Pyrford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pyrford | |
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| Population | 5,074[1] |
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| OS grid reference | |
| District | Woking |
| Shire county | Surrey |
| Region | South East |
| Constituent country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Woking |
| Postcode district | GU22 |
| Dial code | 01932 |
| Police | Surrey |
| Fire | Surrey |
| Ambulance | South East Coast |
| UK Parliament | Woking |
| European Parliament | South East England |
| List of places: UK • England | |
Pyrford is a village in Surrey, situated to the south-east of Woking, and within a few miles of the M25 London orbital motorway (junction 10) to the east. Nearby villages include West Byfleet and Ripley. The village is bisected by the Wey Navigation Canal. Several important routes pass through the area including the B367 (Upshott Lane/Church Hill) and B382 (Old Woking Road). The open areas to the south and east of Pyrford are designated as Green Belt.[2]
Pyrford is mentioned in H. G. Wells' book The War of the Worlds, in which it was near the landing site of the third of ten Martian invasion cylinders.
The name Pyrford is derived from the saxon Pyrianforde which means "the ford by the pear tree".
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Pre-1500
The area has a long history with evidence of habitation from pre-historic times. The Pyrford Stone which now stands at the corner by Upshott Lane is thought to be a pre-historic standing stone. Evidence has been found of Roman occupation and a pot of coins from the first century AD were discovered when Romans Way was being built.
King Eadwig granted the Saxon manor of Pyrianforde to a friend in 956AD and a Charter exists which details the boundaries and with place names still familiar despite the passage of over a thousand years.
When William the Conqueror conducted the great Domesday Survey, Pyrford had a population of around 100 and was valued at £18. There was arable land for seven plough teams, half of which were owned by the villagers themselves; fifteen acres of meadows and woods with pasture for eighty pigs. Two mills were recorded and there may have been a chapel.
King William granted the "Manor of Piriford in the Forest of Windlesores" to the Abbott of Westminster in 1087. This Royal Charter carries one of very few remaining impressions of his Great Seal and is of considerable historical importance. The Charter is now kept at Westminster Abbey. The granting of the Charter was fortunate for Pyrford as the Abbey's estates became tax free. Pyrford remained under Westminster Abbey until 1539.
Newark Priory was founded at the end of the 12th century by Ruald de Clane and his wife Beatrice of Send and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Thomas a Becket. It was a "novo loco" - a new place for monks from nearby, the name changing over the years to Newstead and then finally Newark.
In the 14th century, Pyrford was a thriving community: seventy of the one hundred and seventy tenants recorded around this period had their own smallholdings. At this time a resident of Pyrford would have received a penny a day for haymaking or twopence for stacking corn.
The Black Death and the bubonic plague swept across England in the middle of the 14th century and in common with many other towns and villages, the population of Pyrford was halved.
[edit] 1500-1800
King Henry VII Cottage, along the Pyrford Road, was built around 1500.
King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1539. At Newark, the prior was pensioned off, valuables sent to the Tower of London and the land given to the Master of the King's Horse. It has been said that a cannon was employed from the top of Church Hill to bombard or demolish, what were, the then extensive buildings. This incident is portrayed in one of a series of paintings made by artist Tessa Kewen in 1963 which are displayed in the porch of St. Nicholas Church.
The dissolution of Newark Priory was hard on the people of Pyrford; their land was taken by the Henry VIII and include in his hunting park, which stretched for miles from Hampton Court. Local people were put under the oppressive forest laws and frequently lost their crops to his protected deer herds. Forest Law was only finally revoked at the end of the 17th century.
Mary I tried to re-establish Newark Priory but Pyrford reverted to Crown Property under Queen Elizabeth I. The Manor of Pyrford was given by her to the Earl of Lincoln, the Lord High Admiral of her Fleet. In 1550, he built himself "an house in Pyriford" - Pyrford Place. The next Lord of the Manor was Sir John Wolley. His wife, Lady Elizabeth More was a favourite Lady in Waiting to the Queen before her marriage. Elizabeth I is known to have visited Pyrford frequently. Fokelore says that she descended from her carriage and walked up the steep hill to St Nicholas's Church.
