The Egham area has watched as Romans brought their trade and lifestyle here; has been referenced in the Domesday book; witnessed the sealing of the Magna Carta; suffered from the plague; developed into a thriving community serving the coaching trade; expanded with the arrival of the railway; suffered great losses in two World Wars and endured national lockdowns during the 2020-21 coronavirus pandemic.;xNLx;Egham Museum brings this story to life through a time-line of thematic displays. Links to external websites are provided for further information: the Museum accepts no responsibility for any views expressed in those websites.;xNLx;The Egham-by-Runnymede Historical Society (EbRHS) set up Egham Museum in 1968 to preserve our proud heritage and keep it in trust for future generations. The Museum is now governed by a separate charitable trust, The Egham Museum Trust (TEMT), but still works closely with the EbRHS.;xNLx;[Visit Egham Museum](http://eghammuseum.org/)
The High Street is thought to run along the route of a branch of the London to Silchester Roman road. Roman pottery and other artefacts have been found during the course of new building projects.
The Romans made the first permanent bridge across the Thames at Egham Hythe when they arrived in the area from 43AD, to carry their main road from London to the south-west.
The exact site of Boudicca's last battle against the Romans is unknown. Virginia Water is one of many places which seem to fit the description in the near-contemporary account by Roman historian Tacitus.
It is commonly agreed that, among the Celts occupying this area during the 1st century BC, it was the Atrebates who were the dominant tribe.
In 1866 a Roman sarcophagus was discovered at Bishopsgate House, Englefield Green. It appears to be a metropolitan Roman work of the early third century.
Saxon settlers migrated to this area following the collapse of the Roman empire in AD410. Egham is a Saxon word meaning “Ecca’s Ham” or “land in the bend of the river.” Even the name Surrey probably derives from the Saxon Suthrige or Suthrea, relating to its position south of the Thames.
The first recorded mention of the town's name, spelled Egeham, was in the 7th century in Frithwald's charter endowing land to Chertsey Abbey.
A charter dated between 672 and 674 grants 5 hides of land at Thorpe to St Peter’s Minster, Chertsey. This is one of two surviving charters issued to Erkonwald (or Eorconwald), first Abbot of Saint Peter's, by Frithuwald or Frithwald, a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon ruler in Surrey.
The word Hythe comes from a Saxon word meaning a port or landing place. However Egham Hythe was in use as a landing site long before the Saxons.
The Iron Age saw the production of some of the finest prehistoric metalwork known from the British Isles as shown by this copper alloy harness-fitting found in the river by Runnymede.
The name Callow Hill derives from the Anglo-Saxon word 'calewehelde' meaning the cold hillside.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle indicates that in 893/94 and 1009 the Vikings crossed Staines Bridge to escape Anglo-Saxon forces.
In 1981 a 10th Century Viking sword was found in Mixnam's gravel pit in Thorpe.
The first mention of the name Englefield relating to a place in Surrey comes from a charter of 967 which lists 20 hides at Egham with Englefield (Egeham cum Hingefelda) among the lands of Chertsey Abbey. However as part of the manor of Egham it did not have a separate mention in the Doomsday Book a century later.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 993 says "This year came Anlaf with three and ninety ships to Staines, which he plundered without, and went thence to Sandwich."
Among the animals which roamed south East England during the Mesolithic and Bronze Ages was the aurochs, an extinct member of the cattle family.
In 1053 the hundred of Godley was granted to the Abbot and convent of Chertsey by Edward the Confessor. Godley comprised the parishes of Bisley, Chobham, Pyrford, Byfleet, Egham, Chertsey, Horsell and Thorpe.
Egham, in the Hundred of Godley, is mentioned in the Domesday Book, with 57 households - a very large community. It belonged to the Abbey of St Peter in Chertsey
Thorpe, in the Hundred of Godley, is mentioned in the Domesday Book under the name 'Torp', with 36 households.
The medieval town seems to have followed a planned design along the High Street, with regular blocks of strip-plots (burgage plots) facing one another across a single road with back lanes along the far end of the crofts.
It is not known exactly when St. Mary's Church was built. Parts of the building may date from the time of Abbot Hugh in 1110 or even earlier. Other sections were added in the 13th, 14th and 16th centuries.
The first St John's Church in Egham was built early in the 12th Century when the parish was still under the patronage of Chertsey Abbey. There may have been an earlier wooden church on the site since the 7th Century AD.
The estate of Ankerwyke Purnish is first mentioned in documents of 1160 giving the land to Ankerwyke Priory (on the Wraysbury side of the Thames) .
