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Ashtead Common
Ashtead Common, nearly 495 acres (c. 200 ha), is a wooded area open to the public, to the north of the village of Ashtead in Surrey, England. It is owned and managed by the City of London Corporation, after being bought by the City due to concern in the 1870s that access to the open countryside around London was being threatened. 180.5 ha of the common is a National Nature Reserve. Together with Epsom Common it forms part of a larger area of open countryside called Epsom and Ashtead Commons, which is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Background Ashtead Common has been part of the Epsom and Ashtead Commons SSSI since 1955 due to its community of breeding birds. It has also been a National Nature Reserve since 1995 because of the wood of decaying ancient trees and the rare invertebrates that live in it. It contains a wooded common with over 2,300 pollarded oaks, between 300 and 400 years old. These provide a habitat for many rare and endangered deadwood s ...
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Ashtead Common, Thames Downs Link Path
Ashtead is a large village in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England, approximately south of central London. Primarily a commuter settlement, Ashtead is on the single-carriageway A24 between Epsom and Leatherhead. The village is on the northern slopes of the North Downs and is in the catchment area of The Rye, a tributary of the River Mole. The earliest archaeological evidence for human activity in the village is from the Stone Age. At several points in its history, including during the early Roman period, Ashtead has been a centre for brick and tile manufacture. From medieval times until the late 19th century, Ashtead was primarily an agricultural settlement. Residential development was catalysed by the opening of the railway line between and in 1859 and by the breakup of the Ashtead Park estate in the 1880s. Housebuilding continued into the 20th century, reaching a peak in the 1930s. Future expansion is now constrained by the Metropolitan Green Belt, which encirc ...
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Ashtead
Ashtead is a large village in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England, approximately south of central London. Primarily a commuter settlement, Ashtead is on the single-carriageway A24 between Epsom and Leatherhead. The village is on the northern slopes of the North Downs and is in the catchment area of The Rye, a tributary of the River Mole. The earliest archaeological evidence for human activity in the village is from the Stone Age. At several points in its history, including during the early Roman period, Ashtead has been a centre for brick and tile manufacture. From medieval times until the late 19th century, Ashtead was primarily an agricultural settlement. Residential development was catalysed by the opening of the railway line between and in 1859 and by the breakup of the Ashtead Park estate in the 1880s. Housebuilding continued into the 20th century, reaching a peak in the 1930s. Future expansion is now constrained by the Metropolitan Green Belt, which encir ...
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Ashtead Common Nature Reserve Information Board
Ashtead is a large village in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England, approximately south of central London. Primarily a commuter settlement, Ashtead is on the single-carriageway A24 between Epsom and Leatherhead. The village is on the northern slopes of the North Downs and is in the catchment area of The Rye, a tributary of the River Mole. The earliest archaeological evidence for human activity in the village is from the Stone Age. At several points in its history, including during the early Roman period, Ashtead has been a centre for brick and tile manufacture. From medieval times until the late 19th century, Ashtead was primarily an agricultural settlement. Residential development was catalysed by the opening of the railway line between and in 1859 and by the breakup of the Ashtead Park estate in the 1880s. Housebuilding continued into the 20th century, reaching a peak in the 1930s. Future expansion is now constrained by the Metropolitan Green Belt, which encirc ...
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Chessington South Railway Station
Chessington South railway station is in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in Greater London, England, and is the terminus of the Chessington Branch Line. It is served by South Western Railway, and is down the line from , in Travelcard Zone 6. It is the nearest railway station to Chessington World of Adventures and Chessington School. History The station was built to a design of Southern Railway architect James Robb Scott and opened on 28 May 1939. It was intended as a through station on the line being built to . However, construction of the line stopped, never to be resumed, upon the outbreak of World War II and the up platform was never used for passenger trains, although the track was used for stabling out of service trains during off-peak times. There was a goods yard beyond the passenger station. After the continuation to Leatherhead was abandoned, part of line south of the station was used from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1980s for a coal concentration depot ...
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Parks And Open Spaces Of The City Of London Corporation
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are green spaces set aside for recreation inside towns and cities. National parks and country parks are green spaces used for recreation in the countryside. State parks and provincial parks are administered by sub-national government states and agencies. Parks may consist of grassy areas, rocks, soil and trees, but may also contain buildings and other artifacts such as monuments, fountains or playground structures. Many parks have fields for playing sports such as baseball and football, and paved areas for games such as basketball. Many parks have trails for walking, biking and other activities. Some parks are built adjacent to bodies of water or watercourses and may comprise a beach or boat dock area. Urban parks often have benches for sitting and may contain picnic tables and barbecue grills. The largest ...
