Welcome to Knaphill Village
The Knaphillian - Knaphill's No.1 Community Website
The History of Knaphill
- The Growth of Knaphill
- Knaphill in Black & White
- Inkerman Barracks
- Brookwood Hospital, Knaphill
- The Aldershot & District Buses
- In & Around Knaphill
The village name was first recorded in 1225 as La Cnappe. Since then there has been various spellings of the name including 'Nap Hill, Naphill and Knap Hill. In 958A.D., the village was probably part of land granted to Westminster Abbey; there is clear ownership by 1278. The land passed to Henry V111 on the disolution of the monasteries in the 1530s. The Basingstoke Canal was built to the south of Knaphill in 1794 and the railway line came in 1838.
In 1859, a prison was built in Knaphill. This was later converted into army barracks.
One of the major employers in the area until its closure in the 1990s was Brookwood Hospital, a vast, rambling lunatic asylum that dated from the late Victorian era. The northern edge of the hospital grounds adjoined the Broadway with the southern edge being denoted by the Knaphill side of the Basingstoke Canal.
Most of the old hospital grounds have now been redeveloped, the wards having made way for the Sainsburys and Homebase superstores and a large number of houses and council flats. The central building, which is 'A' listed has been retained and converted into luxury flats. Several of the new residential roads were named after the old hospital wards. The former chapel is now a Buddhist temple and the hospital morgue is now living quarter's for the temple's monks.
The Growth of Knaphill
It started life as what Dr Alan Crosby in his A History of Woking calls a “squatter settlement”, whereby land was enclosed by people on the edge of heaths. This was supposed to be approved by manor courts but was often accepted after a long period of time had elapsed.
Long before Knaphill was a village, its settlers — because of their enclosure — were commoners, with the same common rights as tenants of the lord of the manor. Dr Crosby writes: “Knaphill, on the border between
“In the 17th century it was no more than a few scattered farms but by 1830 it comprised a large number of cottages, small-holdings and little enclosures strung out along what has become Anchor Hill and High Street.”
The area had a soil that was adept for horticulture, a growing trend from the end of the 18th century and several nurseries grew up around Knaphill, including that of Michael Waterer, later owned by the Slocock family. As with the rest of the area, growth began to kick in with the arrival of the railway in 1838-40. Although it bypassed Knaphill, with the arrival of the London Necropolis Railway in 1854, there was a station at Brookwood. More importantly, the London Necropolis Company acquired 2,268 acres of Woking Common. When it became clear the 450 acres for the cemetery was ample, the remainder was sold off for development. Among the purchasers
were the War Department who wanted land for a prison and the county, which wanted a mental institution.
The prison later became an army barracks and the
Courtesy: Aldershot News Group
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Inkerman Barracks
The Knaphill prison for infirm convicts was begun in 1858 with the building of the quarters for male prisoners between the villages of Knaphill and St John's. By 1870, when the female convict prison had been built alongside, the total prison population reached 1,400. A huge staff was required and it looks as though some housing for them was provided by the Home Office nearby.
The census of course gives no indication of how far apart all these places were but a map of 1873 shows the prison as quite isolated between Knaphill to the northwest and St John's, roughly south-east. Between Knaphill and the prison was a large area named 'Fulks Orchard'.
At one end of the 30 'Prison Cottages' were houses for the Chaplain (at this time the prison doctor lived there), a deputy governor and a steward. After the 'cottages', only one of which was unoccupied, was 'Model Cottage' occupied by a Charles Harvey 'Blacksmith Warder'. (He probably had more to do with horses rather than chains on the prisoners by then!). Next came Prison St, with a number of 'Principal' warders, the houses being numbered 1-8 and then, oddly, more houses numbered 1-20. Then there were individually named houses, their occupants having jobs like Scripture Reader, steward, surgeon and assistant surgeon, chaplains, (Anglican and Catholic), Lady Superintendent (cook) and then 10 more houses in New St. with yet more employees, gatekeepers, carpenter, messenger, bricklayers, stoker and gardeners.
Hermitage St had 11 houses with bakers, grocers etc, then Prison Path which appears to mark the end of the prison houses. First was Norfolk House, occupied by two families, a grocer and bootmaker and a prison officer. At Buttevant House was an 'Edmund A.Barrymore, B.A., Of Ch.Ch. (Sch) Classical Master' aged 24, born in Amesbury, Wiltshire. His wife was the daughter of a Baronet and he does not appear to have had any connection with the prison. Perhaps he was a private tutor. (At 24 he would not yet have received his M.A. 'Ch.Ch.' could be Christchurch Oxford. As it is a cathedral as well as a college it has a choir school, but this reference is still obscure.) Next, still on Prison Path, were 'Sutton Cottages', a row of six houses, 2 empty, the rest occupied by people working at the prison. It is not known how many of these houses were private property nor how far apart the roads or the individual houses were.
