The Twickenham Museum
Exhibitions : Villages on the River

Hampton & Hampton Hill
...a number of finds of flint and bone tools and weapons...

Flint axe

There have been a number of finds of flint and bone tools and weapons from the Mesolithic period (about 7000BC) at Hampton, particularly during the housing development at the Cannon Field.
Hampton, and Hampton Hill, together with Hampton Wick, were part of a single Anglo-Saxon parish. At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086 Hampton was described as Hamntone. This name is believe to derive from the Anglo-Saxon words meaning the settlement in the bend of the river. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, Hampton Town developed about a mile upstream from the original settlement near Hampton Court, where St Mary's Church now stands.
Hampton Wick formed its own Local Board in 1863, but Hampton did not form a Board until 1890 and both became Urban District Councils in 1895.

Hampton Hill High Street

The development of Hampton was particularly influenced by the arrival of the Water Companies in the 1850s and the railway in 1864. These changes also led to an influx of workers who were housed in the area then known as The Common. This area became known as New Hampton and then the name was changed to Hampton Hill in 1890. The physical infrastructure of the area was greatly improved after the Local Boards were formed. Those bodies and the later UDCs, had powers to borrow money for capital projects, unlike the old Church Vestry.

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