Place:Byfleet, Surrey, England

Watchers
NameByfleet
Alt namesSanwaysource: settlement in parish
TypeParish (ancient), Civil parish
Coordinates51.35°N 0.483°W
Located inSurrey, England
See alsoGodley Hundred, Surrey, Englandancient county division in which it was located
Chertsey Rural, Surrey, Englandrural district of which it was part 1894-1933
Woking, Surrey, Englandurban district into which it was absorbed in 1933
Woking District, Surrey, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Byfleet is an inland "island" surrounded by waterways and its built-up part is a village of medieval origin. Today it is the most distant but contiguous suburb of the Borough of Woking in Surrey, England. Subsequently, residents are often referred to as 'Islanders'. Part, particularly the Sanway area, forms part of the Metropolitan Green Belt. Byfleet village takes up the far east of the borough and much of the land is within the widest gap between the Wey Navigation and the River Wey. Its western boundary is the M25 motorway where there is a major junction with the A3 road.

The village was in the Godley Hundred, a Saxon division for strategic and taxation purposes. Byfleet appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Byeflete.

Byfleet is an ancient parish. It was included as a civil parish in the Chertsey Rural District in 1894; it was added to the Woking Urban District in 1933 under a County Review Order, thus extinguishing its parish council. But Byfleet still constitutes a civil parish.

Twentieth Century History

Byfleet expanded considerably after the opening of the Brooklands Motor Circuit in 1907 and when major aircraft factories opened there during World War I.

The influence of the aircraft industry on the village's development continued between the wars and during World War Two. Most of the new aeroplanes built at Brooklands took off over the centre of Byfleet on their first flights.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Byfleet.

Surrey Research Tips

Government

Administrative boundaries of the county of Surrey (Surrey History Centre. The centre has a website with a number of useful indexes--titheholders in various parishes, deaths at the county gaol, etc.)

Registration Districts

  • Registration Districts in Surrey from their introduction in 1837 to the present. By drilling down through the links you can follow any parish through the registration districts to which it was attached.

GENUKI provisions

The website GENUKI provides a very comprehensive list of reference sources for the County of Surrey. It includes:

  • Archives and Libraries
  • Church record availability for both Surrey and the former Surrey part of Greater London
  • 19th century descriptions of the ecclesiastical parishes
  • Lists of cemeteries
  • Local family history societies
  • A list of historic maps online

History

  • The Victoria History of the County of Surrey is a series of three volumes available online through British History Online. The volumes were written over the past hundred or so years by a number of authors and cover various sections of Surrey. A list of the volumes and what each contains can be found under the source Victoria History of the County of Surrey. Both volumes 3 and 4 contain areas which are part of Greater London and parts of modern Surrey.

Maps

  • The National Library of Scotland has a website which provides maps taken from the Ordnance Survey England & Wales One-Inch to the Mile series of 1892-1908 as well as equivalent maps for Scotland itself. The immediate presentation is a "help" screen and a place selection screen prompting the entry of a location down to town, village or parish level. These screens can be removed by a click of the "X". The map is very clear and shows parish and county boundaries and many large buildings and estates that existed at the turn of the 20th century. Magnification can be adjusted and an "overlay feature" allows inspection of the area today along with that of 1900. The specific map from the series can be viewed as a whole ("View this map") and this allows the inspection of the map legend (found in the left hand bottom corner. Becoming familiar with the various facilities of these maps is well worth the trouble.
  • Victoria County History chapter on Byfleet
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Byfleet. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.