Broomhall, a Benedictine Priory on the borders of Windsor Forest is first mentioned in a charter of 1200, granting it the church of St Margaret, Sunningwell.
The name Runnymede is suggested to be a compound of the Old English word 'runinge' meaning ‘taking counsel’ and 'maed' 'mead or meadow.'
The Magna Carta or 'Great Charter' set out a series of laws for everyone to follow and was sealed at Runnymede on 15th June 1215.
The Charter of the Forest was issued on 6 November 1217, during the reign of Henry III, This clarified and extended clause 47 of Magna Carta, which promised that forests made in King John’s reign would be disafforested.
The lands surrounding what is now known as Great Fosters Hotel once formed part of the manor of Imworth and there is evidence that the de Imworth Family lived here in 1224.
The Causeway running from Staines Bridge to Egham appears to have been constructed during the reign of Henry III by a merchant named Thomas de Oxenford to make it easier to convey wool to the London markets.
Trumps Mill was built some time before 1299 on the river Bourne at the Thorpe/Egham boundary. This was the first recorded mill in Thorpe. The parish boundary runs through the mill-pond.
... appears in Chertsey Abbey documents from 1311. In this context the word 'Stroude' means “marshland overgrown with brushwood.”
Harpesford Mill was a medieval mill situated where the River Bourne crossed the Great Western Road.
The Black Death - or plague - hit Egham in August 1348.
The name Lea for an area of Thorpe seems to have appeared first in the 14th Century as East Lea, West Lea & North Lea and in the personal name Thorpe Ley.
Chertsey Abbey was attacked and set on fire in 1381, apparently by disgruntled residents of Egham, during the Peasants' Revolt, destroying court rolls and other records.
The oldest building in Thorpe is The Cottage, built in 1490, using timbers thought to have come from an earlier house on the site.
The oldest public house in Egham was the Catherine Wheel at 85 High Street, which by the mid 17th Century was one of the principal local inns.
Thorpe Mill was a water-powered mill, used for the production of grain for human or animal consumption. Land Tax documents imply that it was built in 1793 on a road skirting the foot of St Ann's Hill, on the southern boundary of Thorpe parish.
According to a plaque on its wall the Red Lion public house dates from the 16th century but its first known landlord was Edward Hyde in 1672. It has been rebuilt and restored several times, most recently in 2014.
The first mention of the name Fosters occurs in the court rolls of Thorpe dated 1521. Describing boundaries on the Egham side of the parish, they refer to ”lands on the west called Fosters”.
Thorpe Green was first mentioned as a location in the Last Will and Testament of Thomas Bartlett, written on 18th October 1532.
Chertsey Abbey was closed down in 1537 as part of Henry VIII's wholesale dissolution of the monasteries. The manors of Egham and Thorpe passed to the Crown .
In 1539 a wooden 'standing' was erected in Egham Meadow, Windsor Forest, so that the King could watch deer hunting and hare coursing after he could no longer hunt on horseback, having suffered a serious fall while riding in 1536.
The name Cooper's Hill first appeared in a Crown Survey 1547-1550.
On 31st January 1560 William Allen, a yeoman from London, was found guilty of having assaulted John Appowell on the highway at Egham on 23rd July 1559. He stole £4 in money, and a gold signet ring. Allen was found guilty, but his sentence was not recorded.
Plague was a recurring problem in the early modern period. An outbreak of bubonic plague in 1603 led to 68 recorded deaths in Egham, starting with 11 year old Mercy Bullen who was buried on 18th June 1603.
A sensational account from 1613 describes the murder in the summer of that year of Elizabeth Wellcome at the hands of her employer Elizabeth James.
Sir John Denham, a 17th century Judge (formerly Lord Chief Justice of Ireland) and resident of Egham, founded almshouses in the town in 1624 for five poor widows over the age of 50, on condition that they attended services at the parish church.
Sir John Dodderidge or Doddridge bought Great Fosters some time after 1625. He was a lawyer who was appointed Justice of the King's Bench in 1612.
Muckhatch Farm, between Thorpe Green & Rosemary Lane, dated back in part to the early 17th Century.
We'd love to hear from you. Please send questions or feedback to the below email addresses.
Before contacting us, you may wish to visit our FAQs page which has lots of useful info on Tiki-Toki.
We can be contacted by email at: hello@tiki-toki.com.
You can also follow us on twitter at twitter.com/tiki_toki.
If you are having any problems with Tiki-Toki, please contact us as at: help@tiki-toki.com
Close