Wraysbury

Wraysbury
St Andrew's Church
Population	3,641 (2001)
OS grid reference	TQ005745
Civil parish	Wraysbury
Unitary authority	Windsor and Maidenhead
Ceremonial county	Berkshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	STAINES
Postcode district	TW19
Dialling code	01784
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Royal Berkshire
Ambulance	South Central
UK Parliament	Windsor

Wraysbury, traditionally spelt Wyrardisbury, is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It is located in the very east of the county, in the part that was in Buckinghamshire until 1974. It sits on the northern bank of the River Thames in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and is situated 22 miles (35 km) west of London.

History

Investigation by Windsor and Wraysbury Archaeological Society of a field in the centre of Wraysbury to the east of St Andrew's church revealed evidence of human activity in Neolithic times. Many hundreds of flint artefacts were found and are now in the care of the Windsor Museum collection.

The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin and means 'Wïgrǣd's fort'. Its name is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Wirecesberie and Wiredesbur in 1195. There is a pub across the river in Old Windsor, called the Bells of Ouseley and it has been suggested that this is another archaic spelling of Wraysbury. However a more likely explanation is that it is named after the bells of Osney Abbey which were brought downstream at the dissolution and disappeared into the mud at this point.

The village was a portion of hunting grounds when the Saxons resided at Old Windsor. New Windsor was built in 1110 by King Henry I and he moved in, in 1163. The lands around Wraysbury were held by a number of noblemen.

Magna Carta Island and Ankerwycke

Magna Carta Island, in the parish of Wraysbury, was the location of the sealing of the Magna Carta in 1215.

On the Ankerwycke estate in the village are the ruins of a Benedictine nunnery, founded in the reign of King Henry II. One of the 50 oldest trees in the United Kingdom can be found in Wraysbury. At around 2000 years old, the Ankerwycke Yew dates from the Iron Age, and is so wide that you can fit a Mini Cooper behind its trunk and not see it from the other side. Local legend says that Anne Boleyn once sat under the tree, while residing at the Ankerwycke Estate, but this still has to be verified.

St Andrew's Church

The parish church of St Andrew is a Gothic structure, between Norman and Early English, supposed to have been built by King John. The parish registers date from the year 1734.

Changing face of Wraysbury in the 19th Century

The population of Wraysbury remained relatively static during the 19th century, with a slight increase between the 1801 return of 616 and the final census of the century giving a population figure of 660. This compares to the early part of the 21st century with population figures for Wraysbury, standing at 3,641 in the 2001 census.

For centuries, agricultural and mill work had been the principal areas of employment for the villagers and as late as 1831, census returns show that of the 135 families in the village, 62 were employed in agriculture while 68 made their living in the Mills.

This compares to the most recent census where around 12% of the population work from home and the average distance travelled to work is now 14.24 km.

The Wraysbury Enclosure

The Enclosure of the Parish of Wraysbury was ordered by a private Enclosure Act of 1799 and was signed by the commissioners in 1803. The map of the village was redrawn by Thomas Bainbridge and shows the distribution of the lands in the following the enclosure.

Prior to this, the Common Lands of the village were owned by the Lord of the Manor of Wraysbury, at that time John Simon Harcourt, the Church, and the Trustees of William Gyll esq., although, as common land, they were subject to legal rights of pasture and grazing for copyholders and other tenants. In addition to those with legal rights over the land, the poor of the district would have had ‘real’ or ‘customary rights’, for example to feed their livestock or gather wood for fuel.

The only ones benefiting from enclosure were those who could show legal rights over the common land, such as copyholders and tenants of the manor. The enclosure enshrined their rights, converting ‘rights of common’ and allocating an area of land commensurate to their rights, as close to their farmhouse as was convenient. The poor were overlooked in this process, and were no longer able to forage for fuel or graze their animals.

The smaller landowners of Wraysbury to benefit from Enclosure were people such as Nathanial Wilmot, Nathanial Matthews, Shadrach Trotman and Thomas Buckland, all of whose names had previously appeared on the Wraysbury Court rolls as copyhold owners.

Coming of the Railway

The village saw another major change in 1848 with the arrival of the railway which opened up employment opportunities and afforded the chance to travel easily and quickly to and from the village. In the History of Wraysbury published in 1862, G.W.J. Gyll extolled the benefits to the village:

Railways have much improved the locality and the condition of the people also, and it is a powerful solvent to diminish provincial rusticity, local and self-importance; class prejudice and all the elements of isolation melt away in its presence. The railway through our parish has been of great use to it; has enhanced the value of property, as is the case wherever such a project has been executed, despite the fears of those who repressed the enterprise.

William Thomas Buckland was the local surveyor and valuer employed to handle the compensation claims resulting from the purchases of land for the new railway. This business of Buckland & Sons grew into an estate agency, which had an office in Windsor High Street for the following 150 years.

