Шеппертон: История и современность английской деревни

Village in Surrey, England
the village in England

Shepperton is a village in the Spelthorne district, in north Surrey, England, around 15 mile (24 km) south west of central London. The settlement is on the north bank of the River Thames, between the towns of Chertsey and Sunbury on Thames. The village is mentioned in a document of 959 AD and in the Domesday Book. In the early 19th century, resident writers and poets included Rider Haggard, Thomas Love Peacock, George Meredith, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who were attracted by the proximity of the River Thames. The river was painted at Walton Bridge in 1754 by Canaletto and in 1805 by Turner. Shepperton Lock and nearby Sunbury Lock were built in the 1810s, to facilitate river navigation. Urbanisation began in the latter part of the 19th century, with the construction in 1864 of the Shepperton Branch Line, which was sponsored by William Schaw Lindsay, the owner of Shepperton Manor. Its population rose from 1,810 residents in the early 20th century to a little short of 10,000 in 2011. Lindsay had hoped to extend the railway via Chertsey to connect to the South Western Main Line, however the village station remains a terminus. The rise in population and passing trade led to small businesses lining most of its high street by the end of the 20th century. Shepperton Film Studios is in the neighbouring village of Littleton, approximately 1 mile (2 km) to the north. The Swan Sanctuary and two SSSIs, one of which is managed by Surrey Wildlife Trust, are nearby.

The first written record of Shepperton is from a charter of 959, in which it appears as Scepertune. The name is thought to derive from the Old English scēp (sheep), hirde (herdsman) and tūn (enclosure, farm or settlement). The name is generally agreed to mean "shepherd's farm" or "shepherd's settlement".

The earliest evidence of human activity in the local area is from the middle Neolithic. A henge, taking the form of a penannular ring ditch, was discovered in the late 1980s, close to the River Ash, to the north of Shepperton Green. The structure was around in diameter and is thought to have been constructed c. 3500 BCE. The main entrance to the henge was aligned with the position of the sun at sunrise on the summer solstice and lumps of red ochre had been placed inside the ditch to mark the position of the most southerly moonrise. The ditch appeared to have been refilled and re excavated in the late Neolithic. Two burials were discovered at the site a torso, probably male, and an almost complete skeleton of a female. Radiocarbon dating showed that the woman had lived in the late 3rd millennium BCE and analysis of the isotope composition of her teeth suggested that she had grown up in an area where lead zinc ore was found, possibly Derbyshire, the Mendips or the North Pennines. A reconstruction of the face of the woman from the skull was created at the University of Manchester in 2004. and iron swords, discovered at Shepperton Ranges. Pewter plates, from the latter site, are thought to date from the late Roman period. Evidence of late Iron Age and Saxon settlements was found at Shepperton Green in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Leading to this is a short, since 1989 bypassed, winding lane from the High Street to Church Square, flanked by Shepperton Manor and the cricket ground, with some listed walls. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described the view looking towards the south east of the square with its now listed buildings and river opening as "one of the most perfect village pictures that the area has to offer". two hotels, the Anchor Hotel and the Warren Lodge Hotel. In this little square there is also the King's Head public house. The riverside manor, late 18th century, (its predecessor, as with the church here, predates the 12th century), features a room painted and rendered to look like a tent or draped damask. Also Grade II* listed is the c. 1500 timber framed Old Rectory refronted in the early 18th century, Its front cladding has mathematical tiles. Also architecturally Grade II* is restored half timbered Winches Cottage on the west side of the lane which is 17th century.

The village includes the neighbourhood of Lower Halliford, formerly a near but separate hamlet, which historian Susan Reynolds places at the eastern end of a reduced, river bend consumed half of the early medieval village, east of the Old Shepperton Conservation Area due to erosion. This area is typified by a small number of detached classical three storey 18th century riverside houses high on the riverside road on the outside of the river bend; the bend being flanked by riverside meadows with small boat moorings, low rise chalet style houses to the south west, the Las Palmas Estate, named after the land once being that of the Spanish Ambassador; further west by the wooded Shepperton Cricket Club and by the village Green, Bishop Duppas Park to the east, formerly Lower Halliford Common and in a small part owned by the Old Manor House (Halliford). From the 1760s—1860s a ropery was an industry here then from the 1860s—1870s brick clay was extracted. The 21st century fully renovated hotel and restaurant (formerly the Ship), Harrison's with river views is here beside the shorter Red Lion public house which in turn has a narrow, secluded south facing public house picnic area overlooking the relatively narrow, non tidal river Thames. It is for this reason a bridge and ferry was recorded here from 1274 to 1410. The creation of Desborough Cut diverted the main navigation of the Thames away from the Lower Halliford and Shepperton loop, rendering flooding far less common.

The field land and large houses on this estate were bought by Lyon Homes from landowner and developer Edward Scott in the 1950s. This estate of buildings on this street are in a conservation area for proving a successful modular development in geometric, white painted modernism from in the 1960s, one of very few private sector estate housing experiments of the 1960s with terraced, white panelled communal landscaped front gardens by Swiss architect Edward Schoolheifer; this American Radburn style was also used by Eric Lyons Span Developments in Ham Common, Richmond, London, Blackheath, London and New Ash Green, Kent.

The Village Hall in the High Street has a large depiction of the economic life and of the history of the village. In October 2011, a group of children from St Nicholas C of E Primary School won a competition to create the history board, which was then edited by a graphic designer and officially opened by the mayor with a large ceremony and some press, after Sunbury had held a similar competition. The board itself includes a grassland to represent the pastures and provides local information.