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Box Hill & Westhumble Railway Station
Box Hill & Westhumble is a railway station in the village of Westhumble in Surrey, England, approximately north of Dorking town centre. Box Hill is located approximately to the east. It is down the line from . Train services are operated by Southern who manage the station, and South Western Railway. The station is the end point for the Thames Down Link long-distance footpath from Kingston upon Thames, and lies close to the midpoint of the Mole Gap Trail between Leatherhead and Dorking. The station is within of the North Downs Way. History The station was constructed at the insistence of Thomas Grissell the owner of Norbury Park, in part compensation for the railway cutting across his land to the north of the village. The main building was designed by Charles Henry Driver in the Châteauesque style and included steeply pitched roofs with patterned tiles and an ornamental turret topped with a decorative grille and weather vane. The building is currently in use as a priva ...
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Kingston Upon Thames
Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable as the ancient market town in which Saxon kings were crowned and today is the administrative centre of the Royal Borough. Historically in the county of Surrey, the ancient parish of Kingston became absorbed in the Municipal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, reformed in 1835. From 1893 to 2021 it was the location of Surrey County Council, extraterritorially in terms of local government administration since 1965, when Kingston became a part of Greater London. Today, most of the town centre is part of the KT1 postcode area, but some areas north of Kingston railway station are within KT2. The United Kingdom Census 2011 recorded the population of the town (comprising the four wards of Canbury, Grove, Norbiton and Tudor) as 43,013, while ...
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Thames Down Link
The Thames Down Link is a official walking route linking the Thames Path and the North Downs Way. It starts in the town centre of Kingston upon Thames and finishes at Box Hill & Westhumble railway station. Name The path is so called as it connects the River Thames with the North Downs, the hill range which is to the south as far as the western border of Surrey. Sources The route starts at Kingston upon Thames town centre and finishes at Box Hill & Westhumble railway station. The path follows as closely as possible the banks of the Hogsmill River through the urban fringes of Kingston passing Berrylands railway station. South of this it is more rural following the banks of the river south through fields to the A3 and under the South West railway line. A pavemented section by roads passes through Old Malden. After crossing the A240 near Tolworth centre the walk leaves the Hogsmill River and continues on a narrow green strip between houses and beside a stream to reach the Horton ...
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Epsom
Epsom is the principal town of the Borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England, about south of central London. The town is first recorded as ''Ebesham'' in the 10th century and its name probably derives from that of a Saxon landowner. The earliest evidence of human activity is from the mid-Bronze Age, but the modern settlement probably grew up in the area surrounding St Martin's Church in the 6th or 7th centuries and the street pattern is thought to have become established in the Middle Ages. Today the High Street is dominated by the clock tower, which was erected in 1847–8. Like other nearby settlements, Epsom is located on the spring line where the permeable chalk of the North Downs meets the impermeable London Clay. Several tributaries of the Hogsmill River rise in the town and in the 17th and early 18th centuries, the spring on Epsom Common was believed to have healing qualities. The mineral waters were found to be rich in ''Epsom salts'', which were later identif ...
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Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley District of Surrey, England, about south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leatherhead was a royal vill and is first mentioned in the will of Alfred the Great in 880 AD. The first bridge across the Mole may have been constructed in around 1200 and this may have coincided with the expansion of the town and the enlargement of the parish church. For much of its history, Leatherhead was primarily an agricultural settlement, with a weekly market being held until the mid-Elizabethan era. The construction of turnpike roads in the mid-18th century and the arrival of the railways in the second half of the 19th century attracted newcomers and began to stimulate the local economy. Large-scale manufacturing industries arrived following the end of the First World War and companies with factories in the town included Ronson and G ...
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M25 Motorway
The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a major road encircling most of Greater London. The motorway is one of the most important roads in the UK and one of the busiest. Margaret Thatcher opened the final section in 1986, making the M25 the longest ring road in Europe upon opening. The Dartford Crossing completes the orbital route but is not classed as motorway; it is classed as a trunk road and designated as the A282. In some cases, including notable legal contexts such as the Communications Act 2003, the M25 is used as a ''de facto'' alternative boundary for Greater London. In the 1944 ''Greater London Plan'', Patrick Abercrombie proposed an orbital motorway around London. This evolved into the London Ringways project in the early 1960s, and by 1966, planning had started on two projects, London Ringways#Ringway 3, Ringway 3 to the north and London Ringways#Ringway 4, Ringway 4 to the south. By the time the first sections opened in 1975, it was decided the ringways would be com ...
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Green Belt (United Kingdom)
In British town planning, the green belt is a policy for controlling urban growth. The term, coined by Octavia Hill in 1875, refers to a ring of countryside where urbanisation will be resisted for the foreseeable future, maintaining an area where agriculture, forestry and outdoor leisure can be expected to prevail. The fundamental aim of green belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open, and consequently the most important attribute of green belts is their openness. The Metropolitan Green Belt around London was first proposed by the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1935. The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 then allowed local authorities to include green belt proposals in their development plans. In 1955, Minister of Housing Duncan Sandys encouraged local authorities around the country to consider protecting land around their towns and cities by the formal designation of clearly defined green belts. Green belt policy has been criticised ...
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