A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
| Staines-upon-Thames | |
|---|---|
| Market town | |
 Staines-upon-Thames (left) and Egham Hythe (right) viewed from the north west [note 1] | |
 Town Hall, Market Square | |
  Staines-upon-Thames Location within Surrey | |
| Area | 7.86 km2 (3.03 sq mi) |
| Population | 18,484 (2011 Census, traditional boundaries)[1] or 25,736 (Built-up Area, which includes Laleham)[2] |
| • Density | 2,352/km2 (6,090/sq mi) |
| OS grid reference | TQ036716 |
| • London | 17 mi (27 km) ENE |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Staines-Upon-Thames[3] |
| Postcode district | TW18-19 |
| Dialling code | 01784 |
| Police | Surrey |
| Fire | Surrey |
| Ambulance | South East Coast |
| UK Parliament | |
Staines-upon-Thames is a market town in northwest Surrey, England, around 17 mi (27 km) west of central London. It is in the Borough of Spelthorne, at the confluence of the River Thames and Colne. Historically part of Middlesex, the town was transferred to Surrey in 1965. Staines is close to Heathrow Airport and is linked to the national motorway network by the M25 and M3.
The earliest evidence of human activity in the area is from the Paleolithic and, during the Neolithic, there was a causewayed enclosure on Staines Moor. The first bridge across the Thames at Staines is thought to have been built by the Romans and there was a settlement in the area around the modern High Street by the end of the 1st century CE. Throughout the Middle Ages, Staines was primarily an agricultural settlement and was held by Westminster Abbey. The first surviving record of a market is from 1218, but one may have taken place near St Mary's Church in the Anglo-Saxon period.
The industrialisation of Staines began in the mid-17th century when Thomas Ashby established a brewery in the town. Improvements to the local transport network in the mid-19th century also stimulated an expansion of the local population. The current Staines Bridge, designed by George Rennie, was opened in 1832 by William IV and the first railway line through Staines opened in 1848. The town became a centre for linoleum manufacture in 1864, when Frederick Walton established a factory on the site of the 13th-century Hale Mill.
At the end of the 20th century, Staines became infamous as the home town of the fictional film and television character, Ali G. Although many local residents felt that the town's reputation was suffering through its association with the character, Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of Ali G, praised Staines for being a "lovely, leafy, middle-class suburb... where swans swim under the beautiful bridge". Partly in response to the reaction to the character, Spelthorne Borough Council voted in 2011 to add the suffix "upon-Thames" to the name.
Toponymy
The earliest document to refer to Staines is the Antonine Itinerary, thought to have been written in the early 3rd century AD, in which the location appears as Pontibus, meaning "at the bridges".[4][note 2] The first surviving records of Staines from the post-Roman period are from 1066, when the settlement appears in two separate charters as Stana and Stane.[6][note 3] In Domesday Book of 1086, the settlement is referred to as Stanes.[7] It later appears as Stanis (1167), Stanys (1428), Steynys and Staynys (1535), before the modern spelling "Staines" is first used in 1578.[6] The name derives from the Old English stān, meaning "stone",[7] and may refer to a Roman milestone on the London to Silchester road that survived into the early Anglo-Saxon period.[6]
In order to promote the town's "riverside image" and to distance it from its association with the fictional character, Ali G,[8][9] Spelthorne Borough Council voted in December 2011 to change its name from "Staines" to "Staines-upon-Thames".[10][11] The formal renaming ceremony, conducted by the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, Dame Sarah Goad, took place on 20 May 2012.[8][10][note 4] The Royal Mail adopted the new name in mid-2013.[3]
Geography
Location
Staines-upon-Thames is in northeast Surrey, around 17 mi (27 km) from central London.[15] It is close to the borders of Berkshire and Greater London. The town is linked to junction 13 of the M25 by the A30[16] and to the M3 by the A308.[17] The area surrounding the borough council offices and the magistrates' courts, to the southeast of the town centre, is known as Knowle Green.[18][note 5] Egham Hythe, also in Surrey, is on the south side of the Thames and is linked to Staines by Staines Bridge.[19]
Staines town centre is close to the confluence of the rivers Colne and Thames.[20] A former millstream, known as Sweeps Ditch, ran to the east of the High Street, but much of its course was diverted underground in the 20th century.[note 6] Severe flooding events have taken place in Staines in 1894,[22] 1947,[23] and 2014.[24]
Topography and geology
