Frimley

Frimley is a small town in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England, approximately 30 mi (48 km) southwest of central London. The town is of Saxon origin, although it is not listed in Domesday Book of 1086.

Frimley
High Street looking east
Frimley Location within Surrey
Population	6,178 (2011 census[1])
OS grid reference	SU875578
District	Surrey Heath
Shire county	Surrey
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Camberley
Postcode district	GU16
Dialling code	01276, 01252
Police	Surrey
Fire	Surrey
Ambulance	South East Coast
UK Parliament	Surrey Heath

Train services to Frimley (on the line between Ascot and Aldershot), are operated by South Western Railway.

History

The name Frimley is derived from the Saxon name Fremma's Lea, which means "Fremma's clearing". The land was owned by Chertsey Abbey from 673 to 1537 and was a farming village.[2] More recently it was a coach stop on a Portsmouth and popular Southampton road for about four hundred years.[n 1]

Frimley shown on the map The Road from London to Southampton by John Ogilby dated 1675

Frimley was not listed in Domesday Book of 1086, but is shown on the map as Fremely, its spelling in 933 AD.[3]

Frimley Lunatic Asylum was opened in 1799; it catered for both male and female patients, and received four patients from Great Fosters, Egham. Magistrates visited in 1807 and ordered the proprietors to stop chaining the patients.[4]

An 1811 inventory from Frimley, a Workhouse, can be seen on the Surrey County Council website.

The present St. Peter's Church was built in 1826 replacing earlier buildings. The building has a balcony running around three sides of the interior. Dame Ethel Smyth once preached from the pulpit.[5]

In 1904, the Brompton Hospital Sanatorium was established in Frimley to treat tuberculosis patients; it closed in 1985. Dr Marcus Sinclair Paterson (1870–1932) was the first medical superintendent, and he developed a system of treatment called 'graduated labour' which generated a lot of interest from other health professionals. The treatment used controlled levels of physical activity.[6]

In 1931 the staff at Frimley Cottage Hospital were unable to save the life of Lieutenant Hubert Chevis, who had been admitted, along with his wife Frances, after eating poisoned partridge meat. He died of strychnine poisoning. The case remains an unsolved murder mystery.[7]

In 1959 the Cadet Training Centre at Frimley Park was formed following the 1957 publication of the Amery Report.[8]

Facilities

The White Hart now refurbished

The main shopping street includes a branch of Waitrose and some smaller shops, several restaurants, charity shops, a post office, a number of estate agents, solicitors, opticians, betting shops, an insurance broker and two public houses, the Railway Arms and the White Hart. Frimley Park Hospital is within the boundaries. One of the major employers in the town is BAE Systems, which occupies a building off Lyon Way. Siemens opened its main UK headquarters in Frimley in 2007.

Frimley Park Hospital main entrance

Frimley Business Park is to the west on a north-south road, the A331. It has offices of the Environment Agency, Genesys Telecommunications, AMD and Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

Demography

The usual number of residents in the ward, 6,178, belies the observation that this is the largest and most commercial settlement of the GU16 postcode which also covers the southernmost, Heatherside/Parkside, neighbourhoods Camberley of (its post town) and the distinct villages of Frimley Green, Mytchett and Deepcut.[1][9]

Industries of Work

The working population worked as set out below in the official industry categorisations in 2011:[1]

Sector	% in Frimley	South East	UK
A Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing	0.1	0.7	0.8
B Mining and Quarrying	0.1	0.1	0.2
C Manufacturing	7.0	7.2	8.8
D Electricity, Gas Steam and Air Conditioning Supply	0.2	0.6	0.6
E Water Supply; Sewerage, Waste Management and Remediation Activities	0.4	0.7	0.7
F Construction	7.2	8.0	7.7
G Wholesale and Retail Trade; Repair of Motor Vehicles and Motor Cycles	14.8	15.6	15.9
H Transport and Storage	5.3	5.2	5.0
I Accommodation and Food Service Activities	4.2	5.0	5.6
J Information and Communication	6.6	5.5	4.1
K Financial and Insurance Activities	4.2	4.5	4.4
L Real Estate Activities	1.2	1.4	1.5
M Professional Scientific and Technical Activities	7.2	7.5	6.7
N Administrative and Support Service Activities	4.9	5.2	4.9
O Public Administration and Defence; Compulsory Social Security	5.1	6.0	5.9
P Education	8.1	10.1	9.9
Q Human Health and Social Work Activities	18.6	11.6	12.4
R to U (Other)	4.8	5.1	5.0

