Sunbury-on-Thames, known locally as Sunbury, is a town on the north bank of the River Thames in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, England, southwest of central London. Sunbury and other surrounding towns, historically part of the county of Middlesex, were in 1965 intended to form part of the newly created county of Greater London, but were instead transferred to Surrey. Sunbury adjoins Feltham to the north, Hampton to the east, Ashford to the northwest and Shepperton to the southwest. Walton-on-Thames is to the south, on the opposite bank of the Thames.
The town has two main focal points: Lower Sunbury (known locally as Sunbury Village), adjoining the river. Sunbury Common (known locally as Sunbury Cross) is to the north and surrounds the railway station and the London end of the M3 motorway. Lower Sunbury contains most of the town's parks, pubs and listed buildings, whereas Sunbury Common is more urban and includes offices and hotels. Lower Sunbury holds an annual fair and regatta each August.
Sunbury railway station is on the Shepperton branch line. Trains to and from London Waterloo are operated by South Western Railway.
History
The earliest evidence of human settlement in Sunbury has been the discovery of Bronze Age funerary urns dating from the 10th century BCE in Green Lane, Sunbury Common. There is an important scheduled monument by Rooksmead Road, a prehistoric bowl barrow, known as Cloven Barrow, on low-lying ground that was part of the flood plain of the Thames, now around 1 km to the south. It has a circular mound approximately 14 m in diameter and 2.5 m high, surrounded by a ditch from which material used to build it was excavated. The ditch has become infilled over the years and survives as a buried feature up to 2 m wide. The monument has been partly disturbed by modern gardening activities, and by the construction of a greenhouse on its western side. Cloven Barrow (Old English Clofenan Beorh, or the 'barrow with a cleft') was mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon document, known as the "Sunbury Charter", which has been dated to around AD 962.
The place-name 'Sunbury' is first attested in one of the many Anglo-Saxon charters, one of to 962, where it appears as Sunnanbyrg. Another charter of 962 lists it as Sunnanbyrig. Sunbury appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Sunneberie. The name means 'Sunna's burgh or fortification'. The same first name is found in Sonning in Berkshire.Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, p. 453.
Sunbury's Domesday assets were: seven hides. It had five ploughs, meadow for six ploughs, and cattle pasture. It had about 22 households, including one priest and included the manor of Kempton, Kynaston, Chennes[-ton]/[-tone], Kenton or Kenyngton, listed separately. The manor rendered £6 per year to its feudal system overlords. That of Kempton rendered £4.Surrey Domesday Book Domesday Map – Sunbury Retrieved 17 December 2013Domesday Map – Kempton Retrieved 17 December 2013
Lower Sunbury presented for two centuries a mainly rural and quite gentrified village as still visible in many conserved buildings and structures, see Landmarks. Of particular note are the wealth and community tie of its parish church as well as many ornate and unusual houses and mansions (or mansion remains). The oldest and most extravagant homes are those from the Georgian era: throughout and for three decades after the 18th century, the time when the body of Sunbury's oldest church dates to – many of those on large plots of land have been demolished and subdivided.
Gilbert White described Sunbury, in The Natural History of Selborne, letter , 4 November 1767, as "one of those pleasant villages lying on the Thames, near Hampton Court".
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-restaurant it has become was named after the horse that one of the entertainers owned, whilst the Grand Order was named because Magpie – a trotting pony owned by Richard Thornton, music hall owner –Grand Order of Water Rats (GOWR) had been described as a drowned water rat. The Three Fishes in Green Street is one of the oldest pubs in Surrey, an officially protected building of the late 16th century.
In the twentieth century, kennels near Sunbury Cross in the town were used for keeping greyhounds for racing at the former stadia at Wandsworth, Charlton and Park Royal.
Sunbury-on-Thames is historically in Middlesex. Under the Local Government Act 1888, county councils were established in the following year, Sunbury being governed by the new Middlesex County Council. This was further refined by the creation of Sunbury-on-Thames Urban District in 1894.Vision of Britain – Sunbury UD (historic map) In 1965, all but three districts of Middlesex were absorbed into Greater London; Sunbury was one of these exceptions. For the area of Sunbury's Urban District, the upper tier of local government has been the county of Surrey. Royal Mail ignored the change in 1965; the former postal countyRoyal Mail Programmers' Guide, Edition 7, version 5.0, Royal Mail Group Ltd, 2009, p.65 is Middlesex.Royal Mail, Address Management Guide (2004) Mention of any county in postal addresses is considered dated but widely practised in some areas. In 1974 the Urban District was abolished; since that time it has been part of the Borough of Spelthorne.Arnold-Baker, C., Local Government Act 1972, (1973)
Topography and localities
Sunbury is a post town that is in part north and south of the M3, varying from 14m to 9m AOD, with a term for each part.
