Whiteley Village, in

Hersham Hersham is a village in Surrey, within the M25. Its housing is relatively low-rise and diverse and it has four technology/trading estates. The only contiguous settlement is Walton-on-Thames, its post town. Hersham is served by Hersham and Wa ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, England, is a

retirement village A retirement community is a residential community or housing complex designed for older adults who are generally able to care for themselves; however, assistance from home care agencies is allowed in some communities, and activities and socializ ...

, much of it designed architecturally by Arts and Crafts movement-influenced architect

Reginald Blomfield Sir Reginald Theodore Blomfield (20 December 1856 – 27 December 1942) was a prolific British architect, garden designer and author of the Victorian and Edwardian period. Early life and career Blomfield was born at Bow rectory in Devon, w ...

. It is owned by the charitable Whiteley Homes Trust and is on land which was once part of Walton Firs and Walton Heath, before the parish of Hersham was created in the 19th century.

History

Whiteley Village formed as the result of a

bequest A bequest is property given by will. Historically, the term ''bequest'' was used for personal property given by will and ''deviser'' for real property. Today, the two words are used interchangeably. The word ''bequeath'' is a verb form for the act ...

of £1,000,000 realised in 1907 upon the death of

William Whiteley William Whiteley (29 September 183124 January 1907) was an English entrepreneur of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the founder of the William Whiteley Limited retail company whose eponymous department store became the Whiteleys ...

(equivalent to approx. £120,000,000 in 2020). The village is owned and administered by The Whiteley Homes Trust, a

charity Charity may refer to: Giving * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing * Ch ...

registered in the UK, and provides over 250

almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) was charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the medieval era. They were often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain ...

s for older people of limited financial means who are capable of independent living. In addition to the almshouses, the village also contains an extra-care facility (consisting of 51 self-contained flats with domiciliary care) and a new nursing and residential care home consisting of 30 care suites, completed in 2019.Whiteley Village
/ref> The land on which the community sits is on the gravel-rich lower slopes of the much higher bank of the

River Mole, Surrey The River Mole is a tributary of the River Thames in southern England. It rises in West Sussex near Gatwick Airport and flows northwest through Surrey for to the Thames at Hampton Court Palace. The river gives its name to the Surrey district ...

, 10–15 metres above the level of the tributary.Grid square map

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website Its surrounding buffer land has remained the most wooded part of its two historic parishes, and until the 19th century was wholly part of Walton Firs and Walton Heath in

Walton on Thames Walton-on-Thames, locally known as Walton, is a market town on the south bank of the Thames in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey, England. Walton forms part of the Greater London built-up area, within the KT postcode and is served by a wide ran ...

. Hersham is one of the most recently created chapelries and villages in Surrey, created in 1851 from the southern part of Walton-on Thames. It is, roughly, the part of the original parish south of the

South West Main Line The South West Main Line (SWML) is a 143-mile (230 km) major railway line between Waterloo station in central London and Weymouth on the south coast of England. A predominantly passenger line, it serves many commuter areas including south we ...

. Its first

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

place of worship, a chapel of ease was built of yellow brick in Anglo-Norman style in 1839.

Architecture

In addition to the care and housing provided, a major feature of Whiteley Village is that it consists of more than a hundred

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s, which together form an important collection of Arts and Crafts movement as it applies to a style of architecture. Much of the design work here was by architect Reginald Blomfield. This movement was particularly a main style in and around the neighbouring area to the west which is partly in the parish of

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a crossing point of the ...

Saint George's Hill St George's Hill is a private gated community in Weybridge, Surrey, United Kingdom. The estate has golf and tennis clubs, as well as approximately 420 houses. Land ownership is divided between homes with gardens, belonging to home owners, and t ...

where W.G. Tarrant was a major designer-builder and saw its early evolution in many Surrey examples of

Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memoria ...

' work. It remains a style occasionally used where building costs allow it to be implemented without forsaking its original decorative and traditional core principles.

Amenities

Whiteley Village contains two churches, a museum, a village hall, shop and post office, launderette, charity store, library, therapy pool, licensed clubhouse, café, putting and bowls green, golf club. In addition to this the villagers run a variety of clubs and societies. Whiteley Village is an example of a

model village A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. Although the villages are located close to the workplace, they are generally phys ...

, which evolved in the UK over a short period of time, and has protected-status wooded areas and a golf course

buffer zone A buffer zone is a neutral zonal area that lies between two or more bodies of land, usually pertaining to countries. Depending on the type of buffer zone, it may serve to separate regions or conjoin them. Common types of buffer zones are demil ...

land around it.

Location

References

External links