Hampton Wick, divorced from its sisters, has long since fallen under the spell of its two larger neighbours, Kingston and Teddington...

Living in the Wick has a guaranteed popularity, sandwiched as it is between the Thames and Bushy Park. Like Kingston on the opposite bank, it is festooned with public houses along its riverside, Lower Teddington Road. The Rose & Crown on High Street also has a theatre and the Skate Park has reopened.

The debates on the Wick currently centre on the new Riverside development and the derelict Normansfield Hospital. The Riverside should bring welcome restaurants to the area.

The Normansfield Hospital was a pioneering effort in its time. It was founded by John Langdon Down, a global pioneer in the study of mental illness, female education and the proof that racial origin has no bearing on intelligence or illness. A battle has raged for a while on the number of homes to be built on this huge site on Kingston Road, and again the locals seem to have lost their tussle with Richmond Council. More on this in the housing section.

The Hamptons also face out to seven islands in the Thames. From west to east they are Platt's Eyot (industrial and commercial use), Garrick's Eyot, Taggs Island (residential), Ash Island, Thames Ditton Island (residential), Raven's Ait (hotel and conference centre) and Steven's Eyot (owned by the Environment Agency and also used by boating clubs).

Housing
Squashed as it is between parkland and river, Hampton Wick has a limit on how much housing it can offer. One five bedroom house close to the station - with no view of the river - recently went for £2¾m. At the other end of the scale are the purpose built flats and studios on the roads heading north-west to Teddington. This is also where we find the old Normansfield Hospital site.

Laing Homes bought the area off the NHS in 1999 and has got through many planning applications before Richmond Council saw one they thought they could approve. The three-year battle conducted by the residents for a smaller estate fully in sympathy with the hospital architecture has now been defeated. The council has said yes to a housing estate comprising 198 homes and a 49-bed hotel; it will also see the restoration of the hospital theatre and the construction of the Langdon Down Centre as a memorial to the medical pioneer.

Locals are not happy, predicting an insufferable pressure on GPs, schools and transport. The final say now falls on Ken Livingstone, who will be pushing for a degree of affordable housing, a phrase perhaps none too common in Hampton Wick.

With the Hamptons to the west, it is around the old parish church and the train station that the best housing can be found, based around Ormond Avenue, Crescent and Drive. This area has become known as the village, and as we move away from the river and north of Broad Lane the housing stock falls in quality, although the town's penchant for sizeable gardens remain. The cheapest housing is on the new estates either side of Oak Avenue. Hampton Hill is a more eclectic mix of late-Victorian, inter-war and post-war properties. Prices reflect the lack of a nearby train station, Fulwell to the north being the closest.

Transport
Transport is good for an area so cut up by open ground. The M3 starts its trek to Southampton a mile to the west, while the A roads that carve their way through the area include Upper Sunbury/Hampton Court Road (A308) running west-east and the High Street (A311) heading north to Twickenham. The A3050 and A309 run south from Hampton Court Bridge to, respectively, Walton and Esher.

This is not a place for the underground. Train stations predominate, with Hampton and Fulwell stations being on the line from Shepperton to the west to Clapham Junction to the east. Hampton Court station, across the river from the palace, is a terminus also leading to Clapham Junction (via Surbiton and Wimbledon) and Hampton Wick is on another line that loops round from Richmond before recrossing the river to head into south London.

For buses, a new innovation has been the Hampton Enterprise, a flexible transport service provided by Hampton and Hampton Hill Voluntary Care Group to provide flexible and accessible door-to-door travel throughout the western Hamptons.

Steve Roberts

History


The reason for the Hamptons being scattered over three miles lies with the roving eye of Cardinal Wolsey. Taking his fancy in 1514, the Cardinal demolished the manor house that had stood in the village of Hampton ("the farm in the bend of the river") for centuries to embark on his palatial scheme. The poor plebs had to shift out and create new Hamptons - Hampton-on-Thames upstream and Hampton Wick ("village") downstream.

With the two Hamptons cleaved apart by the royal favour of 1,099 acres of hunting land - now Bushy Park and Hampton Court Park - the administrative friction between town and village grew until the Wick declared itself independent in 1831. The town expanded northwards in the early 19th century to create the settlement of New Hampton, becoming an its own parish in 1863. Shortly after, the inhabitants forced a name change to Hampton Hill. There is no hill here, so the reason for the change must be lost in the social mores of Victorian England.

Hampton Town surrendered its river front from 1855 to a series of waterworks, a valuable source of employment which has now disappeared to be redeveloped. The final section of the Hamptons was filled in from the late Victorian era, as an expansion to the north-west in the direction of Hanworth occurred. Attempts at building various estates in this corner of Hampton have happened from the 1860s to the present day, with varying degrees of success.

Hampton Court now, as a placename, barely exists (apart from the train station). As a palace it is one of the most famous buildings in Britain, hurriedly given by Wolsey to Henry VIII in 1526 in an attempt to save his rapidly crumbling political career. The gamble failed, and Wolsey, a treasonable entity in Henry's eyes since he failed to clear the king's path to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, died on his way to a treason trial in 1530.

Henry, nothing if not selfish, did love the palace. It began a long love affair between monarchy and the building that lasted down to Victoria whose reign saw the ascent of Buckingham Palace. She opened Hampton Court Palace to the public and the Government took over administration in the same year, 1851. Bushy Park and Hampton Court Park were enclosed as hunting grounds by Henry VIII in 1538 but upon his death in 1547 the fences were pulled down and the public have had access ever since.

Steve Roberts.

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