History of Sunbury
 The
finding of Bronze Age funerary urns on Sunbury Common proved that people lived here three
thousand years ago. Modern Sunbury rests on the bones of the small early settlements of
Anglo-Saxon times. There were four main tracks, dusty in summer, pot-holed and muddy in
winter. One followed the River Thames (Thames Street) and three ran south to north, to the
great wasteland of Hounslow Heath. These early tracks are now Green Street, French Street
and The Avenue. which was not a road until 1913 or so. The earliest written evidence of Sunbury's history was the Sunbury charter of AD962, when the Anglo-Saxon King Eadgar granted a stretch of land to his kinsman Aelfheh. Before Domesday 1086, William the Conqueror gave another piece of land to his half brother the Count of Mortane. These two areas became the manors of Sunbury and Kempton. The lords of the manors granted tenancies of land to the people and held courts, which tried minor crimes and regulated the medieval Open Field system. The hamlet of Sunbury grew up round the triangle of Church Street, Thames Street and Green Street, later stretching north when the railway came in 1864. The Royal Manor of Kempton was grouped round what is now French Street, north to the estate and house of the lord of the manor - now Kempton racecourse. Thames Street, once called Sunbury Street, is one of the oldest built-up areas and has a mixture of styles and sizes dating from the late 16th century to current times. It presents an interesting townscape. As recently as World War 2 it was the main shopping street supplying most of the needs of the village. |
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| "As they passed Sunbury Church, the clock struck seven. There was a light in the ferry-house window opposite; which streamed across the road and threw into more sombre shadow a dark yew tree with graves beneath it. There was a dull sound of the old tree stirred gently in the night wind. It seemed like quiet music for the repose of the dead." from OLIVER TWIST by Charles Dickens |
