Welcome to the Esher Directory listing all that good about this historic town with its Royal associations.

Esher History

The River Mole is refered to in the Doomsday Book and called the Emley where it was crossed by a bridge near Esher Place at this time Esher was home to labourers’ and craftsmen’s families. 

St George’s Church is Esher’s oldest public building and one of the earliest Anglican churches. Most of the current building is 16th century Tudor.

Esher is bounded by four wooded Commons and the River Mole. Whilst it could be said that Esher has little referencies in the history books it does have a long history of Royal associations through the mansion house of Claremont located close to the town.

The first major house on this site was erected in the 11th century and was demolished by William Wayneflete, Bishop of Winchester in the 15th century. He then built a new red brick residence there.

Henry VIII was the first king to make an appearance in Esher. On All Souls’ Day in 1517 he made a gift of 6s. 8d to Esher church. This was influenced by his acquisition of the Esher manor from the bishop of Winchester. The manor lands were included by Henry in the extensive deer-park that he created around Hampton Court where, in 1542, he spent the day hunting deer with the French ambassador.

The ‘manor of Asher’ was restored to the bishop of Winchester in Queen Mary’s reign but in 1583 Queen Elizabeth, her sister, bought it back and presented it to Lord Howard of Effingham the future conqueror of the Spanish Armada.

The early house at Claremont was built by John Vanbrugh in 1709. By 1724 it had been enlarged for Thomas Pelham, subsequently the Duke of Newcastle and Prime Minister. Claremont Gardens were designed by Charles Bridgeman. By 1730 the architect and garden designer William Kent made extensive amendments changing the pond to a lake and planting more than 2000 trees. The attraction for famous designers continued and ‘Capability’ Brown changed the more formal layout in the years after that. (It should be noted that over time Financial pressures resulted in much of the estate being sold with the residual 49 acres passing to the National Trust. )

In 1816, Claremont was purchased by the Government to provide a country residence for Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent (later George IV), and her husband, prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. Regrettably it was also the place where she died in child birth on November 6th, 1817.

In the same way that Weybridge did, Esher prospered and expanded rapidly when the railway came in 1836. Becoming part of the ’stockbroker belt’, many large estates were soon broken up and sold to developers for new homes for the affluent city workers.

Despite the growing urbanisation of the town, even when she had ascended the throne, Queen Victoria still visited Claremont in this period.  

Sandown Park racecourse was laid out on part of the Sandon Farm in 1875.

In 1948, Esher was invaded by foreign royalties following a number of uphevals on the continent. Louis Philippe, the last king of France together with his queen and members of their wider family, took up residence in Esher. Louis Philippe died at Claremont in August 1850 but his Queen, Marie Amelia, survived him until 1866. As a result Esher was a centre for the French Royalty-in-Exile.

More recently George Harrison of the Beatles had a house (called Kinfauns) in Esher, in the 1960s. The other Beatles were regular visitors to the houseand the recording studio it contained.