Lower Sunbury Lower Sunbury, , locally known as 'Sunbury village', bordering the Thames and the M3, is just over half of the town forming an almost entirely green-buffered residential suburb which contains eight schools, including three of the six secondary schools in the Borough (or of the eight, if independent schools too are counted).Schools by (grouped) location Surrey County Council. Accessed 14 April 2015 Opposed to London, partially in Shepperton are parts of the Metropolitan Green Belt including four farms, a golf course, riverside horseriding centre at Beasley's Ait, the Swan Sanctuary, a rugby training centre and Upper Halliford's park. Lower Sunbury has one of the larger NHS medical general practitioner (GP) centres in the Borough. Football fields, playgrounds and tennis courts are in both halves of the town; London Irish rugby club is the main organised team in the village. Sunbury Park has dog-walking, cycle paths, parking and is in a cluster with five others including a tree-lined linear park, a modest, sloped riverside park and an adjoining café-served park.
The town has since 1932 been the home to London Irish, whose Premiership team since 2001 has played at the Madejski Stadium in Reading, Berkshire. Many hundreds of players train at Sunbury during the rugby season. Its eastern border is Kempton Park Racecourse which has on the far side of the town the main area of historic woodland and wildlife preservation, the Kempton Park Reservoirs SSSI, which blends into the park's own ponds, woods, Portman Brook and additional channels in the Green Belt.
The neighbourhood has a tapestry known as the Millennium Embroidery, which was conceived and designed in the 1990s and completed in 2000. Since July 2006 its permanent home has been the purpose-built Sunbury Millennium Embroidery Gallery, in a well-tended, free-to-visit Walled Garden adjoining Sunbury Park. The opening of a café within the gallery building, which architecturally resembles a boat, has increased the leisure time spent in the predominantly Georgian and early Victorian conservation area, the majority of which runs along Thames Street, a small section of which King's Lawn is a terraced public riverside. Fishing is permitted here for those with two Environment Agency licences.Fishing Licences Gov.uk"You can fish for free anywhere downstream of Staines Bridge to Teddington where there is public access." Visit Thames. Accessed 14 April 2015. The Walled Garden hosts annual concerts, flower displays, events related to its facing Millennium Embroidery Café and occasionally plays in summer.Sunbury Millennium Embroidery Retrieved 14 March 2015 Three public pools attract swimmers: Nuffield Health; You Fit (next to the Shepperton border); and Everyone Active's Sunbury Leisure Centre.
In July of each year, Lower Sunbury is the commencement point of the colourful traditional ceremony of Swan Upping, where two livery companies carry out marking of the swans on all upper reaches of the River Thames. In August, the traditional Sunbury Amateur Regatta takes place on the stretch of the river around Rivermead Island.
Lower Sunbury has similar property plot sizes to Shepperton and house prices as Hampton. Most property is 1930s–1960s semi-detached or detached houses with gardens on verge or tree-lined roads. The railway here benefits from seating at peak times but gives lower speed of access to the City of London relative to the South West Main Line developments of Elmbridge. Wide roads and parking provide strengths of the borough. The largest plots of garden measure only around an acre not covering any of the grassy plain, western outlying farms or boundary-lining trees in the far east and west. Lower Sunbury has numerous pubs, independent restaurants. A dog-free meadow permitting informal cricket and football is near the main parade of shops at which annual carols are held and at the regatta time in August a celebratory street market takes place.
Sunbury Common
The northern section is Sunbury Common, patches of which remain, commanded by its four tower blocks and two hotels, overall with a mixed-use urban composition; it also houses major employers, including offices of Siemens, European Asbestos Solutions, Chubb and BP. The M3, with its inaugural junction at Sunbury Cross, sections off Lower Sunbury. Sunbury Common has a long, curved shopping parade that includes Marks & Spencer, Halfords, Farmfoods supermarket, Costa and Boots as well as beauty and nail salons. Also in this area, set off the main road, is a Tesco Extra.
North and east of the area is part of the green belt: a small farm and larger natural brookland habitat. Most of this area is in the adjoining London Borough of Hounslow, and was before the early 19th century part of distant Hanworth Park, historically part of Hounslow Heath. Its wild flower meadows, brooks and human-made troughs with wetland plants and insects form the Kempton Park Reservoirs SSSI. The operational Kempton Reservoirs and roads passing into Hampton form the rest of the town's eastern border, a buffer further south.
Sunbury here has five or six high-rise tower blocks: three residential (including the newly converted Chubb building) and two hotels. Similarly, it has industrial/business parks clustered generally in the acute angles between the M3/A316 (Country Way) and the A308 (Staines Road West). BP's Engineering and Research Centre in the north replaced Meadhurst House and gardens occupied by the Cadbury family and has evolved into BP's international centre for business and technology across a number of landscaped units. A number of other major companies have premises.
Marking the western border of the Upper Halliford/Charlton parts of Sunbury ecclesiastical and historic parish – though no longer by the town – is the Queen Mary Reservoir, which was constructed from 1914 to 1925 and is home to a sailing club regularly used by schools and youth organisations to teach water sports.
Landmarks
Anglican church