Chertsey, Surrey - Bridge - local postcard c.1940s

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Chertsey Bridge [on the River Thames, Surrey] - possibly a real photo
• Publisher:  none given (probably locally produced) - hand dated 1947
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition:  2 bumped corners only

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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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Chertsey is a town in the Runnymede borough of Surrey, England on the River Thames and a tributary, the River Bourne, within the Greater London Urban Area, bordered by junction 11 of the M25 London orbital motorway, the town of Addlestone and by villages and hamlets. Chertsey is centred 29 kilometres (18 mi) southwest of central London, and is bisected less than 1 mile (1.6 km) north of its developed centre by the M3.

This place appears in the endowment charter of its abbey in the 7th century as Cirotisege or Cerotesege — that is, the island of Cirotis.^[2]

Chertsey is one of the oldest towns in England that grew to all sides but the north around Chertsey Abbey, founded in 666 A.D by Eorcenwald, Bishop of London on a donation by Frithwald. Accordingly until the demise in use of hundred, used in the feudal system until the establishment of Rural Districts and Urban District Councils, the name chosen for the Chertsey area hundred was Godley Hundred. In the 9th century the Abbey and town were sacked by the Danes, leaving a mark today in the name of the village of Thorpe and refounded from Abingdon Abbey by King Edgar of England in 964.^[2]

Chertsey appears in the Domesday Book as Certesi. It was held partly by Chertsey Abbey and partly by Richard Sturmid from the abbey. Its Domesday assets were: 5 hides, 1 mill and 1 forge at the hall, 20 ploughs, 80 hectares of meadow, woodland worth 50 hogs. It rendered £22.^[3]

The Abbey grew to become one of the largest Benedictine abbeys in England, supported by large fiefs in the northwest corner of Sussex until it was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536. The King took stone from the Abbey to construct his palace at Oatlands Palace; the villagers also used stone for raising the streets. By the late 17th century, only some outer walls of the Abbey remained. During this period until at least 1911 a wider area was included in Chertsey: Ottershaw (and Brox) was an ecclesiastical district; whose church-sponsored (first built) schools were built in 1870, so too was Addlestone.^[2]

Today the history of the abbey is reflected in local place names and the surviving former fishponds that fill with water after heavy rain. The nearby Hardwick Court Farm, now much reduced in size and cut off from the town by the M25, retains the abbey's impressive 15th century tithe barn.

The eighteenth-century Chertsey Bridge^[4] provides an important cross-river link, and Chertsey Lock is a short distance above it on the opposite side. On the south west corner of the bridge is a bronze statue of local heroine Blanche Heriot striking the bell by Sheila Mitchell^FRBS.^[5]

In the 18th century Chertsey Cricket Club was one of the strongest in the country^[6] and beat the rest of England (excluding Hampshire) by more than an innings in 1778. The Duke of Dorset, (who played cricket for Chertsey), was appointed Ambassador to France in 1784. He arranged to have the Chertsey cricket team travel to France in 1789 to introduce cricket to the French nobility. However, the team, on arriving at Dover, met the Ambassador returning from France at the outset of the French Revolution and the opportunity was missed.

The original Chertsey railway station was built by the London and Southampton Railway and opened on the 14 February 1848. The present station, across the level crossing from the site of the original one, was opened on 10 October 1866 by the London and South Western Railway.^[7] The Southern Railway completed electrification of the line on 3 January 1937.

Samuel Lewis devotes one of his longest entries to then small town in his 1848 topographical guide to England:

Chertsey Regatta has been held on the river for over 150 years,^[9] which is in the non-Olympic sport of skiffing which has a club on this reach of river. Skiffing however has considerably fewer clubs than the Olympic-sport of rowing, which refers to fine boats and has the annual Burway Regatta above Chertsey Lock beside Laleham Park.

Chertsey was the home of Charles James Fox, who had wished to be buried there but instead is buried in Westminster Abbey. The nearby estate that is now the large Foxhills Golf Estate, Spa and Restaurant, close to Ottershaw and Lyne, was named in honour of him, but was not his home.

A long history of metal working exists and from the 19th century a prosperous bell foundry, Eldridge was in Windsor Street. Herrings, an Iron Foundry flourished during the 19th century and was situated in Gogmore Lane.^[10]

The Chertsey troop of the Berkshire Yeomanry occupied the Drill Hall on Drill Hall Road since 1977. The unit has close ties with the borough and was granted the freedom of Runnymede in 2009. The Drill Hall closed at the end of March 2010 and the troop had to return to Windsor due to cuts in the Territorial Army in 2009-2010.

Chertsey is part of the London commuter belt in the outermost part of the Greater London Urban Area and is served by Chertsey railway station and separated from all adjoining settlements by the buffer of designated areas of Green Belt. Measuring from centre to centre, Chertsey is 29 kilometres (18 mi) from London, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) from Addlestone, and 17.6 kilometres (10.9 mi) from the county town, Guildford.^[11] The traditional, yet commercially important town centre is a conservation area, joined by an arcade to a medium-sized supermarket and car park to the south.^[10]

The character of this central area is that of a traditional small town, with relatively narrow building frontages set hard up against the pavement, so that they clearly define the public space. The centre of the town is richly endowed with listed buildings most of which date from the 16th and 17th Centuries. In addition to the more than 56 numbered houses/shops (42 buildings) nationally listed buildings, nine other buildings in the conservation area are locally listed. A further 11 buildings outside the centre are also nationally listed.^[12]

type=real photographic (rp)

city/ region=chertsey

period=post-war (1945-present)

postage condition=unposted

number of items=single

size=standard (140x89 mm)