CS Knowledge Base

The River Thames was displaced southwards to its present course through Berkshire and London following the Anglian glaciation c. 450,000 BCE. The local geology comprises Kempton Park Gravel above London Clay, on which the Thames deposits fertile, well-drained alluvial soils, making it an attractive area for human habitation and settlement.^[4][5][6]

There is evidence of small hunter-gatherer communities in the Thames Valley in the Palaeolithic period, who would have hunted migrating animal herds (reindeer and horse) depending on seasonal conditions. Hand-axes and a flint from that era have been recovered from sites in Hampton, indicating the presence of human activity as early as the Wolstonian Stage.^[7]

The resettlement of Britain following the Last Glacial Maximum and the start of the Holocene is evidenced in Hampton and surrounding areas by the artefacts (predominantly flintwork) of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, who would have favoured the diversity of habitats and food resources offered by rivers and their floodplains for settlement and resource procurement.^[8] Three Mesolitihic tranchet axes were discovered during construction of the Hampton Waterworks.^[6][9]

Evidence of Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement activity in the area is widespread, during a period when the level of the River Thames would have been significantly lower than at present. Finds on Garrick's Ait (Neolithic stone axe), Hurst Park (Neolithic pits), and Platt's Eyot (early Bronze Age axe); and the excavation in 1854 of a significant Bronze Age barrow in Bushy Park (containing the cremated remains and offerings of a local chieftain) indicate the transition to settled agriculture.^[10]

Before the Roman invasion of Britain, the Hampton area was occupied by the Catuvellauni, a Celtic tribe with its centre of government at Watamestede, near modern-day St Albans. There is little archaeological evidence of Roman activity in the Hampton area (which was concentrated around the river crossing at Kingston-upon-Thames), except for a small collection of finds at Hampton Hill,^[6] a corn drier in Hurst Park,^[11] and field boundaries laid out to Roman proportions in what would become Bushy Park.^[12]

Following the end of Roman rule the Hampton area would have been on the fringes of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia, in territory which came to be known as Middlesex.^[13] The settlement of Hampton first developed under the Saxons, centred on a village clustered around the intersection of the Windsor-Kingston road running east–west along the river with the road north to Twickenham, around the hillock on which St Mary's Church stands.^[b] The Anglo-Saxon parish of Hampton included the area comprising present-day Hampton, Hampton Hill, Hampton Wick, Bushy Park, parts of Teddington, and Hampton Court.^[14]

The Hampton settlement developed under the manorial system (where tenant serfs work the arable farm and grazing land of the manor on behalf of the absentee lord) as an agricultural domain primarily supporting neighbouring Kingston, which by the 9th century was a significant royal estate.^[15][c] Bushy Park shows extensive use of the ridge and farrow system of agriculture introduced by the Saxons.^[12] The 1086 Domesday Book records that prior to the Norman Conquest the Manor of Hampton belonged to Aelfgar, Earl of Mercia, but indicated that, as Aelfgar had not passed his lands to his son Edwin upon his death in 1062, they were instead held by King Harold at the time of the Norman Invasion.^[d][17]

The name Hampton may come from the Anglo-Saxon words hamm meaning an enclosure in the bend of a river and ton meaning farmstead or settlement.^[18][e] Hamntone is recorded in the Domesday Book,^[f] the entry listing 41 villagers and 4 smallholders (accounting for households comprising ~200 individuals) occupying 35 hides, each comprising the area that could be ploughed by eight oxen in a year (~120 acres, or ~4,200 acres total). The demesne (lands belonging to the lord of the manor) comprised 18 hides tilled by only 3 ploughs, indicating it was used mostly for sheep pasture.^[19] The other 17 villanes (hides leased to serfs) each had a plough, suggesting cultivation. The entry also recorded a substantial meadow (for the provision of hay for plough animals) and a significant fishery.^[20][21][g]

The Domesday Book records the total annual value of the estate in 1086 (used to calculate how much tax the lord should be charged) as 39 pounds. The assessed 1086 value was 9 pounds less than prior to the conquest, attributed to the devastation caused by Norman forces on their circuitous route around London as they sought its subjugation.^[23][24]