Much of the town is built on gravel "islands" that rise above the low-lying floodplains of the Thames and Colne.[25] These gravel deposits have a typical maximum elevation of 14 m (46 ft) above ordnance datum (AOD)[20] and are as little as 0.5 m (1.6 ft) above the surrounding floodplain. Staines High Street, oriented northeast to southwest, runs across one of these islands to the site of the medieval bridge and was the nucleus of the Roman town. St Mary's Church, on "Binbury island" to the northwest of the centre, is thought to have been the focus of settlement activity in the late-Saxon period.[25] Elevations below 13.5 m (44 ft) AOD were liable to flooding until the early 19th century and many areas of gravel are covered by muddy silts and sands. There are brickearth deposits to the east of the town, along the A30, and outcrops of alluvium to the north and south.[20]
History
Early history
The earliest evidence of human activity in Staines is from the Paleolithic. Flint blades, along with reindeer and horse bone fragments, have been found during excavations at Church Lammas, to the west of the town centre.[26][27][note 7] During the Mesolithic, the area around Staines is thought to have been covered with a dense pine and birch forest.[28] A Neolithic causewayed enclosure, about 0.8 km (0.50 mi) west of St Mary's Church, was identified by aerial photography in 1959. The site, on a gravel island in the Colne river delta, 16 m (52 ft) AOD, consisted of two concentric, subcircular ditches, with a probable main entrance at the southeastern side.[29] Pottery sherds and worked flints were found on the site, as well as fragments of human bone.[30] Other Neolithic artefacts from the local area include fragments of a jadeite axe, discovered on Staines Moor in the early 1980s, tentatively dated to c. 3500 – c. 1700 BCE.[31]
Deverel–Rimbury pottery from the Church Lammas lands indicates that the Staines area was settled in the Bronze Age and a roundhouse from the same period has been identified at Laleham.[32] Two round barrow ring ditches, one of which had a cremation burial at the centre, were found at Knowle Green in 2021.[33] A further ring ditch, around 21 m (69 ft) in diameter, was found during excavations of the Majestic House site, close to the eastern end of the High Street.[34] A Bronze Age field system at Hengrove Farm was also cultivated during the Iron Age,[35] but fell out of use around the start of the Roman period.[36] There is also evidence of an early Iron Age enclosure on Staines Moor and finds from the site include pottery sherds, flints and animal bones, with evidence of burning having taken place there.[37] Since Staines is located on the low-lying floodplain of the Thames, it is likely that historical flooding events have destroyed much of the archaeological evidence of pre-Roman human activity in the town centre.[20]
Roman and Saxon
The Roman road from London to Silchester crossed the Thames in the Staines area. Both the Thames and Colne are thought to have had multiple channels during this period, which may have necessitated the building of more than one bridge.[38][39][note 8] There was a settlement in the area surrounding the modern High Street and, although the date of its foundation is uncertain, the earliest archaeological evidence is from 54–96 AD, corresponding to the reign of Nero and the period of the Flavian Dynasty.[38]
By the mid-2nd century, Staines had increased in size and prosperity and the early Romano-British roundhouses had been replaced by stone buildings with flint and rag-stone foundations. Fragments of painted, plastered wall and floors of opus signinum have been uncovered, and the presence of tesserae indicates that at least one building had a mosaic floor.[38] A collyrium stamp, found during an excavation of 73–75 High Street, suggests that there was a healer living in the town, who could have administered to the wider local population.[41] Staines declined towards the end of the 2nd century, possibly as a result of an increased incidence of winter flooding.[42] Nevertheless, Romano-British settlement activity continued until the early 4th century, although the town appears to have been smaller and less important than it had been in the first half of the Roman period.[43][44]
Following the end of Roman rule in Britain, the main settlement at Staines appears to have shifted from the High Street area to the Binbury area surrounding St Mary's Church.[42][note 9] Archaeological evidence, including pits, ditches and pottery sherds suggests that there was a permanent settlement in this area by the mid-Saxon period and there may have been a marketplace at the northern end of Church Street.[25] Staines may have been a fortified burh and the location of a minster church.[42][note 10] A late-Saxon execution cemetery on London Road, containing the incomplete remains of up to thirty skeletons, suggests that the town was also an important local centre for the administration of justice.[42][46]
For much of the early Saxon period, the Thames through Staines marked the border between Middlesex (to the north) and Surrey (to the south). In the 9th century, the river was used by Danish Viking raiders to travel into the heart of England. In 993, the Norwegian King, Olaf Tryggvason, sailed up the Thames to Staines with a fleet of 93 ships.[47] In 1009, a large army of Vikings attacked Oxford and retreated back along the banks of the Thames, crossing the river at Staines.[45]
Governance