Its interesting to notice that the next two dwellings are called Belle Vue Cottages. The first of these two was occupied by a 'teacher of languages' and the second by a 'foreman in nursery'. Belle Vue Cottages are also listed as being in St John's. However, there were three more cottages, Flora, Fir Tree and Smithers, then the St John's Post Office and then Goldsworth Road. The route of the enumerator past an inn called the New Barge and a lock indicate that the road ran by the canal and then led into Woking itself. The 'New Barge' is simply a mis-reading of 'Row Barge' and was on Goldsworth Road, which can now be identified as the one running parallel to the canal and past the pub.
One lane went from Knaphill past the north-east side of the prison via the Robin Hood public house and Brookwood Farm which both faced the prison. Only a couple of fields further on came the canal, Woodend Bridge and then the Row Barge Inn.
From the Anchor Inn in Knaphill there appears to be another track along the south-eastern side of the orchard, on past the prison, next a large 'Brick Field', and then past the Prince of Wales Inn, over Kiln Bridge and into St John's by the old National School. Between the two bridges and the pubs is a lock on the canal. Both the lock and the brickworks as well as the nurseries (which still flourish in the area) brought much of the trade to the two inns.
The establishment of the 'Brookwood Lunatic Asylum' nearby must have also added to the huge growth of local housing at this time. More background to this phenomenal growth of Woking, including the original intention to make it one vast cemetery (now known as 'Brookwood'), can be found on quite a number of websites easily available through search engines such as 'Google'.
The Anchor Inn is obviously in Knaphill, but according to the map it was only a hamlet in 1873 and the whole area was referred to as 'Woking'. Some of the new residents on the road beyond Kiln Bridge were working at the prison as clerks and the number of Knaphill shopkeepers had also increased considerably since 1873. The Robin Hood pub appears to have had only a scattering of houses along its lane with the engineer and foreman at the prison living at the Knaphill end, but near Brookwood Farm were more houses which must have been fairly new, with more warders, cooks, gardeners, carpenters and brick workers etc. All the residents were incomers from all over the British Isles and many returning from spells overseas. Out of a total of 52 people, mostly children in fact, said to be born in Knaphill, only one family, that of John Cheeseman a nursery worker aged 47, could be said to be a real Knaphill family, while over 50 people given as born in Knaphill, mostly older, had long moved elsewhere in the Home Counties.)
The Inkerman Barracks became the home of the Royal Military Police in 1947, but it has now been demolished and replaced with new housing. There are still new housing schemes in operation which are described on the official site of Woking Council. Most of the old prison cottages may have gone or else names like 'Prison St' will have changed their names along with the prison.There is no Hermitage St now but a Hermitage Road is shown on modern maps. Barrack Path, a continuation of Inkerman Way via a pelican crossing on Amstell Way was originally 'Prison Path', leading towards St John's. Roads named after Crimean War battles and generals like Raglan indicate the location of the old barracks. The 'Row Barge' is still 'going strong', is very family friendly, and figures on one of the local 'pub walks'. The canal was derelict for years but like many such projects is being restored, though there is no longer any access to it from the pub. It's unlikely that the large lawn at the front will be changed back from the packed car park which long ago replaced it.
Courtesy: Lupton On-Line Magazine
Inkerman Barracks: "I lived in one of these married quarters! 1972-1974
I moved into one of these houses in the picture (I remember which one but not the number) while living here I worked for (I think it was called R.F.G D.Q) parachute makers and then was a driver for the home office prison stores which were behind the married quarters. I do remember our house had a bathroom added on at the back ( it was so cold in the winter and with all the condensation you had to sit in thre bath holding an umbrella!) but the quarters opposite had a bath in the kitchen and only an outside toilet! They were lovely houses if only they could have had some money spent on them. I also remember picking lovely blackberries we picked on the derelict land at the back". - by Jane Reddy
Courtesy: Francis Frith Collection
More......
In 1858 the Home Office bought just over 64 acres of land from the London Necropolis Company in order to build a special prison for disabled prisoners in Knaphill. Known as the ‘Woking Invalid Convict Prison’ it was the first prison to be specifically for disabled prisoners – not just for those physically ill, but also those suffering from mental illness.
