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Addlestone

Aetell, Queen Elizabeth 1st and BleriotThe name of ‘Addlestone’ derives from the original Anglo-Saxon occupation of the area, being a corruption of ‘Aetell’s Dene’, meaning Aetell’s valley. The settlement was so sparse as not to merit a mention in the Domesday Book (1086), and the first documented reference was as late as 1241.

In the 17th 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 19th 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 which made Addlestone a commuter town and led to further housing developments. A number of handsome villas were built between 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 of 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 legends, 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 Moor Lane and at its peak supplied wooden propellers to nearly every aeroplane company in England. Alcock and Brown flew the Atlantic on a Lang’s propeller and there is a letter in the collection at 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 nearby Brooklands but in 1916 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 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 had grown to 7,500 and Addlestone continued to expand between the two World Wars as suburbia boomed. In 1965 Chertsey Urban District Council completed its new Civic Offices in Station Road, Addlestone, and these premises became the home of the new Runnymede Borough Council when Chertsey Urban District Council merged with Egham Urban District Council in 1974. There is a Police station, a library, a Tesco superstore, and a range of shops, most 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 development of the town. The needs of sports and fitness enthusiasts are met by the recently upgraded Addlestone Leisure Centre.

Now modern day Addlestone is being spruced up to meet 21st Century tastes and expectations. The Council has driven an impressive programme of improvements in recent years which includes the construction of the new Aviator Park business estate, a scheme to create a more pleasant environment for shoppers and pedestrians in Station Road and a new £2.3m Community Centre. A new multi purpose community complex incorporating Civic Offices and Police Station is also scheduled to open towards the end of 2007 in order to help deliver the kind of quality public services the residents of the Borough deserve.