Thames Ditton, Surrey - Watts Road - local postcard c.1990s

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Watts Road, Thames Ditton, Surrey
• Publisher:  Thames Ditton and Weston Green Residents Association, c.1980s or 1990s
• Postally used:  no - written but not posted
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Thames Ditton is a village in Surrey, England, bordering Greater London. It is situated on the southern bank of the River Thames, 12.2 miles (19.6 km) south-west of Charing Cross between the towns of Surbiton, Esher and East Molesey. Despite being on the fringe of London, and now surrunded by suburban housing rather than farmland, Thames Ditton retains much of the character of a village with all of its shopping area lying in its conservation area Elmbridge Borough Conservation Area Map, Thames Ditton, with its many riverside houses and two pubs opposite Hampton Court Park.

The first written record of Thames Ditton is in a charter dated 983 when King Æthelred granted to Æthelmær, his minister, nine hides (cassati) at Thames Ditton, Surrey. Furthermore in The Cartulary of the Abbey of Eynsham Transaction, King Æthelred sent to Eynsham Abbey confirmation of the foundation (in 1005) by Æthelmær, the endowment including 20 hides at Esher, Surrey (granted by Beorhthelm, bishop, to Æthelweard, and bequeathed by Æthelweard to his son, Æthelmær); and land at Thames Ditton, Surrey, among several other items.

Two Dittons appear in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Ditone and Ditune. Under the Normans the one now identified with Thames Ditton was held by Wadard from the Bishop of Bayeux. Its Domesday assets were: 2½ hides; part of a mill worth 1s 3d, 1½ ploughs, 4 acres (16,000 m²) of meadow, woodland worth 20 hogs. It rendered £4.^[2] There were four households. Other manors that came to form part of Thames Ditton were those of Weston, Imworth (or Imber), and for a while, Claigate (Claygate). From Domesday, the combined population of Thames Ditton (4), Long Ditton (11), Immeworth (2) and Weston (9) was some 26 households of villagers and smallholders.

Later, the manors of both Dittons were reunited when Anne Gould inherited the manor of Thames Ditton and married Thomas Eveleyn who had inherited the manor of (Long) Ditton; but by that time the manor of Thames Ditton amounted to little by way of land and to all effects Thames Ditton comprised mainly the manors of Imworth and of Weston, with some lands from Claygate, Long Ditton and even Kingston extending into the present-day boundaries of Thames Ditton and Weston Green.

Under Eynsham Abbey Thames Ditton had been parceled with Esher, and Salter's footnotes to his 1907 translation of the Cartulary assert that Thames Ditton was in the Saxon administrative district of Elmbridge Hundred. Salter's introduction to the Cartulary notes that along with Esher, Eynsham appears to have lost Thames Ditton by the Norman Conquest and the Domesday survey recorded that (before the Conquest) Ditton had been held by Earl Harald (subsequently King until 1066). In Domesday Thames Ditton (as well as adjacent Long Ditton and 'Ember' or Immeworth, later Imber Court) is listed within Kingston Hundred and later is given in Speed's map of Surrey (1611) as being in Kingston Hundred. Subsequent topographical histories record Thames Ditton as in Kingston Hundred: many significant residents of Thames Ditton were also senior figures in the administration of Kingston, and the courts of Kingston held jurisdiction over both Kingston and Elmbridge Hundreds. Thames Ditton came under the Metropolitan Police rather than the Surrey Police until the present millennium; and most other aspects of local administration in the Victorian era - roads, drains, gas, electricity, the Poor Union - came under bodies in Kingston until reform of local government led to the establishment of the Esher and the Dittons Urban District Council in 1894. On the other hand, Thames Ditton always remained clearly outside the area governed by the Corporation of Kingston. Whether Thames Ditton and Long Ditton should be administratively associated more with the Borough of Kingston - and now the greater London metropolitan area - than with Elmbridge and Surrey proper has been a recurrent theme in attempted local government reforms since the 1960s. The residents of the village have opted firmly for Elmbridge and Surrey.

Following the Norman Conquest, part of the land was granted to the monks of Merton Priory by Gilbert the Norman, and a Chapel - now the church - was built, the first recorded incumbent being in 1179. The chapelry of Thames Ditton was subordinate to Kingston Rectory until the late 1700s. By Act of Parliament in 1769 Thames Ditton, which had already from the early 1600s assumed the civilian vestry responsibilities of a parish, became a separate curacy and an ecclesiastical parish in its own right, subsuming Hinchley Wood, Claygate and Weston Green (Long Ditton had remained a separate parish, not within the Kingston Rectory, despite attempts during Cromwell's time to fuse the two). However, the advowson remained in the hands of the Hardinge family of Kingston until Nicholas Hardinge sold it along with the advowson of Kingston and other subordinate chapelries to Kings College, Cambridge, in 1781, subject to a long lease otherwise disposed of. The Hardinges retained the right of presentation for a period (then subsequently leased that too) and Rev Henry Hardinge, Rector of Kingston, was also the incumbent at St Nicholas for a brief and ill-starred time.

Isolated on marshy wetlands, the village seems to have avoided the travails of Kingston (a strategic garrison town often pillaged) and remained a relatively insignificant settlement of farming Manors, although there must have been at least one residence of note, for the Chancery Rolls of 1212 record that King John was entertained at Ditton by Geoffrey Fitz Pierre, the Chief Justice (writes Burchett). This was most likely on the site of Imber Court. Another substantial house was on the site close to the chapel of ease, now the Church. Thames Ditton became more significant with the building of Hampton Court Palace by Thomas Wolsey in the early 16th century. Once the palace was claimed by Henry VIII in 1525, palace officials and other workers took up residence in Thames Ditton, which with Thames Ditton Island was a useful crossing point across the River Thames from Surrey to the palace in Middlesex, before the bridge at Hampton Court was built in 1752-3. However, development in the village suffered greatly when Henry VIII acquired most of the lands and enclosed them within the deer Chase in the Honour of Hampton Court. Following his death, residents of the area successfully petitioned for it to be de-Chased and normal activities resumed. From that time the convenience of Thames Ditton to London - two or three hours by horse or carriage; the cachet of nearby Hampton Court, Claremont and Esher Place, Royal Kingston with its market and coach service, and the still rural aspect of the village prompted many to make their main or second homes there and a richly diverse crop of residents both notable and less so resulted.

During the 18th century, lawlessness grew and the roads around the village were plagued with highwaymen, in particular the turnpike to Portsmouth, and influential voices within the community began to band together to deal with crime. Following a meeting at the Harrow Inn on 26 January 1792 a group of some 80 local men (a significant percentage of the sparse population) formed a group for 'the protection of persons and property' with a list of crimes, fines and rewards (transcript of document in the T. S. Mercer Collection of parish records, Dittons Library)

type=printed postcards

theme=topographical: british

sub-theme=england

county/ country=surrey

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=unposted