Clocktower Cars UK is a licensed private hire firm working out of twelve offices across Surrey and south-west London. The head office sits at the foot of the Epsom Clock Tower, which is where the name comes from and where the business has been reached from for long enough that people still give the landmark rather than the postcode. On the operator licence published by Epsom and Ewell Borough Council we appear as Epsom & Ewell Cars, trading as Clocktower Cars — the same firm, the older name.
We are a private hire operator, not a hackney carriage fleet. Every journey is booked in advance through an office rather than hailed in the street, which is a legal distinction rather than a stylistic one and is explained on our minicab versus black cab page. What that gets you in practice is a price agreed before the car moves, a named driver against every job and a phone number that reaches a person who knows the area.
Our head office is at the Epsom Clock Tower, A24, Epsom, Surrey KT19 8BA, and the number there is 01372 747 747. That is the right call for anything about the business as a whole — accounts, complaints, lost property that has moved between offices, press and recruitment.
For a booking, though, the local office is almost always faster. Each one is staffed by people who know their own roads, their own station approaches and their own school gates, and they hold the cars that are actually nearby. The full list is below, and our branch locator and find us pages will point you at the nearest one if you are not sure. If you would rather not phone at all, the booking form reaches the same offices.
A good number of people reach this page searching for the Clock Tower itself rather than for a car, so here is the tower on its own terms. It stands on Epsom High Street, at the point where the old market town funnels into the modern one, and it is the thing locals give directions by. Epsom sits about fourteen miles south of central London, in the borough of Epsom and Ewell, and the tower is the closest thing the town has to a front door.
The site was occupied by a weatherboarded Watch House, a modest wooden building that did three jobs at once: it housed the watch, it housed the town’s fire engine, and it served as a temporary lock-up. By the 1840s it was neither large enough nor dignified enough for a town that was by then drawing crowds of well over a hundred thousand to the Derby, and a committee was formed to replace it.
The foundation stone was laid on 19 November 1847 by Thomas Tompson, chairman of the rebuilding committee, and the tower went up through 1847 and 1848. The architects were James Butler and Henry Hodge, both working out of London. It was built in red and Suffolk brick to an extreme height of seventy feet, and the original design carried four lions in Caen stone, each bearing a shield. The lions did not survive: they had gone by 1902, and by the 1920s electric lanterns and globe lights stood where they had been, along with public toilets built to the east and west of the tower.
The clock was not new. It was salvaged from the Watch House and carried over into the new tower, which is a pleasing detail for a building that replaced the thing it inherited from. The bell came later, cast at the foundry of G. E. Mears, and in 1869 it was arranged to ring as a fire alarm — the tower taking on, in a single sound, the job the old wooden fire engine house had done on the same patch of ground.
Three things, mostly. Epsom Downs Racecourse, home of the Oaks and the Derby, first run in 1779 and 1780 respectively. Epsom salts, the magnesium sulphate drawn from the mineral springs on Epsom Common, which made the town a spa long before it made it a racing one. And Epsom Hospital, built by the Poor Law authorities in 1890 and now the district’s main NHS site with a full accident and emergency department — a destination we drive to and from more than almost any other, which is why we keep a separate page on transport for medical appointments.
The bulk of the work is unglamorous and local: station runs, hospital appointments, shopping trips, nights out, the same journeys over and over for the same people. Around that sit the jobs that need something specific.
One thing we do not do: we do not rent out cars. If you are looking for self-drive hire, we are not it — every Clocktower Cars journey comes with a licensed driver.
Private hire runs on three separate licences and all three have to be valid for a journey to be legal: one for the driver, one for the car, and one for the business taking the booking. Clocktower Cars holds the operator’s licence. Because licensing is done locally, our offices answer to seven different authorities — six Surrey councils, which are Epsom and Ewell, Reigate and Banstead, Mole Valley, Elmbridge, Guildford and Waverley, plus Transport for London for everything inside the Greater London boundary, which covers the Sutton, Carshalton, Kingston and Chessington offices.
Every driver holds an enhanced DBS certificate checked against both barred lists and is enrolled on the Update Service so it is re-checked at least every six months rather than once at hiring. How that works, what the badge is, and what to expect when a driver turns up is all set out on our drivers page.
There is nothing wrong with hailing a car from a phone, and for a short hop across a city centre it is hard to beat. It is the other journeys where a local taxi firm earns its keep. A 4.30am airport run where the car has to actually turn up. A standing school booking where the same driver matters more than the price. A hospital discharge where someone has to wait and then bring a patient home. A wheelchair user who needs the right vehicle, not the nearest one. In all of those, the thing that makes the difference is an office that knows the job, holds the booking and can be phoned by a person who will answer.
