Ewell and Cheam are two of the old villages that London swallowed in the twentieth century, on the border between Surrey and the capital, with Nonsuch Park between them. That park holds the secret. In 1538 Henry VIII began building a palace here, meant to be so grand there would be none like it, and he named it Nonsuch. It was never finished in his lifetime and was demolished in the 1680s after Charles II gave it to a mistress who sold the materials to pay her gambling debts. The site was lost for centuries and was found again by archaeologists in the 1950s, and the park remains as a wide expanse of grass and trees, with the old mansion house of a later era at its edge.
Ewell itself is older. The Hogsmill river rises from springs in the village, and its clear water was enough to power mills for centuries. The village has a few timbered cottages and a pond, and the parish church tower is a medieval survivor. Nearby is the great racecourse on Epsom Downs, where the Derby has been run since 1780, and its grandstand is visible from the surrounding roads.
For a rider, this is the last leg. The A24 and A217 lead north through a long run of suburban streets to the city, and the lanes toward Banstead and Tadworth offer a little more interest, with brief runs of hedgerow and open downs. Crowds appear on Derby day in early June, when the roads are closed or heavily congested around the racecourse, so check first. Otherwise it is steady, calm riding with little excitement.
With forty thousand people in Ewell alone, plus Cheam and Sutton close by, everything is easy. Filling stations stand along the A240 and the Ewell bypass, and there are plenty of cafés in the village and in the big shopping streets. A bike can be parked in Nonsuch Park for a modest fee, and a short walk across the grass is a decent way to loosen up before the final push home.