekend and do it.”
The project can seem overwhelming. Chris explained: “I’ve kind of picked up the reins to a certain extent. It’s a case of trying to keep interest in the dragon, keep momentum going, get volunteers down to site and just try to do it in a pace that’s not going to put anyone off. So people can come down and feel rewarded that they’ve achieved something, it’s not a massive industrial project where we’re trying to finish it as quickly as possible.
Chris is looking for volunteers and donations of chalk
(Image: Chris Taylor)
“People are super interested, but when it comes to getting down to the site, maybe some have been a little less interested than they’ve initially indicated. I’ve had to hoodwink a few people down there. It’s not horrendously hard work. It’s difficult work because it’s on a slope. It’s by a main road so it’s not suitable for anyone under the age of 18. It’s about trying to get a core group of volunteers, and then that gives everyone a chance to cut drop in, do a little bits and they don’t feel overwhelmed or trapped by the process.”
While there are many famous chalk sites around the UK, this one is unique to the area. Chris explained: “When you think of a chalk figure of a horse, that’s 3,000 years old and people have been religiously going there for the last, hundreds, if not thousands of years to maintain it. I’d like to get something and keep it going in Clanton. So in 500 years time will be fantastic, it’s still there and there’s people enjoying going down and looking after it.”
The dragon has got a new Facebook page, which is the place to go for information as well as volunteer opportunities. Chris is hoping for people to come and look after the site as well as donate chalk. If you want to help keep this quirky bit of Surrey History alive then messaging there is the best way to go about it.