HISTORY of ADDLESTONE
The current name 'Addlestone' derives from the original Anglo-Saxon
occupation of the area. 'Aetell's Dene' meant Aetell's valley and the
name later corrupted to its present form. The settlement was so sparse
as not to merit a mention in the Doomsday Book (1086), and the first
documentary mention was as late as 1241.
In the seventeenth century Addlestone was still a small hamlet at the
edge of a large common, but like a number of English villages its economy
and layout were transformed by the enclosures of the early nineteenth
century when the Agricultural Revolution changed the face of the landscape.
The 1841 census revealed 244 houses and a population of 1,295.
The main occupations were Agricultural Labourer (184 men) and Domestic
Service (75 women), although there were among others, 8 Blacksmiths
and 4 Bootmakers.
It was the coming of the railway in 1848, however, which made Addlestone
a commuter town and led to further housing developments.
A number of handsome villas were built between the years 1845-75, mainly
in Station Road, Church Road and on Woburn Hill.
Gradually more and more farming land was given over to building, and
this process accelerated in the period between the two World Wars. Farming
associations still abound (in fact the first building you see on reaching
Addlestone from Junction 11 off the M25 is Hatch Farm) but the oldest
historical link with the past is undoubtedly the Crouch Oak. This ancient
tree is probably a thousand years old, and once marked the boundary
of Windsor Forest. It was an obvious local meeting place, and legend
would have us believe that Queen Elizabeth I once had a picnic beneath
its branches.
Local legend, of course, are notoriously unreliable and we are on firmer
ground when we say that the First World War gave a boost to Addlestone's
development when the Bleriot Aeroplane factory and the Lang Propeller
Works were established. Lang Propeller was based at Hamm Court Lane
and at its peak supplied wooden propellers to nearly every aeroplane
company in England.
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Alcock and Brown flew the Atlantic on a Lang's propeller
and there is a letter in the Chertsey Museum to prove the point.
Louis Bleriot flew the Channel in 1909 in a plane that he built himself,
and this faith in his own product soon gave him full order books. He
started a factory at Brooklands but in 1916 he moved to Station Road,
Addlestone where he stayed until 1924. In the 1930s this factory switched
to military vehicles, and in due course it became Plessey's and later
Marconi.
Addlestone has another French connection in that the classic novelist
Emile Zola lived briefly in the town between August and October 1898.
He resided at 'Summerfields' on Spinney Hill, which is still there,
although the large garden has now become Summerfields Close. Zola had
been given a prison sentence by the French after publishing his famous
'J'accuse' defence of Dreyfus, but he escaped to England to avoid imprisonment.
Apparently Zola thought that Summerfields was rather rambling and overgrown,
but he enjoyed the area and was particularly fond of cycling around
the Surrey lanes. He returned to France in 1899.
By 1920 the population was only 7,500 but Addlestone expanded greatly
between the two World Wars as surburbia boomed.
In 1965 Chertsey Urban District Council completed its new Civic Offices
in Station Road, Addlestone, and these premises became the home of the
Runnymede Borough Council when Chertsey Urban District Council merged
with its counterpart Egham in 1974. The Civic Offices are strategically
placed, just a short walk from the railway station and a 5 minute drive
from the M25.
There is a police station, a library, 2 large supermarkets and a range
of shops, all of which radiate along Station Road rather than the somewhat
inappropriately named High Street, perhaps demonstrating more than ever
the impact that the railway had on the ribbon of development of the
town. The Council, however, is determined to enhance the appearance
of Addlestone, and encourage progressive development along the High
Street and Station Road. The 'Action Addlestone' initiative seeks to
harness public and private funding to improve the vitality and viability
of the town centre with particular emphasis on the needs of shoppers
and pedestrians.
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