New Road and Suspension Bridge

Where is Wraysbury, I can scarce find it on the map? asked an associate of G.W.J. Gyll. Once the railway had put the village on the map, the next step was to improve road access, and more importantly, to alleviate the adverse effects of the annual floods which frequently resulted in the village being cut off from the rest of the county. Lord of the Manor, George Harcourt suggested that a new road should be built on higher ground from Bowry’s Barn to the Colne Bridge, to replace the old road which ran along ditches susceptible to flooding. The 1848 Tithe Map, drawn by surveyor WT Buckland showing the proposed route of the new road can be seen at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies in Aylesbury. Harcourt also suggested a replacement for the old Long Bridge over the River Colne should be built, and a new suspension bridge, designed and paid for by Harcourt, was built by civil engineer Mr Dredge.

Baptist Chapel in Wraysbury

Non-Conformists in Wraysbury

The only place of worship in Wraysbury until 1827 was the Anglican Church of St Andrew. Local farmer, surveyor and auctioneer, William Thomas Buckland, wishing to provide an alternative place of worship for non-conformists, built the Wraysbury Baptist Chapel to his own design. The original Baptist meeting place was opened in 1827 and WT Buckland was the principal minister until his death some 40 years later. Gyll, in his History of Wraysbury, described the establishment of the chapel:

The City of Refuge by George Tinworth

Much praise is to be given to the officiating, minister of the Baptists in Wraysbury, Mr. William Thomas Buckland, who exercises his vocation at the chapel here to a well disposed and confiding auditory, while to his wife and family are entrusted the religious education of the Baptist flock.

The new chapel, with its elegant slender tower was opened on 16 October 1862; the building works had cost around £800. The striking terracotta relief panel, The City of Refuge, on the front elevation of the chapel, was created by the renowned Doulton & Co artist George Tinworth and is signed with his monogram.

After the death of WT Buckland, James Doulton, his son-in-law and a cousin of Sir Henry Doulton, took over the preaching duties. Later James' son-in-law the Reverend Arthur Gostick Shorrock took over the duties. Arthur had been a student preacher in Wraysbury in the 1880s, after which he spent 35 years as a missionary work in Shaanxi, China.

Use in film and television

A flooded quarry in Wraysbury was used a filming location (actually intended to be in France) in the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill, in which Bond (played for the last time by Roger Moore) and the corpse of his murdered ally Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee) were pushed into the water in their Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud by the villainous Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) and his henchman Mayday (Grace Jones). However, Bond avoided drowning by forcing open the door and swimming to the surface.[1]

Wraysbury Today

Wraysbury Railway Station

Due to the various gravel pits, the River Thames, lakes and reservoirs, Wraysbury has plenty of wildlife and wonderful walks.

The village has two railway stations, Wraysbury railway station and Sunnymeads railway station on the line from Windsor to London Waterloo.

In June, Wraysbury holds its annual fete, where stands such as the local vintage and classic car clubs show off their member's vehicles. There are also activities for children and the Tug Of War held by the scouts, beavers and cubs. There are also the stands of local charities, the local school, usually giving out ice creams, and of course the church's stands.

The Wraysbury Cricket Club plays on the village Green and will play the MCC in 2009.

Former actor Robert Rietti had a home in Wraysbury, but once his wife died in August 2008, he no longer needed this together with his house in Wembley and a flat in Golders Green, and sold the house in the summer of 2009.

Former Wraysbury resident Gordon Cullen, an architect renowned for developing the Townscape movement in post-war Britain, designed the Wraysbury Village Hall. It is only one of a few buildings he designed which were subsequently built.

Politics

On a Parish level, the town is represented by eleven councillors of the Wraysbury Parish Council.

On Borough level, the town is part of the Horton and Wraysbury electoral ward and is currently represented by two councillors (John Lenton and Colin Rayner of the Conservative Party) in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. Councillor Lenton serves on both the Wraysbury Parish Council and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council.

Nationally, since 1997 the ward has formed part of the UK Parliamentary constituency of Windsor and is currently represented by Adam Afriyie of the Conservative Party.

Before 1997, the town was part of the UK Parliamentary constituency of Windsor and Maidenhead which was consistently held by the Conservative Party.

Famous residents

• David Gilmour - Member of the British Rock band Pink Floyd
• Gordon Cullen - British Architect (d.1994)
• Christine Keeler - A young girl who was involved with the Profumo Affair.
• Bunty Bailey - The girl in the classic rotoscoped music video Take on me by a-ha, and also a past member of Hot Gossip

Russel Grant

Images of Wraysbury

• 
  View of Wraysbury Lakes
• 
  Swans on Wraysbury Lakes
• 
  Another view of Wraysbury Lakes

External links

• Wraysbury.Net - Village Community Website
• Wraysbury - UK & Ireland Genealogy#
• Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies
• ONS Neighbourhood Statistics Wraysbury
• Wraysbury Enclosure Award
• Google Books GWJ Gyll selected chapters
• Thames Pilot - Slough History Online
• The National Archives - Documents Online Domesday Book, Wraysbury
• Variations in the spelling of Wraysbury
• Wraysbury Fishing Lake