That is also why we quote rather than surge. The price is set when you book, by the office, and it does not move because it started raining. Reviews on Google and Trustpilot are worth reading before you take our word for any of this — and if a journey of ours goes badly, the complaint route is a phone call to the branch, not a form that disappears.
Twelve offices, each with its own phone number and its own patch. Call the nearest one for a booking; call Epsom for anything about the business.
| Office | Address | Phone |
|---|---|---|
| Epsom (head office) | Epsom Clock Tower, A24, Epsom, KT19 8BA | 01372 747 747 |
| Bookham | Railway Station, Church Road, Bookham, Leatherhead, KT23 3JG | 01372 727 727 |
| Carshalton | 33 North Street, Carshalton, SM5 2HW | 0208 773 0700 |
| Chessington | Chessington Business Centre, Cox Lane, Chessington, KT9 1SD | 0208 397 4747 |
| Chessington (Trident Court) | Unit 56A, Trident Court, 1 Oakcroft Road, Chessington, KT9 1BD | 0208 330 1234 |
| Ewell West | Chessington Road, Ewell West, KT17 1DW | 0208 330 5555 |
| Godalming | Station Approach, Godalming, GU7 1EU | 01483 422 222 |
| Guildford | Station Approach, London Road, Guildford, GU1 4DQ | 01483 301 000 |
| Kingston | 39A Walter Street, Kingston upon Thames, KT2 5DS | 0203 388 9999 |
| Reigate | Office 227, Castle Court, 41 London Road, Reigate, RH2 9RJ | 01737 333 700 |
| Sutton | 5 Carshalton Road, Sutton, SM1 4LE | 0208 643 2255 |
| Weybridge | Station Approach, Weybridge, KT13 8UD | 01932 598 598 |
Not sure which is nearest? The branch locator will tell you, and our branches page lists the towns and villages each office covers.
At the Epsom Clock Tower, A24, Epsom, Surrey KT19 8BA. The head office number is 01372 747 747. It is the right number for accounts, complaints, recruitment and anything that is not a booking; for a booking, the local office is quicker.
It depends which office you want. Epsom head office is 01372 747 747. The other eleven each have their own line — Bookham 01372 727 727, Carshalton 0208 773 0700, Chessington 0208 397 4747, Chessington Trident Court 0208 330 1234, Ewell West 0208 330 5555, Godalming 01483 422 222, Guildford 01483 301 000, Kingston 0203 388 9999, Reigate 01737 333 700, Sutton 0208 643 2255 and Weybridge 01932 598 598.
Yes. Epsom and Ewell Borough Council’s published list of licensed private hire operators records us as Epsom & Ewell Cars, trading as Clocktower Cars. Same business, same licence; Clocktower Cars is the name we trade and advertise under.
No. We are Clocktower Cars UK, based at the Clock Tower in Epsom, Surrey, with twelve offices across Surrey and south-west London. A similarly named firm operates in Ledbury in Herefordshire, roughly 150 miles away, and the two are not connected. If Ledbury is who you want, none of our numbers will reach them.
The foundation stone was laid on 19 November 1847 and the tower was built through 1847 and 1848, which makes it comfortably older than the business named after it. It is seventy feet tall, built of red and Suffolk brick, designed by the London architects James Butler and Henry Hodge, and it replaced a weatherboarded Watch House that doubled as the town’s fire engine house and lock-up.
Very likely, if you are in Surrey or the south-western edge of London. The branch locator and our branches page between them list the towns and villages each office works. If your town is not listed, phone the nearest office anyway — coverage at the edges is a question of where the car is, not where the line on the map is.
No. We are a private hire operator, which means every journey comes with a licensed driver. We have no self-drive hire fleet, so if you want to rent a car and drive it yourself, we are not the right firm.
No, and no private hire vehicle in England can lawfully be hailed. Every journey has to be pre-booked through the licensed operator — by phone or through the booking form. Only hackney carriages may ply for hire, and the difference is explained on our minicab versus black cab page.
Through the account application page, or by phoning Epsom. Accounts are invoiced monthly and are usually worth it as soon as more than one person in a business is taking taxis and claiming them back.
We quote rather than publish a fare table, because the honest price depends on distance, time of day, direction, vehicle size, luggage and waiting time, and a published figure would be wrong for most journeys. Phone the office or use the booking form and you will have a price before anything is confirmed. Our FAQs go into what moves a fare up or down.
For a journey, phone the office nearest you from the table above, or fill in the booking form and we will come back with a price. For anything else — an account, a complaint, something left in a car, a job — Epsom head office on 01372 747 747 is the place to start. If you want to know who will be driving before you book, that is on the drivers page, and if you want to know what a journey will cost and why, start with the FAQs.
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