The Splash & Timber Bridge

A Memory of Fetcham.

My family, the Whitehouses, moved to Mole Road, Fetcham c1956 and as children my sister and our friends spent many happy hours playing 'down the river'. I remember the rickety bridge, frequently with more than one plank missing, swimming, and riding bareback through (sometimes jumping) The Splash to the blacksmith at Prewitts Farm (the older brother working the bellows with his elbow & spitting into the fire), boys jumping off a rope hung from the tree over the 'bomb hole', these memories came flooding back. Following a visit to Painshill where the bridge reminded me of The Splash I drove on to Fetcham (the first visit for very many years) and was so disappointed to see the utilitarian replacement bridges. The Splash now (2010) has more water as the wall chanelling the main river has been broken through: no longer will the 'stagnant pond' freeze over for ice-skating. Our 'fishing' competitions here comprised catching the biggest tiddler in a jam jar & the odd crayfish. Frogspawn was also available in the reeds.
We frequently went there by ourselves amd made camps on the island: the most scarey thing was the rickety bridge, particularly at times of high flooding when we 'dared' each other to cross it.
Would our mothers have allowed all this nowadays? Probably not, but we survived with some wonderful memories.
Does anyone know whether the wall and the remaing brickwork have any relationship with The Ford, Fetcham photo of 1904? Was the old Splash Bridge built by the owner of Randall House and was he influenced by Painshill?