Sutton was a rural village before the railway came in 1847, promoting its rapid growth to a populous town and a thriving shopping centre. Unlike its neighbours Croydon and Kingston, Sutton was originally a one-street town; its High Street is one mile in length and rises one hundred feet. In and around that street Sutton people lived, worked, played, shopped and worshipped in new buildings, many of them, like the people and their way of life, now long gone. Changing fashions, faces, vehicles, shop window displays are preserved in the photographic images in this book.