Ockham

From Wikishire
Jump to: navigation, search
Ockham
Surrey
Church End - geograph.org.uk - 752826.jpg
Church End, Ockham
Location
Grid reference: TQ073565
Location: 51°17’53"N, 0°27’40"W
Data
Population: 384  (2001)
Postcode: GU23
Local Government
Council: Guildford
Parliamentary
constituency:
Mole Valley

Ockham is a tiny village in Surrey near East Horsley. The village lies to the east of the A3 which runs between Cobham and Guildford. Other nearby villages include Ripley, Wisley and Effingham.

Ockham appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Bocheham. It was held by Richard Fitz Gilbert. Its Domesday assets were: 1½ hides; 1 church, 2 fisheries worth 10d, 3 ploughs, 2 acres of meadow, woodland worth 60 hogs. It rendered £10.[1]

Most notably, Ockham is believed to be the birthplace of William of Ockham[2]—famous Mediæval philosopher and the proponent of the theorem known as "Occam's razor", and more recently, Ada Lovelace lived at Ockham Park.

Ockham Common, to the north east of the village, is the site of the disused Wisley Airfield, which has a paved mile-long runway. As late as 1972, this airfield was in service as a satellite fit-out and flight test centre for Vickers and latterly the British Aircraft Corporation, linked to their main factory and airfield at nearby Brooklands, Weybridge, capable of taking aircraft as large as the VC10.

Ockham has a small parish church, All Saints;[3] a memorial to those who gave their lives in the Great War and Second World War; a cricket club; and the pub The Black Swan (near Ockham Common).

The village gave its name to HMS Ockham, a Ham class minesweeper.

Ockham has both a cricket and football team that plays at weekends at Hautboy Meadows on Ockham Lane. The cricket club have two teams in the Surrey Downs League and a Sunday friendly-only side. The Football Club are in the Guildford & Woking Alliance.

The club house, that has recently been refurbished, is open for members on Friday evenings all year around and opens all day Saturdays and Sundays during the cricket season

Outside links

Ockham Mill
Commons-logo.svg
("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Ockham)

References

  1. Surrey Domesday Book
  2. There are claims that he was born in Ockham, Yorkshire but it is now accepted that his birth place was in Surrey. See Wood, Rega (1997). Ockham on the Virtues. Purdue University Press. pp. 3, 6–7n1. ISBN 9781557530974. 
  3. Picture of All Saints Church