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2091194

Whitton, London

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2091194

Whitton, London

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Whitton, London

Whitton is an area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. Historically, it was the north-western part of Twickenham manor, bounded by the River Crane and the Duke of Northumberland's River.

Whitton High Street is one of the best-preserved 1930s high streets in London. The most common type of housing in the area is 1930s detached and semi-detached housing. Whitton lies on the A316 road, which leads to the M3 motorway, and Whitton railway station is on the line from London Waterloo to Windsor. As a mainly residential area in outer London, many residents commute to Central London.

Whitton was formally part of the ancient parish of Twickenham until 1862 when it became a separate parish, with the church of St Philip and St James opening that year. Due to rapid development, the parish was divided again in 1958; the two electoral wards that make up the area still broadly follow these two parish boundaries.

In 1999, excavations on the former Feltham marshalling yard, located on the western border of Whitton, unearthed remains of an Iron Age furnace and post holes from a round house. There are various remains of former mills and other industrial archaeological features adjoining the River Crane; this part of the river is classified as an Archaeological Priority Area.

In Norman times, Whitton was the western rural part of Twickenham, which in turn was part of the Manor of Isleworth – itself part of the hundred of the same name in the ancient county of Middlesex. The manor had belonged to Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia in the time of Edward the Confessor, but was granted to Walter de Saint-Valery (Waleric) by William the Conqueror after 1066.

Around 1540, gunpowder started to be produced on Hounslow Heath, which at the time covered a large part of Twickenham. The site, beside the River Crane, was to become known as the Hounslow Gunpowder Mills, and was chosen in part as it was away from built-up areas, lessening the impact of accidental explosions. The site remained active until 1927.

By the 16th century the area that was to become Whitton started to see large houses being developed, as the fashionable society in Twickenham started to spread outward. The Elizabethan and Jacobean courtier Sir John Suckling built a house in the vicinity of the present Murray Park (his son the poet Sir John Suckling was born in Whitton in 1609). Sir John later replaced his first house with a grander residence on land adjoining today's Warren Road.

Around 1640, Edmund Cooke built a large house close to the centre of the village. In 1709, this house was bought by the court painter Sir Godfrey Kneller, who had it demolished and replaced with a larger house reputedly designed by Sir Christopher Wren. This house was originally known as Whitton Hall, but was renamed Kneller Hall following Kneller's death in 1723. It was considerably modified by later owners, before it was acquired by the state in 1847 for use as a teacher training college. Until 2021 it was home to the Royal Military School of Music.

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