Gerrards Cross is a town and civil parish in south

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

, England, separated from the London Borough of Hillingdon at Harefield by Denham, south of

Chalfont St Peter Chalfont St Peter is a large village and civil parish in southeastern Buckinghamshire, England. It is in a group of villages called The Chalfonts which also includes Chalfont St Giles and Little Chalfont. The villages lie between High Wycombe a ...

and north bordering villages of

Fulmer Fulmer is a village and civil parish in south Buckinghamshire, England. The village has along most of its northern border a narrow green buffer from Gerrards Cross and is heavily wooded adjoining neighbouring villages of Iver Heath and Wexham. ...

Hedgerley Hedgerley is a village and civil parish in South Bucks district in Buckinghamshire, England. The parish is centred south-east of Beaconsfield and south-west of Gerrards Cross. The parish has incorporated the formerly separate parish of Hedg ...

, Iver Heath and Stoke Poges. It spans foothills of the

Chiltern Hills The Chiltern Hills is a chalk escarpment in England. The area, northwest of London, covers stretching from Goring-on-Thames in the southwest to Hitchin in the northeast - across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshire. ...

and land on the right bank of the River Misbourne. It is west-north-west of

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City; ...

, central London. Bulstrode Park Camp was an Iron Age fortified encampment. The town has a railway station on the Chiltern Main Line with regular services to London. Fast train takes 19 minutes to Marylebone. The town is close to

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 lon ...

and the

M40 motorway The M40 motorway links London, Oxford and Birmingham in England, a distance of approximately . The motorway is dual three lanes except for junction 1A to junction 3 (which is dual four lanes) a short section in-between the exit and entry slip-r ...

runs beside woodland on its southern boundary. In 2014, a major national surveying company named Gerrards Cross as the most sought-after and expensive commuter town or village in their London Hot 100 report, with an average sale price of £1,000,000.

History

The town name is new compared with the great bulk of English towns. Gerrards Cross did not exist in any formal sense until 1859, when it was formed by taking pieces out of the three parishes of

, Stoke Poges and Upton cum Chalvey to form a new ecclesiastical parish. It is named after the Gerrard family who in the early 17th century owned a

manor Manor may refer to: Land ownership *Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England *Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism *Man ...

here. At that time, homes which were not farms, were smallholdings clustered in a hamlet in the south of an elongated parish of Chalfont St Peter. Near its centre is the site of an Iron Age minor hillfort, Bulstrode Park Camp, which is a scheduled ancient monument. Originally named Jarrett's Cross, before the times of the Gerrard family, after a highwayman, some areas retain the original name, such as Jarrett's Hill leading up to WEC International off the A40 west of the town. On 1 January 2016, Gerrards Cross officially became a town with the parish council becoming a town council.

Facilities

The large and distinctive parish church is dedicated to St. James. It was built in 1861 as a memorial to Colonel George Alexander Reid who was MP for Windsor, and designed by Sir William Tite in yellow brick with a Byzantine-style dome, Chinese-looking

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

s and an Italianate

Campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

. In 1969 the singer Lulu married Maurice Gibb of the

Bee Gees The Bee Gees were a musical group formed in 1958 by brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were especially successful in popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers in the disco music era in ...

in the church. The actress Margaret Rutherford is buried with her husband Stringer Davis in the St James Church graveyard. The town has its own library and its own cinema, the

Everyman Gerrards Cross The Everyman Gerrards Cross is a movie theater, cinema located in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. Originally known as The Playhouse, it has continually served Gerrards Cross as a cinema since it first opened in 1925 and is the oldest cinema in B ...

, which originally opened in 1925. Independent schools include St Mary's (all girls- through to sixth form). Students of

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

age attend either one of the local grammar schools, such as

Dr Challoner's Grammar School Dr Challoner's Grammar School (also known as DCGS, Challoner's Boys or simply Challoner's) is a selective grammar school for boys, with a co-educational Sixth Form, in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England. It was given academy status in January ...

(Boys with co-educational Sixth Form),

Dr Challoner's High School , established = 1962 , closed = , type = Academy Grammar School , religion = , president = , head_label = Headteacher , head = Alan Roe , r_head_label = , r_head = , chair_label = , c ...

(Girls), The Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe (Boys),

John Hampden Grammar School John Hampden Grammar School (known colloquially as "JHGS") is a selective state boys' grammar school in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is named after the local member of parliament and English Civil War commander John Hampden. In J ...

(Boys), and

Beaconsfield High School Beaconsfield High School (commonly known as Becky High) is a girls' grammar school in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. The school takes girls from the age of 12 through to the age of 18 (A-levels). In order to gain admission into Beaconsfield High ...

(Girls)

Chesham Grammar School Chesham Grammar School is a co-educational grammar school on White Hill, Chesham, Buckinghamshire. There are about 1,300 pupils aged between eleven and eighteen, including over 400 in the sixth form. In 2007, the Department for Education awarde ...

(Co-ed), and the local Upper School,

Chalfonts Community College Chalfonts Community College is a co-educational Secondary education#England, Wales and Northern Ireland, secondary school in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire. It takes children from the age of 11 through to 18 and has approximately 1,481 pupils ...

, which is the catchment school. On the south side of the town is the

Gerrards Cross Memorial Building The Gerrards Cross Memorial Building is a community centre and World War I memorials, First World War memorial in the village of Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire, to north west of London, England. The building was designed by British architect ...

, on the site of the former vicarage. The building was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1922 to commemorate the town's losses during the First World War. It is the only example of a Lutyens war memorial designed with a functional purpose.