Between 1042 and 1052, Edward the Confessor rebuilt Westminster Abbey as a royal burial church[48] and endowed it with around 60 estates in the south east of England. Staines was one of the properties granted to the Abbey and remained in its possession until the Reformation.[49][50] In 1086, the manor appears in the Middlesex section of Domesday Book as Stanes.[51] In 1086, the manor had land for 24 ploughs, six mills and woodland for 30 pigs. It provided an annual income of £35 for the Abbey.[52] Since it was relatively close to Westminster, Staines acted as a home farm, providing for the abbot's personal household.[50] 13th-century abbey records indicate that a market was taking place by 1218[53] and, in 1225, there were 46 burgesses living in the settlement, suggesting that Staines had become an important local centre.[50]
Westminster Abbey was dissolved in 1540 and Staines then became a possession of the Crown, allowing Henry VIII to extend his Windsor hunting grounds further to the east. In 1613, James I granted the manor to Thomas Knyvet, who had arrested Guy Fawkes at the Palace of Westminster eight years earlier. Following Knyvet's death, Staines passed to Sir Francis Leigh and, following the Restoration of the Monarchy, it was held briefly by Sir William Drake.[54] The manor was then purchased by Richard Taylor, whose descendants lived at Knowle Green until the 19th century.[18]
Reforms during the Tudor period reduced the importance of manorial courts and the day-to-day administration of towns such as Staines became the responsibility of the vestry of the parish church.[55][56] The vestry appointed a constable, distributed funds to the poor and took charge of the repair of local roads. From the 17th century, the roles of Justices of the Peace were expanded to take greater responsibility for law and order in Staines.[57]
The modern system of local government began to emerge during the 19th century. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 transferred responsibility for poor relief to the Poor Law Commission, whose local powers were delegated to the newly formed poor law union in 1836.[58][note 11] In 1885 a local school board was established and three years later, the Local Government Act 1888 created the Middlesex County Council.[58] An Urban District Council (UDC) and a Rural District Council (RDC) for the area were established in 1895 under the Local Government Act 1894, but the RDC was merged into the UDC in 1930.[59]
Further reorganisation of the local authorities took place in the second half of the 20th century. Under the London Government Act 1963, Middlesex County Council was disbanded and the Staines UDC area was moved into Surrey.[61] The Local Government Act 1972, which came into force on 1 April 1974, merged the Staines and Sunbury-on-Thames UDCs to form the Borough of Spelthorne.[60]
Staines Bridge
The first surviving mention of a bridge from the medieval period is a document from 1222,[39] that authorises repairs using wood cut from Windsor Forest. In around 1250, a causeway was constructed at Egham Hythe to improve the southern approach to the crossing.[62][note 12] Also during the 13th century, there were renewals of the grant of pontage and, in 1376, tolls were levied on boat traffic to provide additional funds for maintenance.[62] Local people left bequests for not only the repair of the bridge, but also the upkeep of the roads leading to it on each side of the river.[63]
The bridge was destroyed in the Civil War and was not rebuilt until the 1680s.[64] In 1734, an Act of Parliament noted that the structure was "in a ruinous and dangerous condition" and that the money raised from tolls and local taxes was insufficient to fund adequate maintenance.[65] In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there were four attempts to construct a new bridge. The first, designed by Thomas Sandby, was opened in 1796, but was closed two years later after cracks started to form in the stonework. A cast-iron replacement, designed by James Wilson in consultation with George Rennie was opened in 1803, but cracked within two months. A third bridge was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1804. It was designed by Rennie and was constructed of timber, strengthened with cast iron plates. Although it did not suffer from the problems of the previous two bridges, it was costly to maintain (£11,000 in 1827) and restricted the width of boats passing beneath it.[66][67]
A further Act of Parliament in 1828, authorised the borrowing of up to £60,000 for the construction of a fourth bridge. The granite structure was designed by George Rennie and was based on Waterloo Bridge.[66][68] Rennie insisted that the site of the crossing be moved upstream, where deeper foundations could be constructed. The repositioning required new approach roads to be constructed and the necessary land was subject to compulsory purchase.[66][67] The foundation stones were laid on each side of the river in September 1829[69] and William IV opened the bridge in April 1832.[68][70] Tolls for crossing the bridge were abolished in 1871.[67]
Transport and communications