The main prison building was designed by Sir Joshua Jebb and Arthur Blomfield (sometimes mis-spelled as ‘Bloomfield’ as in Bloomfield Close). It consisted of two large wings on either side of a large central tower. The west wing was for the chronically sick and insane, whilst the east wing was for some of the more able-bodied prisoners. (See above for more on Inkerman Barracks)
Inkerman Barracks - Knaphill
The whole site was surrounded by a wall, eighteen feet high, the bricks of which can occasionally still be found on the escarpment down towards Robin Hood Road.
Work began on the building in 1858 with prisoners and officers brought in from Lewes, Carisbrooke and Dartmoor to help with the construction .
The north-east wing was opened on the 28th April 1859, although the official opening of the whole site was not until the 22nd March 1860 when three-hundred prisoners were transferred from the already cramped and inadequate Lewes Prison in Sussex.
The average number of prisoners at Knaphill was 613.
In 1867 work began on the second prison at Knaphill – this time for female convicts, and once again some of the more able-bodied men from the male prison were employed as cheap labour.
The new prison opened on the 5th May 1869 when 100 were transferred here from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight.
Many of the women worked in the prison kitchens or laundry, whilst a number were employed as Tailoresses, Needlewomen or Knitters. Woking Prison was also well-known for its Mosaics Department where the women could earn 1s2d a day breaking up refuse marble to be laid as mosaic floors. Some were exhibited at the ‘International Exhibition of Fine Arts and Industry’ at the Royal Albert Hall in 1872, and it is said that part of the floor of St Paul's Cathedral and the ‘South Kensington Museums’ were produced at this time. St John’s Church also exhibits some of the work
In 1886 it was decided to close the prisons at Woking over a ten year period, and in 1888 most of the male prisoners were transferred. The invalid prison finally closed on the 21st March 1889 and in November the Home Office transferred the site to the War Department.
In 1891 they bought an extra 20 acres adjoining the site from the Necropolis Company for £5,600, to be used as part of the parade ground.
The female prison continued to be used until October 1895 when it too was closed and the last of the women transferred to Holloway. During the First World War the female prison was used as a military hospital, whilst the male section housed various units, including many troops from all over the Empire.
After the Second World War the barracks became the base for the Royal Military Police who finally vacated the site in 1965 when they moved down to Chichester (although part of the site was retained as a clothing store)
The site then became available for housing with Woking Borough Council and The Guinness Trust developing part of the estate in the early 1970s – followed by more private houses in the 1980s and 90s – although it is perhaps the restoration of the original prison officers quarters in Wellington Terrace and Raglan Road that are the most distinctive part of the area.
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Brookwood Hospital, Knaphill
The Surrey County Asylum opened as a second Surrey County Asylum in June 1867. 328 patients were received in 1867. On an 1873 map it is on Knaphill Common, south west of "Woking Convict Prison". "The site was selected for cheap land and the Surrey Justices purchased 150 acres in 1860 for £70 per acre... The asylum was designed to be self sufficient with its own gas works, sewage plant, a water tower with reservoirs holding one million gallons of water, the four acre Home Farm, and recreational areas.
Occupational therapy was born and able patients put to work on making items the asylum needed such as furniture, baskets, rugs, tools, etc. and growing their own food. It was all commendably enlightened for its time and with building extensions the number of inmates grew steadily from 670 in 1875 to 1500 in the 1930s. Besides providing a great deal of local employment for nursing and maintenance staff the hospital became a major social centre for the district, organising fetes, shows, weekly dances, sports events and fund raisers."
From 1909, Brookwood served the western half of Surrey and became Brookwood Hospital, Knaphill, Woking, GU21 2YP. Closure was planned for 1986, but did not take place until 1994. "The surviving buildings have now been converted into luxury apartments".
Courtesy: Middlesex University Resources
Aldershot & District Traction Co. Ltd
Nostalgia Time : Do you remember these magnificent Aldershot & District Buses running through Knaphill? - More >>>
In & Around Knaphill
Coming of the Canal
St Johns village takes its name from the Chapel of Ease (now Church) of St John the Baptist, that was built here in 1842. The chapel, designed by George Gilbert Scott, was built to serve the western part of the old parish of St Peter’s, (Old) Woking. By the 1840s the Knaphill/Goldsworth area had begun to develop with the building of the canal (and later the railway) as well as the development of the brick-making and nursery industries.