Sir Francis Wolley succeeded his father in 1595. The famous poet John Donne was a friend of Sir Francis and was employed as a secretary at Pyrford Place. Scandal ensued when the poet ran away to marry Ann More, Francis's cousin and the heiress to Loseley Park near Guildford. Her father did not approve, the poet was disgraced and sent to jail - as was the unlucky priest who conducted the marriage. Sir Francis achieved a reconciliation and the Donne family lived with him at Pyrford Place until 1610. Many of John Donne's poems were thus written in Pyrford. Walkers along the Wey Navigation Canal can observe the Blue Plaque noting where Donne lived.
Lees Farm Barn (which in 1999 was converted to residential use) on Pyrford Road dates from the early 17th century. It has been said that its timbers were from ships of the Spanish Armada. Lees is a version of the name Leghes, as Lees Farm was held by Roger de Leghes in 1272. The original farmhouse is The Old House next door which is much older than the barn and is said to contain secret rooms and passages. The name 'Lees' seems to have fallen into disuse after seven hundred years.
Sir Richard Weston initiated the project to construct the Wey Navigation Canal. Work started in 1651 and was completed in 1653 at an eventual cost of £16,000. The canal covered fifteen miles with twelve locks managing a fall of sixty-eight feet. 200 men were employed on the work. The locks including that at Pyrford were some of the earliest in England and are now maintained by the National Trust. This project had a significant impact on the lives of the local people. As the photograph shows, Pyrford Lock was opened in 1653 and is at the end of the longest section of the Wey Navigation Canal.
Initially the Wey Navigation Canal was not a commercial success but it later became very profitable and the local mills shared in the prosperity. Daniel Defoe wrote of how corn ground in mills along the banks of the canal could be transported economically to London for sale. Other goods were also transported including: iron, leather and gunpowder from the Chilworth Powdermills near Guildford. Pyrford villagers were now able to use coal which was brought in by canal for the first time.
The parishes of Pyrford and Wisley had been joined by 1631 but the first church records are from the 1660s as earlier records had been destroyed by fire. The parishioners of the time were it seems generous people, amongst other donations made in 1678 were eightshillings and threepence given towards the building of St. Paul's Cathedral, and nine shillings and tenpence for French Protestant refugees.
In the 1750's the population of Pyrford was 133, fewer people than before the Black Death and hardly more than at the time of Domesday - seven centuries previously. The majority of Pyrford was Common Land. In this period there was a local iron industry with workings covering much of Wisley Common. Iron ore was extracted from the local "Bagshot sand". A number of fatalities were recorded when waggons overturned on the Common.
The towns were growing and their rising populations needed more food to be brought in from the countryside. Land started to be enclosed to meet this need. The Enclosure Acts at the turn of the eighteenth century brought poverty to many ordinary people who lost the common land rights which had enabled them to scrape a living from the land.
[edit] 1800 - 1945
The Pyrford Act of Enclosure took place in 1815 and the Commissioners who were appointed to carry out the Acts for Pyrford and Byfleet met at The Ship Inn at Weybridge. To bring about an Act of Enclosure required a petition from two thirds of the owners of already enclosed land. The Act removed common land rights and divided the land up, the main beneficiaries being those wealthy enough to have owned land previously. Pyrford Common is all that remains today of the mediaeval Common Land.
In Pyrford, 1,400 acres were enclosed, half of which went to the Lord of the Manor, Lord King. Some of this land, about one sixteenth, would have been given to him for nothing, the remainder was paid for at around £6 an acre.
The new owners altered roads to suit the new boundaries and often gave their names to them; Bolton's Lane and Tegg's Lane are examples. Bolton's Lane used to be called Bluegate Lane. Coldharbour Road was once called Bolton's Lane, but it seems nobody knows when or why it was changed.
Engliff Lane takes its name from Engliff's farm. This farm covered land to the north of the junction between Bolton's Lane and Engliff's Lane during the 18th century.
In 1834, the population of Pyrford was 320. Twenty or so people would have been destitute at any one time and their welfare was a parish responsibility. Glebe Cottage on Pyrford Road was once the village workhouse.