The earliest locks on the upper Thames were built in the 17th century, following the establishment of the Oxford-Burcot Commission.[71] However, efforts to improve the stretch of the river through Staines did not start until the 19th century. The pound lock at Penton Hook, a tight meander downstream of Staines,[72] was constructed in 1815,[73] but the weirs were not added until 1846.[72][note 13] Bell Weir Lock, upstream of the town, opened in 1818, but was rebuilt in 1867-8 after the chamber walls had collapsed the previous year.[75] The construction of the locks regulated the flow of the river and increased its depth to facilitate navigation, whilst maintaining an adequate head of water to power mills.[76]
With the exception of the construction of the causeway at Egham Hythe in the mid-13th century, there were few improvements in the local road network in the millennium following the end of the Roman period. In 1727, the turnpike road from Hounslow to Bagshot, which crossed the river via Staines Bridge, was opened. A second turnpike, from Staines to Kingston opened in 1773.[77] The re-siting of the bridge by George Rennie in the early 1830s necessitated changes in the road network at the western end of the High Street: The Market Square became a no through road and Clarence Street was constructed to direct traffic to the new crossing.[69]
The railway line through Staines between Richmond and Datchet was opened by the Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway on 22 August 1848. In 1856, Staines became a junction when the line across the Thames to Ascot was opened.[78][79] A curve linking the Ascot and Datchet lines was opened in April 1877 and remained in use until March 1965.[80] A second station in the town, Staines High Street station, to the northwest of the junction of this curve and the Datchet line, was open between 1884 and 1916.[81] The railway line through Staines to Windsor was electrified in June 1930[82] and to Virginia Water in 1937.[83] Staines signal box closed in September 1974.[84]
A third station in the town was opened on 2 November 1885. Staines West was the terminus of a single-track branch from the Great Western Main Line, constructed by the Staines and West Drayton Railway Company. Originally the intention had been to create a junction with the line from Datchet and for trains to serve the main Staines station, but inter-company rivalry meant that a separate facility was built instead.[86] The freight yard closed under the Beeching Axe in the 1950s and passenger services ceased in March 1965.[87] Trains continued to run to the Staines fuel yard, at Staines West, until the early 1990s.[88]
During the second half of the 20th century, there were large-scale improvements to the road network around Staines. The A30 bypass was constructed in the early 1960s and included the building of Runnymede Bridge over the Thames.[89][note 14] A second bridge, alongside the first, was required for the construction of the M25. The route of the motorway north of Staines was constrained by the Wraysbury Reservoir to the west and Staines Moor to the west.[90] The Chertsey to Staines stretch of the M25 was opened in November 1981 with three lanes in each direction, but with a wide central reservation, allowing the road to be widened easily later. Four lanes in each direction were provided from outset between the A30 and the M4.[90][note 15]
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The Staines air disaster occurred on 18 June 1972, when a Hawker Siddeley Trident, operated by British European Airways, crashed shortly after takeoff from Heathrow Airport. All 118 people aboard the aircraft, including the six crew members, were killed.[92] Two memorials to all the victims were dedicated on 18 June 2004 in Staines. The first is a stained-glass window in St Mary's Church where an annual memorial service is held on 18 June.[93][94] The second is a garden near the end of Waters Drive in the Moormede Estate, close to the accident site.[95][note 16]
Commerce and industry
The first record of a market at Staines is from 1218, when the Sherriff of Middlesex was ordered to change the day on which it was held from Sunday to Friday. It had been discontinued by 1862, but re-established ten years later when the Town Hall was built.[97] In 2022, the market is held in the High Street on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.[98] An annual fair to be held in the settlement was granted to Westminster Abbey by Henry III in 1228. Initially it took place over four days at Ascensiontide, but the dates were changed to 7–10 September in 1241.[97] By 1792, there were two one-day fairs each year, the first on 11 May for horses and cattle and the second on 19 September, known as the Onion Fair, for produce and trinkets.[99] The fairs were abolished in 1896 by the Home Secretary at the request of the Staines UDC.[100]
Domesday Book records six mills in Staines in 1086,[52] one of which is thought to have been at Yeoveney on Staines Moor. The site, close to the Wraysbury River, an anabranch of the River Colne, is thought to have been the location of a late-medieval dye works and part of the mill was used for fulling in the 14th century.[101] First recorded in 1682, Pound Mill was also on the Wraysbury River. It was bought by John Finch in 1747 and was a flour mill until the early 19th century, when it was used to grind mustard. The mill is immortalised in the road name, "Mustard Mill Road".[102][103]
