THE PARISH OF HERSHAM
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(from the booklet by E J Redman, 1967)
THE PARISH OF HERSHAM
HERSHAM AS A PARISH
FROM HAVING BEEN for so long a part of, and under the ministration of the Parish of Walton- on- Thames, Hersham was granted Parochial status in 1851 by an Order in Council in the London Gazette dated 1st August, 1851, constituting the District of Hersham, a separate Ecclesiastical Parish with the description of a District Chapelry and the living as a Perpetual Curacy.
It was not until 1867 that the status of a Vicarage was granted and it was shortly after this that a further Parish, that of Oatlands Park, was carved out of the remaining Walton-on-Thames Parish in 1869.
The Parish boundaries do not seem to be well known, as they do not tie up with the better known boundaries of the District Council, nor by the Postal Boundaries which seem to go anywhere at the whim of the Postmaster General!
The original boundaries granted in 1851 were revised on the creation of the Parish of Oatlands Park and they are now as follows:
Starting at a point at Esher Mill where the Railway crosses over the River Mole proceed Westward along the centre of the Railway to Sir Richards Bridge, thence the centre of the road crossing the Bridge and following the centre line of Queens Road to Haines Bridge which is the next road crossing the railway.
Joining here with the boundary between Walton and Weybridge Parishes the line goes Westward following the centre of Cavendish Road until the entrance gate to St. Georges Hill, keeping left at the gate and centrally through Hampden Cottage beyond the gate and keeping to the South of the other buildings to a boundary stone on the garden boundary of Carfax and The Brown House, thence Westward to a boundary stone in the triangular green inside the West Lodge entrance to St. Georges Hill, this stone marks the corners of Walton, Weybridge and Byfleet Parishes.
The line then goes Southward across the Golf Course keeping East of South Road and continues over Byfleet Road, through near the middle of Silvermere Pond to Foxwarren, thence across the Portsmouth Road at a point about 100 yards South West of Redhill Road and through Pains Hill Park to the River Mole, then taking the centre line of the River back to the starting point at Esher Mill.
Thus the Ecclesiastical Parish of Hersham comprises all that portion of the previous civil parish of Walton on Thames which lies South of the railway line, save the triangular piece between Sir Richards Bridge and Haines Bridge assigned to Oatlands Park, and includes the greater part of S1. Georges Hill and extends as far as the further limits of Pains Hill Park, being bounded at this extremity by the Parishes of Cobham, Wisley, and Byfleet. Thus our Parish is more than six miles in length by the nearest roads and varies in breadth from fully two-and-a-half miles at its widest part to a very much smaller measurement in its narrower parts owing to the meanderings of River Mole making it to be of a very irregular shape.