After the Conquest the Manors of Hampton and Isleworth (comprising the hundred of Hounslow) were granted to Walter of Saint-Valéry, from whose home town in Flanders, Saint Valery-sur-Somme, William had sailed in 1066.^[h][25] Walter probably never resided in Middlesex, and he and his heirs were active participants in the First and Second Crusades.^[26] In 1189 the estate passed to Thomas de St Valerie, who, as a baron in the "extraordinarily difficult" position of holding large possessions on both sides of the English Channel in the time of Magna Carta and the rebellion against King John, appears to have taken the precaution of severing the two holdings—transferring the Manor of Hampton to Henry de St Albans, a London merchant, and the Manor of Isleworth to his daughter Annora's husband, Robert III of Dreux—at some point before the 1217 Battle of Lincoln (in which he was implicated and ultimately exiled).^[27] The Manor of Hampton transferred from the hundred of Hounslow to that of Spelthorne in the late 12th or early 13th century.^[28]

The Manor was acquired in 1237 by the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (known as the Knights Hospitaller). A Benedictine order charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land,^[i] the Knights Hospitaller operated from headquarters on Rhodes, using their holdings in England (received via bequests from returning Crusaders) to fund their operations. The Order became established in Hampton around 1180^[j] (probably by a gift from Reginald St Valery^[k]), and by 1237 owned a house and sheep pasture on the site of present-day Hampton Court Palace.^[26] In 1338, the Order commissioned a financial survey of its possessions in England, which showed the Manor of Hampton comprising 800 acres of demesne (rented arable land), 40 acres of meadow by the Thames, pasture for 24 oxen, 18 cows, 10 store cattle and 2000 sheep, a fish weir and a pigeon house.^[30]

The Knights Hospitallers developed their estate at Hampton Court into one of the largest and best-appointed of their manors in England, and it was frequently used by the royal court as alternative accommodation to Sheen Palace (the royal palace on the Thames at Richmond),^[l] and as a way station and guest house for visitors en route to the royal manor at Byfleet on the River Wye (constructed by Edward II in the early 14th century).^[31]

The destruction by fire of Sheen Palace in 1497 saw the royal court move to Hampton Court. In 1500 the Lord Chamberlain Sir Giles Daubeney ordered that 300 acres of the demesne near Hampton be enclosed for hunting, taking out a lease for the entire manor in 1505. After his death in 1508, the lease passed to Sir Giles' wife, who allowed it to lapse. Cardinal Wolsey purchased the lease from the Knights Hospitaller in 1514, and continued development of the site into the historic palace ultimately acquired by Henry VIII after Wolsey's demise in 1530.^[32]

The 1534 Act of Supremacy enshrining Henry VIII as supreme head of the Church of England saw the expropriation of Catholic properties throughout England. The Knights Hospitallers Order was formerly dissolved by an Act of Parliament in 1540 and the manor annexed by the Crown.^[33] In 1536 Henry acquired part of Teddington from the Abbot of Westminster, enclosing the land for hunting. In 1537 Henry emparked the arable land around Upper Lodge and ordered the construction of brick walls from Hampton Court to Teddington and Hampton Wick. The boundaries of modern-day Bushy Park were set in 1620 with the addition of the Hampton Eastfield (nearest the town).^[34][35]

The supply of water for the ever-increasing population of the royal complex at Hampton Court had been problematic since the time Wolsey had first taken the Hospitallers' lease,^[m][36] but it was not until Charles I ordered the construction of a canal connecting the River Colne to the Thames via Hampton Court that the palace secured a steady supply for its household and expanding water features. Designed by Nicholas Lane, the canal started at Longford on the Colne, and was built swiftly in 1638–39, cutting through Feltham, Hanworth, Hounslow Heath, and the north Hampton heath on its route to Bushy Park. Initially unpopular for blocking roads and dividing parishes, the original river (variously known as the Cardinal's, Queen's or King's River) was poorly made and prone to flooding. Protesters dammed the river in 1649 and the river fell into disuse and ran dry during the Protectorate. After the Restoration, Charles II sought to replicate in Bushy Park the garden at Versailles, establishing the Long Water in Home Park as a wedding present for Catherine of Braganza, and thus ordered the Longford River restored.^[37][38]

Between 1500 and 1700 the population of Hampton and Hampton Wick grew from 300–350 to 1100–1200.^[39] This growth came despite regular outbreaks of plague in London, which both culled the citizenry and swelled the population of Hampton with the migration of London citizens out of the city.^[40] In 1603, 99 of the 119 deaths recorded among Hampton's 400-500 inhabitants were attributed to plague, compared to 11 total deaths the previous year.^[41][42]