The Twickenham Museum
Exhibitions : 1914 Maps and Images

Introduction to 1914 Maps and Images
Maps of the area show that it was very different to the present time.

Early in September 1914 the 8th (reserve) Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment - about 1000 strong - were billeted in the district at Hampton Court. The cavalry barracks was used (then located at the end of Hampton Court Green where the present car park is now.
In 1914 the area that was to form the old Borough of Twickenham in 1937 comprised separate Urban District Councils: Twickenham, Teddington, Hampton as well as one for Hampton Wick. These Councils had only started in 1895 replacing Local Boards that had been formed earlier. Looking at the maps we can see the area was very different to the present time. The Chertsey Road did not exist and Whitton was still a village. The Nurserylands of Hampton were covered in nurseries and glass houses and not the housing of today. Trams ran down most of the principal main roads and Fulwell was a tram depot not a bus garage. The motor car was still a fairly new invention and many roads had only just been surfaced. Horse-drawn delivery carts were common-place and the aeroplane had only recently been seen (Bleriot had first flown across the Channel in 1909). The centres of the local towns are familiar to us today, retaining similar road layouts and many period buildings, unlike the later development and infill much of which was still in the future in 1914. In Twickenham the Rugby Ground had opened in 1909 and was surrounded by orchards and market gardens. Marsh Farm then occupied the area that was to become the tertiary college. In West Twickenham there were still the remnants of large houses and their land with the most prominent being Fulwell Park which remained until sold in 1934; Heath Road still had several large houses on the south side. In Teddington the buildings of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) were clustered near Bushy Park and the buildings near the Hampton Road did not then exist. There was a house called Teddington Grove in Twickenham Road with much land now replaced by housing and further large houses now mainly replaced by blocks of flats. Broom Road also had some large properties that were destined to be further developed as the sites of Teddington Film Studios and the Lensbury Club; the Sewage Works would subsequently provide the site for Teddington School. In Hampton much of the Manor House estate was yet to be built on and the area around the Manor House itself was only developed from the mid-1930s onwards. Station Road had newly built filter beds (opened in 1902) now replaced by the village green development. What people did not then know was that, later in the year, the First World War would change everything.....

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