Esher

Esher is a town in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole.

At its south the London urban area ends. Esher has a linear commercial high street and is otherwise suburban in density, with varying elevations, few high rise buildings and very short sections of dual carriageway within the ward itself. Esher covers a large area, between 13 and 15.4 miles southwest of Charing Cross. In the south it is bounded by the A3 Portsmouth Road which is of urban motorway standard and buffered by the Esher Commons.

Esher is bisected by the A307, traditional Portsmouth Road which for approximately 1 mi forms its high street. Esher railway station (served by the South West Main Line) connects the town to London Waterloo. Sandown Park Racecourse is in the town near the station.

In the south, Claremont Landscape Garden owned and managed by the National Trust belonged to the British home to Princess Charlotte and her husband Leopold I of Belgium. Accordingly the town was selected to have a fountain by Queen Victoria and has an adjacent Diamond Jubilee column embossed with a relief of the monarch topped by a statue of Britannia. Unite, the union, train representatives at its Esher Place centre and the town has the offices of Elmbridge Borough Council in its high street.

History
Esher lay within the Saxon feudal division of Elmbridge hundred.

Esher appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Aissela and Aissele held partly by the Abbey of the Cross in Normandy; partly by William de Waterville; partly by Reginald; partly by Hugh do Port; and partly by Odard Balistarius (probably a crossbowman). Its domesday assets were: 14 hides, 6 ploughs and 2 acre of meadow. It rendered £6 2s 0d per year to its feudal system overlords.

In the 16th century, King Henry VIII annexed several of the manors to the Honour of Hampton Court to form a royal hunting ground and new residences were permitted by a number of wealthy courtesans. Esher's town slowly grew as a stagecoach stop on the London–Portsmouth road that was later designated as the A3 road, although it was bypassed in the mid-1970s, when it became the A307. Clive of India built the Claremont mansion and this later became a royal residence used by Queen Victoria. In 1841 Esher had 1261 inhabitants across 2075 acres. Queen Victoria lent Claremont to the exiled French King Louis-Philippe and his consort Queen Marie-Amelie after the revolution of 1848. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg lived there until he became King of the Belgians.

In 1863, "Bradshaw's Descriptive Railway Hand-Book" was saying of Esher that it was "... once a place of some importance, is now little better than an inconsiderable village. Esher Place is remarkable as having been the residence of Wolsey, when Bishop of Winchester..."

By 1908, Esher contained the fashionable residences of several important figures including Lady Emma Talbot; Sir Robert Hawthorn Collins, the Duchess of Albany and Sir Edgar Vincent, K.C.M.G. who was later created 1st Viscount D'Abernon.

George Harrison of the Beatles had a house (called Kinfauns) in Esher, during the 1960s. The other Beatles were regular visitors to the house, and Harrison's primitive home recording studio.

Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees also owned a house called The Firs in Esher, during 1970s-2004 and sold after his death. This is where the hit single "Juliet" was written and recorded by Maurice & Robin for brother Robin's solo album project in the 1980s.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, placed the murder of fictional character, Mr. Garcia, in and around Esher in his Sherlock Holmes mystery, "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge". In the mystery, Dr. Watson described his and Sherlock Holmes' arrival in Esher by stating, "It was nearly six c'clock before we found ourselves in the pretty Surrey village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion."

Government
Esher is within the Esher and Walton parliamentary constituency which has been represented by Dominic Raab, a member of the Conservative Party, since 2010. The predecessor Esher parliamentary constituency was replaced on boundary changes before the 1997 general election.

Esher is part of the East Molesey and Esher ward of Surrey County Council. The ward is represented by a Residents' association councillor.

The town is covered by the Esher ward of Elmbridge borough council, which has elections in three years out of four (is elected in thirds) represented by:

Education
Esher has a mix of state and private schools. There are four state primary schools across the area of Esher, Hinchley Wood and Claygate. Esher Church of England High School is the state secondary school in the town of Esher. Hinchley Wood School in Hinchley Wood has been an Academy since February 2012. Hinchley Wood is also one of the Further education establishments in the area. Esher College is in nearby Thames Ditton.

Economy
Esher has office buildings in the High Street and its continuation, Portsmouth Road, which has a cluster of entertainment and dining venues. Esher has a local (roughly county-level) farmers market held on one Saturday every month, moving forward one week each month. Vendors sell locally sourced produce and two riverside farms on the edge of town, one with large shop and grow-your-own are open to the public. A light smattering of small businesses, particularly in construction and landscaping pervades the town. A large hospice in Esher serves North Surrey, with field staff providing relief to cancer patients. Otherwise the town's residents do business or create products from home or elsewhere, such as in the M4 corridor and the City of London.

Cinema
The Odeon cinema is a central feature of Esher's High Street with four screens whereas Walton on Thames's Everymans cinema has two screens and tends to show more children's films and niche productions.

Sport

 * Esher Rugby Club play on the Hersham borders and have several training grounds there.
 * Esher Cricket Club play 1st and 2nd team matches in the Esher Park private estate, in New Road, have a youth cricket training and playing squad and have seven corporate sponsors.
 * AFC Westend Football Club
 * West End (Esher) Cricket Club (Est. 1875)
 * Esher Lawn Tennis Club have 5 hard courts and 5 grass courts (Est. 1898)
 * Horse Racing at Sandown Park
 * Esher was on the route for the Cycling Road Race and Time Trial for the London 2012 Olympics

Amenities, local events and media
King Georges Hall is multi-functional conferencing technology-equipped venue available for corporate or group hire, a non-for-profit community facility.

Moore Place, on the outskirts of Esher, bar and restaurant Esteem, featured as the restaurant in the 4th episode of the first series of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

Esher West End hosts an annual flower show and the Hampton Court Flower Show is nearby. Similarly, Surrey Wildlife Trust manage Wisley and Ockham Commons, partly within the borough of Elmbridge and Esher is approximately mid-way between the two leading Surrey and International Gardens, the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew and RHS Garden, Wisley.

A weekly newspaper, Esher News and Mail, closed down in 2009. Current newspapers include the Surrey Herald: Cobham, Esher and Claygate edition and Living Within monthly magazine/newspaper.

Elevations range from 10m to 47m above sea level. Vantage points &mdash; Esher's promontories &mdash; include various outcrops of Esher Commons close to Hersham, Cobham and Oxshott for free public use, Esher Place (national training centre of Unite, the union) where a grass garden amphitheatre was built by Lutyens for what was the manor house, the facilities at Sandown Park racecourse and Claremont Landscape Garden.

Demography and housing
The average level of accommodation in the region composed of detached houses was 28%, the average that was apartments was 22.6%.

The proportion of households in the settlement who owned their home outright compares to the regional average of 35.1%. The proportion who owned their home with a loan compares to the regional average of 32.5%. The remaining % is made up of rented dwellings (plus a negligible % of households living rent-free).

In film, fiction and the media


The housing in Esher supports a view of its being presented in some parts of the media as a particularly middle class part of suburbia. Very few places with town status in England have an absolute majority of detached houses. Monty Python referred to Esher at least three times.

The sitcom On the Up starring Dennis Waterman was set in Esher.

"Esher Everywhere" appears on the 2013 album The Gethsemane Option by The Legendary Pink Dots.

Notes and References

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