The land between Pyrford Place and Henry VII Cottage on the Pyrford Road was known as Pyrford Green. Although it had been common land for centuries, it was lost during the Enclosures. This land continued to serve as a village green however for many years after and is where the Pyrford Cricket Club originally played until the current site was provided alongside Coldharbour Road. Today the old green is part of a golf course, and provides land for the Wexfenne Gardens residential estate.
With the growth of urban development came change and a growth in the population. A school was opened for the first time in 1846, next to St Nicholas's Church.
Lovelace Drive (built in the 1950s) takes its name from the title chosen by the Eighth Lord of the Manor, the county's largest landowner, who became the 1st Earl of Lovelace in 1838. His wife was Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron. Countess Lovelace was the world's first computer programmer who devised in 1843 a plan of instructions, a program, for Mr. Babbage's famous Difference Engine.
In 1851, nearly 200 of the population of 350 were agricultural workers, but by 1871 only 95 out of 450 earned their living this way. Floyd's Lane takes its name from the village baker of around this time.
In the 1950s, Pyrford Woods were felled for the construction of residential Pyrford and the population expanded to over 5,000. The writer, Sylvia Lewin, recalls the district shortly before this as "a paradise for naturalists...nightingales in the copses, red squirrels in the woods...glow worms and snakes.. and countless frogs by the pond on the green".
The Royal Horticultural Society moved to Wisley in 1904, the garden is now famous worldwide and thousands visit every year.
Pyrford Village Hall was built in 1921 to commemorate the people of Pyrford who died during the Great War (1914-1918).
During the Second World War (1939-1945), the 20th Guard Brigade used Pyrford Court as accommodation for their HQ staff after Dunkirk. The house was also used for troop entertainment concert parties. In November 1940, King George VI dined at Pyrford Court whilst visiting the Guards.
[edit] 1945 - today
In 1947, the first annual Pyrford and Wisley Flower Show was held. The Flower Show, which has become a very popular and well attended event is held on the Cricket Green, at the beginning of July. Money is raised for many local charities.
The Waifs and Strays Society[3] moved to Pyrford at the same period and eventually St. Nicholas[4] and St. Martin's[5] Homes were built to house disabled children. These homes developed into The Rowley Bristow Hospital named after a well-known orthopaedic surgeon, Rowley Bristow. When the Rowley Bristow Hospital became redundant at the end of the 1980s, the area was derelict for several years. During this time the hospital grounds were used as a paintball activity centre. Eventually, the site was re-developed as the St. Nicholas Crescent and St. Martin's Mews residential estate.
With the large increase in population came the need for new facilities. Pyrford Church of England Primary School on Coldharbour Road was built at this time. Originally there were two separate schools on the site but these were later merged into one unit. Coldharbour Road is also the site of Oakfield School, an independent school which moved to its present site from West Byfleet in the 1950s.
The foundation stone for the Church of the Good Shepherd was laid on 1st June 1963 and dedicated by the Bishop of Guildford the following year.
The "Information Super-Highway", the internet, reached Pyrford at the start of the 1990s. The first Pyrford website was set up by Pyrford Press in 1994.
[edit] St. Nicholas Church
The Church of St. Nicholas was built around 1140 and is a fine example of a complete Norman church.
It is thought likely that Queen Elizabeth I would have worshipped at St. Nicholas Church. She reputedly donated a silver chalice to the church in 1570.
Original frescoes, painted in red ochre, were uncovered during renovations in 1869 and 1967. There are two sets of drawings from different periods with subjects including scenes from Christ's Passion and an illustration of pilgrims preparing to set sail for a pilgrimage to Spain.
The area around the church is a conservation area designated as of special architectual and historical importance
[edit] Sports
Pyrford Cricket Club was founded in 1858. Pyrford has three golf courses: Pyrford Golf Course, Wisley Golf Course and Traditions.
[edit] Transport
Hourly bus route 437 links Pyrford with Woking, West Byfleet, New Haw and Addlestone. The service is financially supported by Surrey County Council.
[edit] References
- ^ Population statistics
- ^ Woking Borough Council Planning
- ^ Hidden Lives - A History of the Waifs and Strays Society
- ^ Hidden Lives - St Nicholas' Orthopaedic Hospital And Special School, Pyrford
- ^ Hidden Lives - St Martin's Orthopaedic Hospital And Special School, Pyrford
