Upper Halliford
| Upper Halliford | |
| Middlesex | |
|---|---|
 Upper Halliford Green | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ091681 |
| Location: | 51°24’7"N, 51°24’4"E |
| Data | |
| Population: | 3,173 (2011) |
| Post town: | Shepperton |
| Postcode: | TW17 |
| Dialling code: | 01932 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Spelthorne |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Spelthorne |
Upper Halliford is a small village in the very south-west of Middlesex, in the Spelthorne Hundred of that county. It is within the Metropolitan Green Belt, between Sunbury on Thames to the north-east and Shepperton to the south-west. Its larger sister village, Lower Halliford is immediately to the south, across the little River Ash. The River Thames is just half a mile away, to the south-east.
The M3 motorway slices through the landscape here and marks a sudden end to Upper Halliford at the north, separateing it though from the great, contigiuous conurbated townscape beyond. Westward across the M3 is Charlton, squashed up against the Queen Mary Reservoir. Roads are a theme across what might once have been river meadows: the village is partially bypassed by the A244, which alternates here between a dual carriageway and a single carriageway. Upper Halliford railway station is on the Shepperton branch line to Waterloo.
The village is part of the Church of England Parish of Sunbury on Thames, and the parish church is to be found in that town. There is though St Andrew’s Baptist Church, in the southern part of the village.
About the village
The conservation area surrounds the village green.
The bypass cuts off a western tract of housing linked by a pedestrian crossing. It leaves far less traffic in the village heart compared to the northern stretch (higher numbers) of Upper Halliford Road, whose west side fronts quite spacious housing and a large nature pond, whereas its east side has Grange Farm park home estate, farmhouse with smallholding, Halliford (or Manor Park) recreation ground, woodland and another smallholding before the large road bridge at the boundary with Sunbury Common.
History
The name of Upper and of Lower Halliford applears to be from the Old English for 'holy ford'. Oral tradition among some of the villagers said that the halliford describes the ford that crossed the River Ash before Gaston Bridge was built, where a holy man lived during Anglo-Saxon times and performed miracles. Other places contend for a local fording point. Shepperton enjoyed rights in the common land to the north,[1] and given the importance of grazing to prosperity, the safe point at which sheep crossed to be herded to that village would have been considered holy; as too any Thames crossing.
Insufficient archaeology has been unearthed to conclude which crossing point, if either, is of the Dark Ages (or earlier, Roman Britain or purely Celtic Britain) date.
Throughout its early history Halliford manor's land was divided among two parishes; in the Sunbury Charter of 962 AD the Anglo-Saxons fixed Sunbury on Thames's western limits as the Ash and a north-south stream/ditch near-siding the Queen Mary Reservoir (built 1925–31).[1] The Halliford manor house and demesne are then recorded as being in Shepperton (in which two contender plots to the first succession of such houses exist near the Thames).
Upper Halliford hamlet grew on the north side of the Ash, and as feet of fines and every relevant inquisition post mortem confirms, part of the parish of Sunbury on Thames: in the latter village stands a stuccoed manor house of about the 18th century called Halliford Manor, supposed to be that of the Hasllifords. The Conservation Area in Upper Halliford including Home Farm cottage hint some form of pre-18th-century manor house for Upper Halliford standing slightly further north. The other local manors are mentioned by the Domesday Book of 1086. Halliford is unrecorded in the rolls and returns until 1274.[1]
In the 14th century a windmill stood at Upper Halliford, later to be replaced by a windmill at Lower Halliford.
The church-linked Sunbury, at times personal chapel-enriched Kempton, and church-less Halliford were mediæval manors. Upper Halliford manor was later but marked the site of a hamlet loosely associated with Halliford if only on a droving path for livestock from Lower Halliford to access the common land almost three miles to the north. Also a common meadow lay by the river in the south and southeast of Upper Halliford.[1]
Upper Halliford Road and Windmill Road gained in importance after Walton Bridge was built in 1750. Gaston Bridge over the Ash in Upper Halliford, which had been in existence at least since the 15th century, was rebuilt at the same time.[1]
Upper Halliford and Charlton did not share in the 18th-century popularity of the riverside and contained little but cottages and farmhouses. Several houses around the green at Upper Halliford survive from the early 19th century, while those called Halliford Manor and Home Farm Cottage close to the green are earlier; in the case of Halliford Manor its clock in its adjoining Clock House Cottage is dated 1744,[2] though they have been much altered.[1]
After the Industrial Revolution
Based on 1841 census statistics, Samuel Lewis in his 1848 A topographical guide to England stated the population of the parish of Sunbury which included Charlton and Upper Halliford, an area of 2,580 acres, was 1,828.
A halt at Upper Halliford along the Victorian railway to Shepperton was not opened until 1944, to serve the factories of the Sunbury Industrial Estate during the Second World War and was still a halt until at least 1962.[1]
Until the 1950s there was very little new building in the western half of Sunbury parish. Gravel-working had left many large pools around Upper Halliford and Charlton, and the rest of the land was open, with many market-gardens and glasshouses. A good deal of land still remained open in 1959 when gravel-working was continuing as well as new building east, north and west of the formerly completely linear village.[1]
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Sport and leisure
A large recreation ground takes up a minority of Halliford Park to the north of the main village (mainly woodland) which has football, flowers, trees and paths. Between this and a farm that is now an agricultural smallholding is a landscaped set of raised bungalows with gardens on Park Home lease terms.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Upper Halliford) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 A History of the County of Middlesex - Volume 3 pp 51-53: Sunbury: Introduction (Victoria County History)
- ↑ Halliford Manor