A great-grandson of Sir Richard Weston, who built of Sutton Place, was another Richard Weston, knighted in 1622, who spent much time in Flanders where he studied their methods of agriculture and from where he brought the first clover grass to this country.

In the Low Countries he also learnt about the use of locks to control the flow of water in a river. In 1618 he took out a 1,000 year lease from Sir George Stoughton on a corn mill and a fulling mill at Stoke and decided to build an experimental lock by these mills. From there he cut a channel, which he called his "New River", to the grounds of Sutton Place "whereby he floated six Score Acres of Ground, which before was most of it dry". In other words the purpose of this project was to irrigate his fields in order to improve the yield of grass and hay. Encouraged by the success of his experiment he then raised capital by selling his Manor of Clandon to the Onslow family and promoted the Wey Navigation. Sadly he died in 1652 and did not witness the opening of the Navigation in 1653.

Much of the course of his New River is still in existence. It first appears as a ditch on the western side of the road from Stoke Lock past the sewage works to Slyfields Industrial Estate. The next section has been obliterated by this estate but the old channel reappears across the fields and through the copse south-east of the Village Hall.

    Despite appearances, due to what must be fairly modern changes to the contours of the next field, it next passes through the garden of Jacobs Well Cottage. The entrance to this is still across a low bridge and, until quite recently, an arch over the channel could still be seen in the roadside wall outside the cottage.

In order to create his New River Richard Weston had to obtain grants of passage from the owners of the various meadows through which it would run. (In these documents he is variously described as Richard Weston, Esquire, "of Sutton", "of West Clandon" and "of Worplesdon"). These landowners included William Crosse and James Russell. From one agreement we learn that in 1591 William Crosse's father had acquired from Edward Wyndesor, Lord of the Manor of Burgham, various plots called Great Southfeilde, Lower Southfeilde and Clay Croft. The latter was bounded by "a certen lane or way there called Clay Lane".

Richard Weston had apparently "already cutt digged and made..... Trenches and watercourses" but he required "free and quiet libertie of ingresse egresse and regresse" for the term of a thousand years for himself and his servants, laborers and workmen. For this he undertook to pay William Crosse the sum of "Forty Pounds of Lawful Money of England".

Where this man-made stream - known in the 19th century as "The Flowing Stream" - crossed the natural brook which runs through the village to the River Wey there was originally a brick culvert until one day in the 1930's when, according to an old inhabitant, a cow got itself stuck underneath. The process of freeing the unfortunate beast destroyed the culvert and the New River finally stopped flowing.