The Basingstoke Canal was built in the late 1780s and ’90s, with work starting at Woodham in 1788 and the canal being opened to Horsell in 1791 and Pirbright in 1792 (Basingstoke was finally reached in 1794).
It was a mainly agricultural waterway, with timber and flour being carried downstream to London and coal and finished goods carried upstream to the towns and villages along its route.
In 1787 they estimated that over 30,000 tons of goods would be carried each year on the waterway, but on only three occasions did the canal actually carry the projected amount of tonnage - in 1838 (when the canal was used to carry goods for the construction of the railway), and in 1934 and 1935 (just before the transportation of coal to g Gas Works ceased).
After the railway opened the canal started to decline and in 1869 the original company was wound up. It was revived (and failed again) on several occasions in the late 19th century before being bought in 1923 by Mr. A.J. Harmsworth. After he died in 1947, however, the canal once more fell into decline until in the 1970s Hampshire and Surrey County Councils bought their sections of waterway and the Surrey & Hampshire Canal Society set about restoration work.
The work in this section took several years with five locks and two ancient bridges (Langman’s and Woodend) to be restored, as well as the canal bank and towpath. Indeed, in a way, work is still continuing with the provision of a new ‘back-pumping’ scheme at St Johns, designed to maintain the water levels in the canal even in the driest of summers.
The bridge across the canal at St Johns – Kiln Bridge – was one of the first bridges over the canal to be rebuilt. Originally the bridge was a simple brick arch – like Woodend Bridge – but in 1899 Woking Council rebuilt the bridge at the request of the War Department, who feared that the old bridge might collapse with the heavy traffic being carried over it from Woking to Inkerman Barracks. In the event it was Hermitage Bridge that collapsed (in 1904) when a traction engine pulling a wagon of potatoes for the barracks was passing over. Woking Council eventually rebuilt that bridge too, although it took them nearly twenty years to do so!
Kiln Bridge gets its name from the brick kilns that were once situated beside the canal between Robin Hood Road and Copse Road.
The pits here were some of the first to be dug in the area and must have been exhausted soon after the canal was opened. Other brick fields were situated on the site of Winston Churchill School and the Lansbury Estate, Lower Guildford Road (just off Hermitage Hill), with more lower down the canal on what is now part of Goldsworth Park. These were developed by the Jackman and Slocock families as part of their nursery businesses.
St Johns Lye
The name ‘Lye’ probably derives from the ‘Old English’ word ‘lçah’ meaning ‘a grove’ or a clearing within a wood – often a thin wood. This area was part of Woking Common – a vast area of open common land that stretched from the border with Pyrford (common) in the east to the commons of Bisley and Pirbright to the west.
Woking Common covered over 2,300 acres until in the 1850s when the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company purchased most of it for their vast cemetery (although only using part at Brookwood for burials before selling most of the rest off in the late 19th and early 20th century).
When the Necropolis Company were negotiating with the lord of the manor of Woking (Lord Onslow) the local Vicar, the Rev, Charles Bradford Bowles, persuaded them to leave 150 acres of common so that the poor people of Woking would still have some land upon which they could exercise their ‘common rights’. That land was St Johns’ and Brookwood Lye.
St Johns Hill
In 1810 William Jackman founded a nursery on 50 acres of land that was eventually to be known as ‘St. Johns Hill’. William had four sons, two of whom – George and Henry – took over the running of the nursery when William died in 1840. Two years later, however, the partnership was dissolved and George continued to run the business on his own. By 1851 he had 90 acres under cultivation, employing 35 men and six boys.
They specialised in raising clematis, breeding the well-known “clematis jackmanii” in 1859. Other varieties included ‘clematis Beauty of Surrey‘, ‘Countess of Lovelace’ and ‘Belle of Woking’.
Unfortunately George Jackman died in 1869, leaving the nursery to his son, also called George.
He continued to expand the business, so that eventually it covered over 300 acres, including land between Wych Hill and Egley Road, Woking.
Most of the plants grown at St Johns were ‘exported’ from this area via train and in the mid 1880s George Jackman – supported by the Waterer’s of Knaphill and the Slocock’s at Goldsworth – called for a station to be opened at St Johns.
When George Jackman II died in 1889 he left strict instructions in his will, resulting in the forced sale of the St. Johns Hill site – the sale documents noting that the estate was ’situated on high ground, commanding most beautiful scenery and adorned with fine specimen conifers, deciduous and other flowering trees and shrubs of mature growth’ adding to the attractiveness of the area for high class housing development.
