Like other nearby settlements, Epsom is located on the spring line where the permeable chalk of the North Downs meets the impermeable London Clay.

Several tributaries of the Hogsmill River rise in the town and in the 17th and early 18th centuries, the spring on Epsom Common was believed to have healing qualities.

Charles II was among those who regularly took the waters and several prominent writers, including John Aubrey, Samuel Pepys and Celia Fiennes recorded their visits.

To the west of the town centre are two local nature reserves, Epsom Common and Horton Country Park, both of which are owned and managed by the borough council.

Remains of pits, ditches and post holes in Long Grove Road indicate that the area north of the town centre was used for agriculture in prehistoric times, which may suggest the presence of an established settlement nearby.

[18] Although the route of Stane Street, the road between Londinium and Chichester, passes immediately to the east of St Martin's Church, there is not thought to have been a Roman settlement there.

[18][19] Archaeological evidence of Roman activity has been found to the north of the present town centre: A tile kiln, which may have been connected to the 1st- and 2nd-century brickworks on Ashtead Common, was discovered during the construction of the West Park Hospital in the 1920s.

[20][22] It would have been administered as part of Copthorne Hundred and was probably located close to the site of the present St Martin's Church, which is built on a knoll of chalk at the base of the North Downs.

[18] The 1840 tithe map shows a series of narrow, regular plots along the north side of the High Street, which would be consistent with a planned, medieval settlement.

[27][note 3] In Domesday Book, Epsom appears as Evesham and is listed as including two mills (valued at 10s), two churches, 24 acres (10 hectares) of meadow and sufficient woodland for 20 hogs.

[27] Following the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII granted Epsom to Nicholas Carew in 1537, but two years later his property was forfeit when he was executed for his alleged involvement in the Exeter Conspiracy.

[38] By tradition, the discovery of spa water is attributed to Henry Wicker, a farmer who, in 1618, noticed that his cows refused to drink from a slow spring on Epsom Common.

[41][42] During the mid-17th century, several prominent individuals travelled to the spring, including John Aubrey, who after his visit in 1654, boiled some of the water and noted that a "flakey" sediment, "the colour of bay-salt", was left behind.

By the time of the Civil War, the sport was sufficiently popular and well known that, in May 1648, royalist forces were able to assemble on the Downs under the pretence of organising a race, before marching together to Reigate.

[54] The Irish philosopher, John Toland, noted the suitability of the Downs for sport, writing in 1711 that the land was "covered with grass finer than Persian carpets… for sheep-walks, riding, hunting, racing, shooting, with games of most sorts for exercise of the body or recreation of the mind… they are no where else to be paralleled".

[66][67] A road close to Tattenham Corner is named "Emily Davison Drive" in her honour[68][69] and a statue of the suffragette was installed in Epsom High Street in June 2021.

The section of Stane Street to the west of the modern town centre remained in use through the Anglo-Saxon period and is referred to as the Portway in the reign of Henry VII.

The LSWR's own line via Worcester Park towards Wimbledon was completed two months later, allowing trains from Epsom to reach London Waterloo.

[22] In the final decade of the 19th century, Epsom Court, to the north of the town centre, was divided and sold for development and, over the next twenty years, terraced houses were built on the land.

[91] The 1944 Greater London Plan designated land on three sides of the town centre as part of the protected Metropolitan Green Belt, which severely limited the scope for urban expansion to the east, west and south.

Two battalions of the university and Public Schools Brigade of the Royal Fusiliers were billeted in the town and underwent training in Rosebery Park and on Epsom Downs.

[194] The chancel arch is decorated with a mural of Christ flanked by angels,[193][194] beneath which is the rood screen, made of wrought iron and bronze, which was erected 1909.

[199] The Catholic parish of St Joseph, traces its origins to 1859, when the congregation began to meet regularly for mass in the parlour of a house in Stanley Villas.

[214] The gallery also owns paintings of horse racing taking place on the Downs, including works by Alfred Munnings (1878–1959)[215] and William Powell Frith (1819–1909).

It depicts the dancer, John Gilpin, performing the title role of Le Spectre de la rose from the ballet by Jean-Louis Vaudoyer.

Initially, home games were played at the Court Recreation Ground, but the club established a permanent base in Woodcote Road after the Second World War.

[249] Several public events and civic ceremonies have taken place in the area at the base of the tower, including the official granting of the foundation charter of the Borough of Epsom and Ewell in September 1937.

The memorial consists of a Celtic cross in granite and the gates are dedicated to the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers, who were billeted in Epsom before the opening of the Woodcote Park camp.

[264] In 1715, the estate was inherited by Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, who commissioned Isaac Ware to rebuild the mansion in the French Rococo Revival style.

[269] During the medieval period, Epsom Common was the manorial waste land[8] and, in the 12th century, the monks of Chertsey Abbey built the Great Pond to rear fish.