Laleham Burway is a tract of

water-meadow A water-meadow (also water meadow or watermeadow) is an area of grassland subject to controlled irrigation to increase agricultural productivity. Water-meadows were mainly used in Europe from the 16th to the early 20th centuries. Working wate ...

and former water-meadow between the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

and

Abbey River The Abbey River is a right-bank backwater of the River Thames in England, in Chertsey, Surrey — in the town's northern green and blue buffers. The L-shaped conduit adjoins mixed-use flood plain: water-meadows landscaped for a golf cou ...

in the far north of

Chertsey Chertsey is a town in the Borough of Runnymede, Surrey, England, southwest of central London. It grew up around Chertsey Abbey, founded in AD 666 by Earconwald, St Erkenwald, and gained a municipal charter, market charter from Henry I of Engla ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. Its uses are varied. Part is Laleham Golf Club. Semi-permanent park homes in the west form residential development along with a brief row of houses with gardens against the Thames. A reservoir and water works is on the island. From at least the year 1278 its historic bulky northern definition formed part of the dominant estate of

Laleham Laleham is a village on the River Thames, in the borough of Spelthorne, about west of central London, England. Historically part of the county of Middlesex, it was transferred to Surrey in 1965. Laleham is downriver from Staines-upon-Thames a ...

across the river, its manor, to which it was linked by a ferry until the early 20th century. Its owner in period from the mid-19th until the early 20th century was thus the Earl of Lucan; however when its

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

was sold to become Laleham Abbey, a short-lived nunnery, its tenants had taken it over or it was sold for public works. The southern part of the effective island sharing the name of the Burway or Laleham Burway was the Abbey Mead. It was kept since the seventh century among many square miles of land, priories, chantries, tithes (rectories) and churches of

Chertsey Abbey Chertsey Abbey, dedicated to St Peter, was a Benedictine monastery located at Chertsey in the English county of Surrey. It was founded in 666 AD by Saint Erkenwald who was the first abbot, and from 675 AD the Bishop of London. At the same ti ...

until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The part legally separate from Abbey Mead (being together a large mill-race island with a broad corollary of the river beside them), the narrower definition comprised . In 1911 these remained largely for horse and cow

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Types of pasture Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, c ...

. Part of it was a cricket venue in the 18th century and the home of Chertsey Cricket Club.

Early ownership, watermill and agricultural purposes

The near-triangular bulk of the ground measured as about on the right bank of the Thames in 1911 constitutes its narrow, historical definition to distinguish Laleham Burway's at times separate ownership from Abbey Mead."Spelthorne Hundred: Laleham", in '' A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2'', ed. William Page (London, 1911), pp. 396-401. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol2/pp396-401 This north part of the island later thus marked Laleham Burway (also called the Burway) was divided from the Abbey Mead of Chertsey by a seasonal ditch, the Burway Ditch, and by another from the meadow of Mixnams on the north. The triangle was equally Chertsey parish, but belonged to the manor of Laleham. It is mentioned as the Island of

Burgh A burgh ( ) is an Autonomy, autonomous municipal corporation in Scotland, usually a city, town, or toun in Scots language, Scots. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when David I of Scotland, King David I created ...

in the original endowment of Chertsey Abbey between 666 and 675, and is described as separated from Mixtenham (or ''Mixnams'') "by water", which formed part of the boundary of the abbey lands, but it is not clear which of the two lay within the bounds of the abbey. Tradition says that the Burway originally belonged to Chertsey, and that in a time of great scarcity and famine the inhabitants of Laleham supplied the abbey with necessaries which those of Chertsey could not, or would not provide, in return for which the abbot granted them the use of this piece of ground. Whatever the truth of this story, it is certain that the Abbey of Westminster when holding Laleham manor held land on the Surrey side of the river, and that in the time of

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he was Lord of Ireland, and from 125 ...

it held part of the meadow called Mixtenham — in a dispute with the abbey of Chertsey in 1278, Westminster agreed to release their right in this meadow in return for 4 acres of pasture contiguous with that which they already held. In 1370 they still held some pasture in Mixtenham. The Burway is in a grant of Laleham manor during the 18th century. At the beginning of the 19th century it is described as paying no tithes or taxes to either parish. In 1911 it belonged to owners of estates within the manor of Laleham, and the pasture was divided into 300 parts called 'farrens,' the tenancies of which was granted variously to feed horses or to support cow and a half at £1 17s. 6d. and £1 5s. annually, respectively. If a farren was sold it was worth about £40. The Burway was not inclosed under the Laleham Inclosure Act 1774 ( 14 Geo. 3. c. ''114'' ) for inclosing the common fields of Laleham Manor in Chertsey, exempted from the act of Parliament of 1808 for inclosing Laleham but inclosed under the ( 53 Geo. 3. c. ''25'' ), when the Earl of Lucan, new lord of the manor, acquired by allotment and purchase about . Laleham Burway (including Abbey Mead, its parent and together forming one main island) is the largest

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

of the non-tidal course of the

in England upstream of the

Tideway The Tideway is the part of the River Thames in England which is subject to tides. This stretch of water is downstream from Teddington Lock. The Tideway comprises the upper Thames Estuary including the Pool of London. Tidal activity Depending ...

— if disqualifying the villages of Dorney and

Eton, Berkshire Eton ( ) is a town in Berkshire, England, on the opposite bank of the River Thames to Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor, connected to it by Windsor Bridge. The civil parish, which also includes the village of Eton Wick two miles west of the town, had ...

enclosed by the 2002-completed

Jubilee River The Jubilee River is an artificial flood-relief channel in southern England. It is long and is on average wide. It was constructed in the late 1990s and early 2000s to take overflow from the River Thames and so alleviate flooding to areas in ...

Cricket history

During the 1736 English cricket season Chertsey Cricket Club played matches against

Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...

and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. It is known that two games were played against Croydon before July that season: one at Duppas Hill in Croydon and the other at the Laleham Burway ground. Numerous matches were played at Laleham Burway during the 18th century. Perhaps the most famous was the one in which Thomas White's huge bat caused a furore that led to a change in the

Laws of Cricket The ''Laws of Cricket'' is a code that specifies the rules of the game of cricket worldwide. The earliest known code was drafted in 1744. Since 1788, the code has been owned and maintained by the private Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in Lord's Cr ...

. This was the Chertsey v Hambledon game on Monday, 23 and Tuesday, 24 September 1771. Eight

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

matches were held on the ground between 1773 and 1779, one with Chertsey classified as a first-class club, the only time this happened, six with Surrey teams as the home side and one where an England side played a Hampshire side. The ground is known to have been used by Chertsey until June 1784, although it has been used in the 20th century for some cricket. Chetsey Cricket Club had "ceased to exist" by 1856 Minutes of Chertsey Recreation Committee meeting on 4 August 1856 and its revival began at the Recreation Ground in Chertsey, followed by its present ground, Grove Road, after the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Early ownership, watermill and agricultural purposes

Cricket history

References

See also