The nursery concentrated production on their Egley Road site before moving eventually to Mayford – where Wyevale Garden Centre is today.
Some of the old nursery buildings have survived at St Johns. However, including the old estate office– now called ‘Kelwood’ in Jackman’s Lane. There were packing sheds, storerooms and the company pay office here too, and the old cottages around the corner were most probably the home of nursery workers. The old Jackman family home, known then as The Hollies also survives, although it has been converted into apartments and renamed – Deerstead House.
St Johns Road
Another well-known nursery on the edge of St Johns was the Goldsworth Nursery of Walter Slocock and Sons.
It was founded some time in the 1760s by James Turner. who grew mainly trees and shrubs. An early catalogue listed up to fifteen varieties of rhododendrons – a plant that had only recently been introduced into this country from the Americas.
By 1804 the nursery was being run by Robert Donald, a well-known nurseryman of his day whose son (also called Robert) took over the running of the nursery in 1848. By 1861 he had built up the nursery business at Goldsworth to cover 200 acres, employing 35 men and 8 boys. Robert Donald Jr. died in 1863 and for a while the property appears to have been owned by branches of the Waterer, Jackman and Chandler families – all well-known local nursery-men.
In 1877 the ‘stock and goodwill’ of the nursery were bought by Walter Charles Slocock for £1,750, with a loan of £1,550 for working capital. Within a few years he had built up the business, so that by the 1890s sales reached almost £14,000 p.a., and when he died (in 1926) his personal fortune amounted to £244,000!
Walter Slocock used a ‘contract’ system giving men seven acres to work for 42 shillings a week with a bonus paid if the land was kept clean and free from weeds. He was apparently very quick tempered, but also quick to forget and on several occasions he was known to ‘sack’ a worker for bad work and then enquire the following day why the man had not turned up for work. One worker had a pet parrot who, it is said, learnt to imitate the voice of Mr. Slocock. It would cause chaos in the fields when the workers thought that the boss was coming, but from Walter Slocock’s point of view it must have helped keep his men on their toes!
W.C. Slocock’s two sons, Walter Ashley and Oliver Charles, both joined the firm, with Oliver’s son, Martin, eventually taking over the business in the 1970s. It was Martin Slocock who eventually sold the land for the building of the Goldsworth Park estate, using the money to buy the old ‘Knaphill Nursery’ - where his grandfather had learnt his trade.
The Hermitage
Neolithic arrowheads and a 2nd century ‘Samian’ bowl found on the Hermitage estate in the late 1960s point to the fact that this area has been inhabited for thousands of years. The first mention of a ‘Hermitage’ on the site, however, dates from the 14th century when a royal pardon was granted to ‘the chaplain of the Heritage of Brookwood’. Apparently the chaplain had been attacked in Pirbright Church by a man from Horsell called Simon Serle. In an act of self-defence the chaplain had killed Serle, with the result that not only had he to obtain the royal pardon, but the church at Pirbright had to be ‘purged’ by the Bishop of Winchester.
In 1718 John Aubrey noted that ‘in the middle of Broke Wood stood a Hermitage formerly belonging to the Grey Friars at Guildford. Part of the house, built of stone and timber, yet remains – four or five rooms and some parcels of land’.
By this stage the Hermitage was part of the Manor of Woking – granted by James I to Sir Edward Zouch. His grandson – James – granted the Hermitage in 1708 to Mrs Catherine Wood.
In the early 19th century a new house was built on the site – possibly by Joseph White, whose widow (Margaret) sold the property in 1823 to John Gates for £3,600.
In 1851 Henry Wedgwood and his family are recorded in the census returns as living at The Hermitage, but the following year the Necropolis Company bought the property and in 1855 the house was almost destroyed by fire.
In the 1870s Mr Stanley Percival bought the property from the Company for £6,250 – living there until he died in 1902 aged 82. His wife, Charlotte, died in 1919 aged 100, with their daughter (Margaret) dying in 1950 aged 90!
By then the house had been demolished (1935) and the Heritage Estate built.
The ‘tunnels’ discovered on the site are believed to be ‘level wells’ and not (as some ‘legends’ say) secret tunnels to a nunnery at Guildford, the priory at Newark, or escape tunnels from the nearby prison!
The Crematorium –
In 1878 the Cremation Society of England bought an acre of land at St Johns and built the first crematorium in this country. At that stage the law regarding cremation was uncertain, and it was not until March 1885 that the first cremation took place here following a test case in South Wales that found that, because there was no law against cremation, cremation must be legal.