Transport

Gerrards Cross station geograph-3560419-by-Ben-Brooksbank

The town has a railway station on the Chiltern Main Line which opened on 2 April 1906. This provides services to London and Birmingham with a commuting time of 18 minutes on the fast train to London Marylebone. A new arch over the section of deep railway cutting to allow Tesco to build a supermarket collapsed on 30 June 2005 at 19:30. Nobody was injured but the line was closed for over six weeks. Compensation by Tesco to Chiltern was reported as £8.5m and the retailer compensated by funding a media campaign to reinstate business immediately lost by the closure. Construction of a correctly constructed arch began in January 2009. The 11.36am from London Paddington to Gerrards Cross was an official or ' parliamentary train' recognised as an outlandish loss-making service to prevent the link to that terminus being closed or re-allocated. This train now terminates at West Ruislip. In 2011, National Rail was lobbied to phase the service out. The town lies north west of London's

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...

Demographics

In the 2021 Census, the largest religious affiliations in Gerrards Cross were

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

(46.2%), those with no religion (22.4%),

Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...

(10.5%),

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

(7.5%),

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

(6.4%), Jewish (0.8%), Buddhist (0.5%) and Other (0.5%). It was reported 65.5% of people living in Gerrards Cross were reported as White (65.5%), Asian (25.5%), Mixed (4.0%), Black (4.0%) and Other (1.1%).

Recent history

Many houses built during development in the 1950s had defective tiles, leading to the

highest court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

reported judgment ''Young & Marten Ltd v McManus Childs Ltd'', holding that a person who contracts to do work and supply materials implicitly warrants that the materials will be fit for purpose, even if the purchaser specifies the materials to be used.

Popular culture

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

filmed some of the exteriors in his feature 1962 film ''

Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humber ...

'', notably Charlotte Haze's house, in Gerrards Cross. "The Italian Lesson" sketch in the first episode of the first series of the

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

comedy show ''

Monty Python's Flying Circus ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' (also known as simply ''Monty Python'') is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, who became known ...

'' (first broadcast in 1969) includes the line ''"'Sono inglese di Gerrard's ''(sic)'' Cross', I am an Englishman from Gerrard's Cross."''

Wombling Free ''Wombling Free'' is a 1977 British film adaptation of the children's television series ''The Wombles''. Directed by Lionel Jeffries, it stars The Wombles, David Tomlinson, Frances de la Tour, and Bonnie Langford. Plot Based on the BBC children ...

(1977 film) about the Wombles was filmed in various locations in Gerrards Cross and nearby

Black Park Black Park is a country park in Wexham, Buckinghamshire, England to the north of the A412 road. It is managed by Buckinghamshire Council, formerly County Council. It has an area of , of which two separate areas totalling have been designated a ...

and

Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London. The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to te ...

in Iver Jethro Tull's song "Journeyman" on their 1978 album ''

Heavy Horses ''Heavy Horses'' is the eleventh studio album by British progressive rock band Jethro Tull, released on 10 April 1978. The album is often considered the second in a trio of folk rock albums released by the band at the end of the 1970s, alongsi ...

'' includes the line ''"Too late to stop for tea at Gerrards Cross"''. Indie band the Hit Parade released their 3rd single "The Sun Shines in Gerrards Cross" in 1986. St Hubert's House, a Grade II listed house to the southeast of Gerrards Cross, has been used as a filming location for TV series including '' Inspector Morse'' and ''

The Professionals A professional is someone who is skilled in a profession. Professional or professionals may also refer to: * Professional sports Music *The Professionals (band), a British punk rock band formed in 1979 * ''The Professionals'' (The Professionals ...

'', and was the location of Colonel Hyde's house in '' The League of Gentlemen''. In '' New Tricks'', the popular BBC crime drama, the opening shots of the large house in Season 12 Episode 8 "Lottery Curse" were filmed on the private road of Camp Road in Gerrard's Cross.

Notable people

* Matt Aitken, song writer, record producer and musician from Stock Aitken Waterman lived in Gerrards Cross. * Roy Castle, dancer, singer, comedian, actor, television presenter and musician, lived in Gerrards Cross. * Amal Clooney, barrister and human rights activist, moved from Lebanon to Gerrards Cross with her family at the age of 2. * Angela Douglas, actress, born in Gerrards Cross 29 October 1940. * Kenneth More, actor, born in Gerrards Cross 20 September 1914. * Dominic Raab, politician, Conservative Member of Parliament for

Esher and Walton Esher and Walton () is a constituency in Surrey represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. Since 2010, it has been represented by Dominic Raab of the Conservative Party, who is the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, ...

, current Deputy Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor and former

Foreign Secretary The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...

, grew up in Gerrards Cross. *

Joan G. Robinson Joan Mary Gale Robinson (née Thomas; 10 February 1910 – 20 August 1988) was a British author and illustrator of children's books. Profile She published her first book for children in 1939. She married writer and illustrator Richard Gavin ...

, author and illustrator, lived in Gerrards Cross. Her best-known book is '' When Marnie Was There'', which was adapted into an animated film by Studio Ghibli. * Peter Stringfellow, businessman and nightclub owner, lived in Gerrards Cross (died 7 June 2018).

References

''A History of Chalfont St Peter and Gerrards Cross'' C G Edmonds 1964 and ''The History of Bulstrode'' by A M Baker 2003 published as one book by Colin Smythe Ltd. 2003

External links

Gerrards Cross Library
{{authority control Towns in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire South Bucks District Hill forts in Buckinghamshire