| Country: | England |
| Static Image Caption: | Hersham Village |
| Coordinates: | 51.3681°N -0.4008°W |
| Official Name: | Hersham |
| Map Type: | Surrey |
| Population: | 12,414 |
| Population Ref: | (2011 census)[1] |
| Area Total Km2: | 10.29 |
| Civil Parish: | n/a |
| Shire District: | Elmbridge |
| Shire County: | Surrey |
| Region: | South East England |
| Constituency Westminster: | Esher and Walton |
| Post Town: | WALTON-ON-THAMES |
| Postcode District: | KT12 |
| Postcode Area: | KT |
| Dial Code: | 01932 and 01372 |
| Os Grid Reference: | TQ114641 |
Hersham is a suburban village in Surrey, within the M25 and the Greater London Built-up Area. It has a mixture of low and high rise housing and has four technology/trading estates. Hersham is contiguous with Walton-on-Thames, its post town, to the north and northwest, and with Esher to the east.
Hersham is served by Hersham and Walton-on-Thames railway stations with a minimum of two trains per hour and differing types of services on the South West Main Line.
Two golf courses are within its bounds, Burhill Golf Club and Hersham Village Golf Club; considerable other land is wooded, used for mixed farming or Esher Rugby Club, much of which is Metropolitan Green Belt.
According to Hersham in Surrey:[2] That this could have been constructed at all indicates a fairly large population in the district, a chieftain of some sort, organised labour and a desperate perhaps recurring danger. Bronze and Iron Age burials have been found on the slopes of the hill which was clearly a feature of some importance in ancient times.
The Anglo-Saxons may well have been the first permanent settlers here; they gave the name to the place and no older remains of actual dwellings in areas not mentioned above have been found. In the 12th century it was written Haverichesham suggesting Haeferick's hamlet or river bend settlement. By contraction the name become Haverisham, Haversham, Harsham or Hersham before finally settling only on the latter.
Hersham's first chapel of ease (Holy Trinity church, which was demolished in 1889 having been superseded) was built of yellow brick in Anglo-Norman style in 1839. Similarly congregationalists had a Round Chapel which existed from 1844 until 1961, the year in which the single dual carriageway in Hersham was created, and enabling its construction.[3]
Instead of merely (for vestry and property owning matters such as poor relief, road maintenance, manorial ownership, land tax and tithes) being the southern hamlet of Walton, Hersham became an ecclesiastical parish in 1851. The dividing line was what then officially termed the "London and South Western Railway line" and all borders remain almost unchanged by later local government and ecclesiastical parish decisions. The present Anglican church of St. Peter was built by Mr. J. L. Pearson, R.A., in 1887 on a site was given by Lieut. Col. Terry of Burvale, Hersham. It is of brick and stone in 13th-century style, has a nave and aisles, five arcades, chancel, transepts, and a western tower and spire.
Hersham has an interesting industrial history with notable companies such as ABC Motors, Air Products, Faulkners, Hackbridge & Hewittick and Vickers-Armstrongs all having factories in the village during the last century. In 1929 an aeroplane designed by Anthony Fletcher was constructed in the village by ABC Motors. Designed by Anthony Fletcher and fitted with an ABC Scorpion aero engine, this was test flown from nearby Brooklands and had could have been built in quantity but became a victim of the economic depression of 1929-32. Other specialist Hersham firms include coachbuilders Compton & Herman Ltd based in Molesey Road in the 1920s before being renamed Compton Motor Body Builders and later moving first to Kingston and then to New Malden.
In World War II, in a daring daylight raid on 4 September 1940, German bombers successfully attacked the important Vickers aircraft factory at Brooklands killing nearly 90 people. Four of the victims were never identified but buried in Hersham's Burvale Cemetery and another Vickers worker, 36 year old William E Hunt, was buried close by. Luftwaffe bombers also dropped various bombs on and around Hersham and six V-1 flying bombs exploded in the parish. Besides the significant contribution of ABC Motors to the British war effort with products that included auxiliary power units for Short Sunderland flying boats), Vickers-Armstrongs had four secret production sites in the village and its surrounding parish occupied the existing Ben Stanley Ltd bus depot and workshop in Burwood Road as part of its dispersed Tinsmiths Department. Known as depot 'W15', this site supplied essential sheet metal parts for Vickers Wellington and Vickers Warwick aircraft manufactured at Brooklands. The other locations were at Burhill Golf Club ('W32'- see below) plus Corbie Wood ('W86' which included both a Bellman hangar and an Air Ministry T.2 Type hangar) and Riseholme ('W63'), both located on the St George's Hill side of Seven Hills Road.