Nationality

The ward is relatively representative of the nation as a whole in terms of national identity:[1]

% of Usual Residents who stated in 2011 they had a non-British identity only	Surrey Heath	South East	England
8.2	6.6	7.1	8.3

Economic Status

The proportions of those retired, unemployed and who were students in 2011 were extremely close to the regional average whereas those in the economically inactive (other) category were fewer:[1]

Category	Frimley	Surrey Heath	South East	England
Retired	13.6	13.5	13.7	13.7
Unemployed	3.4	2.8	3.4	4.4
Full-time Student	3.3	2.9	3.3	3.4
Economically inactive: other	1.3	1.8	1.8	2.2
Economically inactive: looking after home or family	4.0	4.4	4.4	4.4

Those who replied that again there were no people in the household with English as their main language formed a proportion of the population 0.1% less than the national average.[n 2][1]

Religion

Category	Frimley	South East	England[1]
Christian	63.1	59.8	49.4
None	23.3	27.7	24.7
Not Stated	8.0	7.4	7.2
Muslim	2.0	2.3	5.0
Hindu	1.8	1.1	1.5
Buddhist	1.2	0.5	0.5
Sikh	0.2	0.6	0.8
Jewish	0.05	0.2	0.5
Other	0.4	0.5	0.4

Transport

Frimley railway station provides access to Guildford, Ascot and London Waterloo. Frimley Lodge Park Railway (a tourist attraction) is also nearby.

Frimley railway station

The town is situated close to the junction of the A325 Farnborough Road and A331 Blackwater Valley Relief Road, which provides a link to the M3 Motorway junction 4.

Education

There are a number of schools in Frimley including: The Grove Primary School, Lakeside Primary School, Ravenscote Junior School, Tomlinscote School and St Augustine's RC Primary School.

Sport

Frimley Town Football Club was formed over 100 years ago. It runs four teams, and the first team competes in the Senior Division of the Aldershot & District Football League. The club is based at Chobham Road recreation ground.[10]

Frimley Green, a neighbouring village, has hosted the British Darts Organisation's (BDO) World Professional Darts Championship since 1986 each January in the Lakeside complex.

Famous people

Births

John Singer Sargent: Ethel Smyth lived in the town

• James Cobbett, famous cricketer and considered by many as the finest all-rounder of his day, was born in Frimley on 12 January 1804.[11]
• Frimley Park Hospital was the birthplace in 1979 of Jonny Wilkinson, a fly-half for England Rugby Union and one of the most famous players in international professional rugby,[12] and Lady Louise Windsor in 2003.
• James, Viscount Severn was born in Frimley Park Hospital in 2007.
• Toby Flood was born in Frimley[13] in 1985.
• Chris Benham (cricketer) was born in Frimley on 24 March 1983. He has played county cricket for Hampshire.[14]
• John McFall, British Paralympic sprinter, was born on 25 April 1981 in Frimley.
• Other sportsmen born in Frimley include cricketers James Lawrell (born 1780) and Richard Ingleby Jefferson (born 1941); and footballers Vic Niblett (born 1924) and Martin Kuhl (born 1965).
• Garth Walford, recipient of the Victoria Cross
• Sir Harry Broadhurst, Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force
• Lucy Rose, folk-musician
• Greg Bateman (born 1989), premiership rugby player for Leicester Tigers, formerly of London Welsh and Exeter Chiefs

Residents

Daphne du Maurier wrote most of her fourth novel, Jamaica Inn, in 1935 in Frimley where her soldier husband Frederick (Boy) Browning was based.[15]

Dame Ethel Smyth, English composer and suffragette grew up in nearby Frimley Green and later purchased One Oak Cottage in Frimley. Her family moved to Frimley Green in 1867 when her father was given command of the Royal Artillery at Aldershot.[16]

Deaths

Notable people buried in the churchyard of St. Peter's Church, Frimley[5] include:

• John Frederick Lewis (d. 1876), a 19th-century painter
• (Francis) Bret Harte (d. 1902), the American author[17]
• William George Cubitt (d. 1903), who won the Victoria Cross in the Indian Mutiny for saving three men's lives at the risk of his own during the retreat from Chinhut
• Charles Wellington Furse (d. 1904) a 19th-century painter
• Sir Doveton Sturdee (d. 1925) a British admiral who decisively defeated the German squadron under Graf Maximilian von Spee at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914, for which he was made a baronet
• Sir Charles Melliss VC (d. 1936), First World War general
• Arthur Cocks (d.1944), first-class cricketer and the first British Army officer to be killed on D-Day
• George Edward Lodge, an illustrator of birds and an authority on falconry, died in Frimley on 5 February 1954.

Literary mentions

In one of the Just William books by Richmal Crompton, William visits an aunt in Frimley for a few days.[18]

Charles Kingsley refers to "a series of letters on the Frimley murder" in his Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet.[19]

There is a brief mention of Frimley in Stephen King's Nightmares & Dreamscapes in the short story Crouch End. It reads: 'He did indeed move into council housing, a two-above-the-shops in Frimley'.

In The Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton), chapter 18 tells of the trial of a bricklayer who, in a prize fight on Frimley Common, unfortunately killed his opponent. He appeared in court dressed as a young clergyman and was found innocent of the manslaughter charge because of doubts over his identity.[20]

Notes and references

Notes

1. The alternative London-Southampton road passed by Chobham Common which had more highwaymen than the A30 and from West Middx, Bucks, Berks, Oxon and the Midlands this formed a popular Portsmouth Road also, linking to the most direct one from London via Guildford to Portsmouth.
2. 4.3% compared to 4.4% nationally

References

1. "Local statistics - Office for National Statistics". www.ons.gov.uk.
2. Surrey Heath Borough Council (2005). "History of Surrey Heath". surreyheath.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 23 April 2006. Retrieved 19 May 2006.
3. John Garnons Williams (10 September 2000). "Domesday Sudrie (Surrey) – The Domesday entries for and the meanings of the Domesday place-names appearing on the Surrey historical map". Domesday Collection. Archived from the original on 30 October 2007. Retrieved 26 August 2007.
4. Andrew Roberts (2002). "Part of the Asylums Index: South East England". The Lunacy Commission, a study of its origin, emergence and character. Archived from the original on 27 April 2006. Retrieved 20 May 2006.
5. The Parish Office. "St Peter's Church". The Parish of Frimley. Retrieved 20 May 2006.
6. Julie Tancell (2001). "National Heart and Lung Institute". AIM25: Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. Retrieved 20 May 2006.
7. "Fatal poisoning of Lieutenant Chevis". Open University. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
8. "History". Sussex Army Cadet Force. 2003. Archived from the original on 29 September 2005. Retrieved 20 May 2006.
9. "Google Maps". Google Maps.
10. Pete Bass (2006). "Frimley Town FC – 2005/06". Web-Teams. Retrieved 20 May 2006.
11. "Cricinfo – Players and Officials – James Cobbett". cricinfoengland. 2006. Retrieved 19 May 2006.
12. "Jonny Wilkinson: A Who2 Profile". WHO2?. 2006. Retrieved 19 May 2006.
13. "The Toby Flood interview". BBC Tyne. 2006. Retrieved 14 January 2008.
14. "Chris Benham, England". Cricinfo – County Cricket 2008. 2008. Retrieved 11 October 2008.
15. Ann Willmore (2002). "Review of Jamaica Inn". Daphne du Maurier Book Reviews. Archived from the original on 3 May 2006. Retrieved 24 May 2006.
16. "Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)". Literary Encyclopedia. 2004. Retrieved 19 May 2006.
17. "Bret Harte – Biography and Works". The Literature Network. 2006. Retrieved 19 May 2006.
18. Gert (2003). "Comments". mad musings of me. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 18 February 2007.
19. "Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet by Rev. Charles Kingsley et al. – Full Text Free Book (Part 1/10)". FullTextArchive. Retrieved 23 May 2006.
20. Brampton, Henry Hawkins (17 August 1904). "XVIII. The Prize-Fight on Frimley Common". In Richard Harris, K.C. (ed.). The Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton). Retrieved 11 October 2008.

External links

Media related to Frimley at Wikimedia Commons