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Hinchley Wood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hinchley Wood is a residential community approximately 14 miles south-west of London, England. At the 2001 census it consisted of 1,429 households with a population of 3,674. It developed largely because of the railway line which passes through the area, and many of its residents are commuters to London. There are a number of shops, and a petrol station. Hinchley Wood School is one of the main secondary schools in the area and the suburb is served by a railway station.
In 1999, Hinchley Wood residents took on McDonalds to defeat a plan to turn their local pub into a fast-food outlet. In 1997, the pub had earlier provided a historical footnote when former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, visited it when their flight home to Russia was delayed.
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Initially the farmland on which Hinchley Wood was to be built was an outpost of Thames Ditton. In 1925, Esher Council considered a petition from the small number of residents of Manor Road, in which ribbon development from Thames Ditton was taking place, for the provision of a new station between Surbiton and Claygate on the railway that had opened in 1885. The Southern Railway was not interested in a new station in 1925 because it would create no new traffic, but the opening of the Kingston Bypass changed everything.
Immediately the speculative possibilities created by the bypass were considered. Furthermore even as it was being built a sewer was laid under it, at Manor Road, to facilitate development. The opening of Hinchley Wood railway station brought about the rapid emergence of Hinchley Wood as a coherent, identifiable settlement, with a housing stock so plainly superior to that typical of the 1930s.
At its annual general meeting in 1927, the chairman called attention to “great increment in the value of the land, which goes into the pockets of vigilant people at our expense”. G.T. Crouch agreed to contribute £2,500 towards the cost (about one-third) of the building of the station.
Having been given planning permission to build Hinchley Wood in September 1929, Crouch struck a deal with the Southern Railway for the construction of the station. In order to persuade the Southern Railway to build it, Crouch had to help pay for it. Although the Southern Railway knew that a new settlement would bring new business, it also knew the benefit to Crouch.
Hinchley Wood railway station was to be built where conveniently the tracks separated already, making it the more economically built and manned. Additionally, the Southern Railway bought some more land on which to build a goods yard, which in the event was never built because competition from road haulage became too great, but the land was retained, ultimately to allow a car park to be provided.
When the station opened, Hinchley Wood comprised a couple of dozen houses and a petrol filling station in a field that bordered the bypass. Development took place around the shops that were built next to the station.
The speed at which the houses in Hinchley Wood were built was phenomenal, with the peak years being in 1933-34 when 750 residents moved in, many of whom were London commuters. The Hinchley Wood Residents’ Association was formed in 1931 and quickly became an effective voice for the community on Esher Council.[1]
The train service in the 1930s, although considerably more frequent and faster than today, was the regular cause of complaint: such was the rapid growth of Hinchley Wood that overcrowding of trains became an issue as well as their timing.[citation needed]
Hinchley Wood is featured in Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places To Live In The UK (ISBN 0-7522-1582-5),
- ^ Hinchley Wood history from the Surrey Advertiser