See main article: Whiteley Village. This private retirement village, which allocates some of its accommodation to disabled poor residents, is set in a lightly undulating, elevated, wooded part of Hersham and was created from a bequest of £1m left by a London department store pioneer William Whiteley.[5]
Hersham is in the borough of Elmbridge, in northwest Surrey and has no particular sub-localities except for Burwood Park, which alongside certain other addresses in the village is, when published for any purposes, due to its proximity to Walton-on-Thames railway station, done so under the name of Hersham's post town only, Walton on Thames.[6] A planned community also exists in the south almost entirely for the retired, Whiteley Village.
In the nucleus of the village is Hersham Green, of open space on which regular events take place throughout the year. Just across from the green is a shopping centre, consisting of multiple shops and restaurants. Within a few minutes walk of the village centre in the east are green fields and meadows alongside the River Mole and footpaths both through and by fields used for mixed farming.
The parish boundaries run from the South West Main Line railway in the North to the East and through St George's Hill in the West.Places within Hersham therefore technically include part of Saint George's Hill, all of Burwood Park and Whiteley Village.
King George III visited Weylands farm in Hersham where he saw the first drill plough. Queen Victoria wrote in her diary how she saw her first steam train in Hersham when she was a young girl.
In more recent times the punk group Sham 69 with lead singer Jimmy Pursey, had its roots in Hersham. The band's biggest hit was Hersham Boys. Sham 69 took their name from the remnants of a piece of graffiti in the area which made reference to when Walton and Hersham Football Club secured the Athenian League title in 1969.
Due to its proximity to London and Shepperton Studios, Hersham is frequently a filming location for film and television productions including Nighty Night, The Glass, and Monty Python The second series of the TV show, Ashes to Ashes was filmed in Hersham. The Mummy was filmed in Hersham. The TV Show "Not Going Out is filmed in Hersham as was Never the Twain and several TV and Film advertisements
Hersham is also home to Britain's largest colony of parakeets near Esher Rugby Club. This was estimated in 2004 to have consisted of around 7,000 birds.[15]
Within Hersham is the mixed, secondary Three Rivers Academy. The school holds specialist Business and Enterprise College status, and boasts an impressive drama programme. Its roll holds approx. 1200 students. Hersham also has three primary schools – Burhill, became primary in 2015, Bell Farm, became primary in 2014 and Cardinal Newman.
Esher RFC is a multi-pitch rugby union club in Hersham since approximately 1939 (see notes). Their first men's team is notable in the region and saw 2012-14 among the upper 50% of clubs in RFU National League 1 (the third level of the sport in England), having been relegated in the previous season. Esher play at The Rugby Ground, 369 Molesey Road. The 1st XV play in a black-amber strip.
TV presenter John Inverdale has long been associated with the club, albeit the 2010s saw his involvement diminish.
Hersham Village Golf Club is on the south side of the village; snooker player John Virgo is a former president.[16]
Hersham's large second golf club is Burhill Golf Club (with North and South courses, the latter of which has been added near Burwood Park. Early in World War II, Barnes Wallis and several hundred staff were evacuated to Burhill Golf Club from the nearby Vickers-Armstrongs aircraft factory at Brooklands and designed the legendary Dambusters 'bouncing bomb' there.
Four technology/trading estates exist in Hersham:
A major nearby conjoined set of trading estates spans the Weybridge/Byfleet border at Brooklands and Heathrow Airport also has a range of employers, though this is across Walton-on-Thames itself and the borough of Spelthorne.[17] Most important to the local economy is the accessibility of Central London – see Rail below, with more than 500,000 train entries and exits per annum recorded across the two stations bordering and in the village itself.
The very modest High Street contains almost entirely only convenience and socialising stores; fashion and leisure shops are to be found less than to the north, in Walton on Thames. As part of the development of Hersham a new shopping centre was built in the early 1980s with a large supermarket (30k sq feet).
Hersham is served by Hersham and Walton-on-Thames railway stations with a minimum of two trains per hour even on Sundays and differing types of services on the South West Main Line. Fast trains stopping at Walton-on-Thames reach London Waterloo within 30 minutes.
The M25 Junction 10 is 4 miles away and an A-roads and dual carriageway connect neighbouring (but not contiguous) Esher and the almost bordering towns of Weybridge and Cobham, across a narrow strip of Walton on Thames.
| + 2011 Census Homes | |||||||
| Output area | Detached | Semi-detached | Terraced | Flats and apartments | Caravans/temporary/mobile homes | Shared between households | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hersham North (ward) | 497 | 1,084 | 436 | 451 | 1 | 0 | |
| Hersham South (ward) | 973 | 928 | 348 | 405 | 10 | 0 |
| Output area | Population | Households | % Owned outright | % Owned with a loan | hectares | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hersham North (ward) | 5,992 | 2,469 | 27 | 41 | 230 | |
| Hersham South (ward) | 6,422 | 2,664 | 35 | 35 | 799 |