In 1888 a chapel and waiting room was added at a cost of £3,000 – the building being designed by E.F.C. Clarke and constructed by Longley and Co of Crawley using locally produced bricks. By then only 100 cremations had taken place at Woking, but by the 1940s the practice of cremation had gained in popularity with over 10,000 bodies being cremated annually.
The Crematorium
One of the most unusual event here was the open-air cremation of a Nepalese Princess, Chamsere Jung.
The princess was a member of the Napalese Embassy in London when she became seriously ill. It was realised that she would die and as Hindu tradition stipulated that she must be cremated on an open-air pyre, the Home Office were asked where such a ceremony could take place. As one of the few Crematoriums in the country at that time it was decided that St. Johns would be the ideal site.
Napalese Hinduism apparently required that a dying person should take their last breath ‘beside a sacred piece of water’ so in early July 1934 the Napalese Government purchased a small bungalow on St Johns Lye, beside the ’sacred waters’ of the Basingstoke Canal!
The funeral took place at 6 o’clock in the evening of Wednesday 13th July 1934 when the princess’s body shrouded in red and gold silk was carried from the house over the canal and into the grounds of the Crematorium. Here a five foot high pyre had been constructed using 400lbs of sandalwood (with 20lbs of camphor incense and other oils, gums and spices) that altogether cost an estimated £400 – £500. As the cortege of two hundred or more mourners crossed walked the route copper and silver coins were scattered on the ground – closely followed by a number of local children intent on picking them up again.
Apparently the four high-caste Hindus carrying the body were forbade from wearing any leather and the story goes that a mad-search was made for rubber soled canvas plimsolls. The funeral taking place on a Wednesday – early closing day in those days – a local shopkeeper had to be found who would open up his shop specially for the mourners.
The Princess was one of only three open-air cremations to take place in this country in modern times– all at St Johns (the others being in December 1935 and February 1937)! After that the new houses of the Hermitage Estate meant that no new pyres could be built as each one was considered a new ‘crematorium’ and thus under the Cremation Act could not be built ‘within 200 yards of a dwelling without the owners/occupiers consent’.
Too close for comfort? - Whilst neighbouring Horsell basks in the glory of its association with the famous HG Wells novel - Knaphill does actually get a mention !
"I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping from man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light, and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as the unseen shaft of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames. And far away towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden buildings suddenly set alight". - HG Wells - More >>>
The above passage is from Chapter Five - 'The Heat-Ray'. The novel has since been transferred to the big screen (twice) and was also adapted by Jeff Wayne in the 1970s into a musical format. The musical version has since been reborn and Jeff Wayne has enjoyed two very successful World Tours during 2006 & 2007. More at www.thewaroftheworlds.com
The early development of St Johns, based on the canal, the nurseries and the brickyards, soon gave way in the late 19th and early 20th century to shops and houses serving the institutions of the area – the prison (later barracks) and asylum at Knaphill.
In the later 20th century it was from the workers in Woking and commuters to the capital that St Johns gained its growth, with several small estates being built in the St Johns Road, Robin Hood Road, Knaphill and Hermitage Road areas.
The 1960s and 70s saw places such as St Johns Rise, Pantiles Close Martin Way, Goldsworth Orchard and Cedar Gardens (all off St Johns Road), with Lansdowne Close and of course the roads of the Hermitage Woods Estate off Hermitage Road.
In the 1980s and 90s several 60s and 70s estates saw extra houses added, so that Ashley Road off Robin Hood Road gained Ashley Court, and Nottingham Close saw more houses built at the end of the road. In the St Johns Road area Dale View likewise saw the land behind the original houses built on, whilst in Beacon Hill it was the steep escarpment in front of the 1970s houses that saw the flats built in the 1990s.
Other 1980s and 90s developments include St Johns Waterside in Copse Road, St Johns Mews in the village centre and St Johns Gardens in St Johns Road – the developers all but exhausting the ‘St Johns’ name in recent years!
On St Johns Hill large houses have been replaced by smaller houses in closes such as ‘Firgrove’, ‘Barricane’ and Holly Close, with developments such as ‘The Mount’ and ‘Glen Court’ continuing the trend into the 1990s.
It is hard to see where the development (or redevelopment) will end, as more and more people want to live near this popular local village, the centre of which was designated as a conservation area in 1991.
- If you have any items of local history that could used on this site - please email us at knaphillvillage@aol.com we will be pleased to include them.