Hale Mill, on the main channel of the Colne, is thought to have its origins in the 13th century, but it was rebuilt in 1388 and became a fulling mill in the 15th century. Many of the mills in the local area were purchased in the second half of the 18th century by Thomas Ashby, a miller originally from Maidenhead.[104] Ashby founded a brewery, subsequently taken over by his sons, which became a major employer in the town.[105] Brewing ceased in Staines in the 1950s, but bottling continued at the plant until the 1970s.[102]
Staines became a centre for linoleum manufacture in 1864, when Frederick Walton, the inventor, opened the first factory to produce the floor covering on the Hale Mill site, to the north of the town centre. At its height in the 1920s, the Staines plant covered 20 ha (49 acres) and was one of twenty producers in Great Britain.[88][106] Following the end of the Second World War, there was a decline in lino sales as vinyl floor coverings became more popular. The Staines lino factory closed in 1973.[88]
The Elmsleigh Shopping Centre was opened by Elizabeth II on 22 February 1980,[107] providing 250,000 sq ft (23,000 m2) of retail space.[108][note 17] Much of the High Street was pedestrianised in 2002[110] and the Two Rivers Shopping Centre, on the site of the old linoleum works, was opened in 2002.[111][112]
In the 21st century, proximity to London, Heathrow Airport and the M25 motorway has attracted large company branch offices, including: Bupa (healthcare)[113] and Wood plc (oil & gas).[114] Siemens Building Automation Division and British Gas (part of Centrica) have their national headquarters here.[115] Samsung R&D Institute UK (SRUK), Samsung's UK R&D division, is based in the town.[116]
Residential development
The modern settlement of Staines appears to have originated in the late 12th century, when the area around the High Street was developed as a planned town, possibly in response to rebuilding the bridge over the Thames. The medieval street plan was not altered until the re-siting of the bridge in the 1830s, at which point the urban area began to spread beyond the confines of the gravel islands.[42]
The population of Staines grew from 1,750 in 1801 to 2,487 in 1841 and 4,638 in 1881.[117] The increase in the second half of the 19th century was stimulated in part by the arrival of the railway in 1848. Cottages for artisans and semi-skilled workers began to spread along the London and Kingston Roads from the mid-19th century onwards.[105] The residential roads to the south and southeast of the town centre were created in the early 1930s.[118] Following the Second World War, there were new housing developments on Commercial Road and between Kingston Road and Elizabeth Avenue, primarily to provide accommodation for workers at the rapidly expanding Heathrow Airport.[119]
Staines in the Second World War
Despite its proximity to London and the fact that Staines Bridge and the local factories presented obvious enemy targets, the town sustained relatively little bomb damage during the Second World War.[15] There was a severe bombing raid on Staines on the night of 24–25 August 1940 and a V-1 flying bomb landed at the junction of Stanish Crescent and Kingston Road on 19 June 1944, killing four people and injuring a further 17.[15][120] The Lagonda works at Egham Hythe were converted to the manufacture of munitions and the linoleum factory was dedicated to making military supplies.[15]
Much of the civil defence effort was focused on the defence of Staines Bridge and tank traps were installed at each end.[15] At the start of the war, a Bailey bridge was constructed across the Thames, in case the main bridge was damaged by bombing.[121] The Bailey bridge remained in use for pedestrians until 1959, when it was dismantled.[67]
National and local government
UK parliament
The town is in the parliamentary constituency of Spelthorne. As of July 2022, it is represented at Westminster by Conservative Kwasi Kwarteng, who was first elected in May 2010.[122][123]
County council
Councillors are elected to Surrey County Council every four years. The majority of the town is in the Staines electoral division, but areas to the southeast of the centre are in the Staines South and Ashford West electoral division.[124][125]
Borough council
Staines is divided between three wards, each of which elects three councillors to Spelthorne Borough Council. The wards are Staines, Staines South, and Riverside and Laleham.[125][126] The Borough of Spelthorne has been twinned with Melun, France since 1990 and with Grand Port, Mauritius since 2009.[127]
Demography and housing
| Output area | Population | Households | % Owned outright | % Owned with a loan | hectares[1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Staines (ward) | 7,861 | 3,528 | 24.0% | 33.8% | 550 |
| Staines South (ward) | 7,123 | 2,899 | 29.9% | 37.7% | 131 |
| Spelthorne 009B (riverside north) | 1,818 | 862 | 37.6% | 37.5% | 35 |
| Spelthorne 009C (riverside south) | 1,662 | 723 | 51.5% | 39.1% | 70 |
| Regional average | 35.1% | 32.5% |
| Output area | Detached | Semi-detached | Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Staines
|---|
