SUNBURY-ON-THAMES

'Sunbury-on-Thames' is a suburb in the Surrey (formerly Middlesex) borough of Spelthorne in England. It is located 16 miles (25 km) south west of Central London and bordered by Feltham and Hampton, flanked on the south by the River Thames.

Contents

History

The town today

Local leisure, and entertainment

Famous people

Nearest places

Transport

Road

Rail

Air

Emergency services

History

The earliest evidence of occupation in Sunbury is provided by the discovery of Bronze Age funerary urns dating from the 10th century BC. It is mentioned in the Sunbury Charter in AD 962. Many years later the arrival of Huguenot refugees gave the name to French Street.
Sunbury was in the Middlesex Domesday map in the Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Suneberie''. Its Domesday assets were: 7 hides. It had 5 ploughs, meadow for 6 ploughs, cattle pasture. It rendered £6.^[1]
The riverside St Mary's Anglican Church and the Ferry House nearby are mentioned in the book ''Oliver Twist'' by Charles Dickens. Other literary references include the difficulty of rowing up Sunbury backwater in "Three men in a boat" by Jerome K. Jerome, and Sunbury Cross under a pall of smoke during "The War of the Worlds" by H.G.Wells.
Sunbury was once the residence of Admiral Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke who blockaded Rochefort in 1757 and in 1758 he directed the blockade of Brest for six months.
In 1889 a group of music hall stars met in the Magpie hotel in Lower Sunbury to form the Grand Order of Water Rats. The pub itself was named after the horse that one of the entertainers owned, whilst the Grand Order was named because the Magpie (a trotting pony) had been described as a drowned water rat. The Three Fishes in Green Street is one of the oldest pubs in Surrey, thought to date back to the 16th Century.
Historically a part of Middlesex and still recognised as such in some sporting and ceremonial activities. However since 1965 Sunbury has been a part of the administrative county of Surrey; the former postal county has remained unchanged.

The town today

Geographically, Sunbury comprises two areas. The area adjacent to the river is commonly known as ''Lower Sunbury'', or Sunbury Village, and has a quaint, almost rural, atmosphere, while the area around and to the north of Sunbury Cross, where the M3 begins, is properly known as ''Sunbury Common''. It is more urban and is home to a number of large companies including Chubb and BP, as well as a mixture of national and local traders including a 1960s shopping centre and a large Tesco Extra superstore.
Marking the western border of Sunbury is the Queen Mary Reservoir which was constructed in 1925. This is also home to a sailing club and is regularly used by local schools and youth organisations to teach water sports skills.
Lower Sunbury has become increasingly popular with young first time buyers looking to start families. The mixture of Victorian terraces and 1930s semi detached houses in the leafy village offers a favourable and more affordable alternative to London. Lower Sunbury is usually defined as the area south of Sunbury Cross (Junction 1 on the M3). A conservation area within Sunbury village has been recognised to cover Thames Street and this reflects its historic buildings, many pubs, restaurants and a beautiful stretch of river bank leading up to the Church.
Sunbury is a largely suburban town with a number of high-rise office buildings and industrial estates clustered around the M3 and the A308 (Staines Road West) and A316 (Country Way) trunk roads. Sunbury was previously the home of BP's Engineering and Research Centre, located to the north of Sunbury on the site of Meadhurst House, formerly owned by the Cadbury family. The site is now Sunbury Business Park and is home to a large number of BP's business units. A number of other companies, including Chubb, also have a presence.
The Avenue, Sunbury, has been the home of the London Irish Rugby Club since 1932 although since 2001 its premiership team has played at the Madejski Stadium in Reading, Berkshire. However hundreds of minis, youngsters and adults turn out for the club each weekend in Sunbury during the rugby season. A few hundred metres to the east of Sunbury Cross is Kempton Park Racecourse.

Sunbury Court, in Lower Sunbury, is the home of the High Council of the Salvation Army.
Lower Sunbury is the home of the Sunbury Millennium Embroidery. [1] The embroidery was conceived and designed in the 1990s and completed in 2000. Since July 2006 its permanent home is the purpose built Sunbury Millennium Embroidery Gallery, within the well-tended Walled Garden adjoining Sunbury Park. With the opening of a café within the gallery building, which architecturally resembles a boat, this has rapidly become a popular spot for locals and tourists alike, just across the road from a picturesque stretch of the Thames. The Walled Garden also hosts annual concerts and plays in the summer months.
In July of each year, Lower Sunbury is the start of the colourful traditional ceremony of Swan Upping, where two livery companies carry out marking of the swans on the upper reaches of the River Thames. In August, a traditional regatta takes place on the stretch of the river around Rivermead Island.

Local leisure, and entertainment

★ London Irish Rugby Club

★ Kempton Park Racecourse

★ Kempton Park Steam Engines at the Kempton Park waterworks

★ River Thames Boat Trips

★ The Riverside Arts Centre.

★ 862 (Sunbury) Air Training Corps

Famous people

Joe Gormley, Tom Jones, Adam Faith, Dickie Valentine, Admiral Edward 1st Baron Hawke, Ben Homewood (of ''The Bill'' fame), Kerry Norton (''Bad Girls'', actress and singer), Darren J Jimmy.

Nearest places

★ Hampton

★ Hanworth

★ Feltham

★ Shepperton

★ Walton-on-Thames

★ Ashford, Middlesex

★ Staines

★ Twickenham

★ Heathrow

Transport

Road

★ A316, becomes the start of the M3 motorway.

★ A308, directions towards Staines and Kingston-upon-Thames.

★ A244, directions towards Hounslow and Walton-on-Thames.

Rail

★ Sunbury

★ Kempton Park

Air

★ London Heathrow Airport is 5 miles away.

Emergency services

Sunbury is served by these emergency sevices:

★ Surrey Police (it was within the boundary of the Metropolitan Police district until 2000.)

★ South East Coast Ambulance Service as of 1 July 2006, formed from the former Surrey Ambulance Service, Sussex, and Kent Ambulance services.

★ Surrey Fire & Rescue Service.