Englefield Green

infobox UK place
country = England
latitude= 51.4301
longitude= -0.5699
official_name= Englefield Green
map_type= Surrey
population = 11,180
shire_district= Runnymede
shire_county = Surrey
region= South East England
constituency_westminster= Runnymede & Weybridge
post_town= Egham
postcode_district = TW20
postcode_area= TW
dial_code= 01784
os_grid_reference= SU995710
static_

static_image_caption=The War Memorial and St. Judes Road shops in the village centre

Englefield Green is a village in northern Surrey, England. It is near Royal Holloway, University of London, the south eastern corner of Windsor Great Park and the towns of Egham, Old Windsor and Virginia Water. The village was built up in the mid 19th century and was originally known as New Egham, for its proximity to the larger Egham village. The village has a number of schools and several churches.

It is represented in Parliament by Conservative MP for Runnymede, Philip Hammond. The village is divided into two wards for the purpose of Borough Council elections - East (Cllr Daniel Hamilton, Cllr Marisa Heath, Cllr Pat Roberts) and West (Cllr Mike Kusneraitis, Cllr Hugh Meares, Cllr Jack Perschke). The village is represented on Surrey County Council by Cllr Marisa Heath.

Bishopsgate School, formally known as Scaitcliffe School, lies within the village.

Air Forces Memorial

. The names in their thousands are inscribed on panels in a courtyard.

The memorial sits on a hill overlooking an historic part of the Thames Valley where Magna Carta, enshrining basic freedoms in English law, was signed in 1215 . The memorial was designed by Sir Edward Maufe with sculpture by Vernon Hill. The engraved glass and painted ceilings were designed by John Hutton and the poem engraved on the gallery window was written by Paul H Scott. It overlooks the River Thames on Cooper's Hill at Englefield Green between Windsor and Egham on the A328 (Priest Hill), 4 miles from Windsor and is well signposted as 'Air Force Memorial'.

Brunel University Runnymede Campus

Just north of the village is the Runnymede campus of Brunel University. Today this is just Halls of residence for the Main campus at Uxbridge. At Runnymede, the halls of residence built in the Shoreditch College era (i.e before the merger with Uxbridge) were named after staff (Scrivens, Marshall, Bradley, Reed, Rowan). Existing buildings were named in the Royal Indian Engineering College era, such as President Hall (where the College president resided) and College Hall. These fine Victorian buildings were built by Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt, who had been Isambard Kingdom Brunel's architect for Paddington Station in London, and also for the famous Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge (now the Judge Institute). Corridors in President and College Halls were named after prominent British and Anglo-Indian figures, such as George Canning, Warren Hastings, Richard Wellesley and Charles Cornwallis. A point of notoriety; the Statue of Eros as displayed in Piccadilly Circus, London was kept in the College throughout World War II.

Because of Runnymede's Brunel Design graduates' eminence in many new media and web industries in east London (particularly Shoreditch and Hoxton), the term "Shoreditch College" has sometimes become applied Fact|date=June 2007 as a back-formation nickname for Brunel's Design school, perhaps independently of historical knowledge about the origins of the design school, but probably reinforced by the pre-existence of the name.

Most of the accommodation is currently occupied by students of the much closer Royal Holloway College, who also own the Kingswood campus in Englefield Green. The few Brunel students still living at Runnymede have an hourly bus service to take them to Uxbridge, while another bus service is provided by Royal Holloway College to take its students to the main campus on Egham Hill.

In early 2007, Brunel announced they were putting the site onto the open market. There is thus a chance that it will become a new housing estate, although Royal Holloway is also putting in a bid, hoping to add the site to its own limited-space campus. In June 2007 it was announced this was sold to Oracle, a property developer, for £46m. Englefield Green Village Residents Association objected to the sale for fear of development changing the quiet village for the worse.

Other History

The last duel in England

The last fatal duel in England took place on Priest Hill in 1852. It was between two French refugees, Lt. Frederic Constant Cournet and Emmanuel Barthelemy. Cournet was supposed to have been the better prepared for a sword duel. Barthelemy, an extremely questionable individual (responsible for at least two murders by 1852), manipulated Cournet into challenging him (supposedly over comments Cournet made about Barhelemy's girlfriend), and chose pistols for the weapon. He killed Cournet, and was subsequently arrested for murder. However Barthelemy managed to convince the jury that it was not a homicide as in the normal sense of the word, and was acquitted. Barthelemy was widely suspected of being a spy for the new French regime of Emperor Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III). In fact his bullying of other refugees had led to the confrontation with Cournet. However three years later, he was engaged in a crime in London, possibly involving a blackmail attempt that did not work out. Two men were killed, and Barthelemy was arrested. Despite giving an image of bravado in court, this time he was convicted, and subsequently hanged. Most criminal historians and writers feel he was a totally repugnant character, but to be fair he had one odd defender: Victor Hugo, who wrote a small panagyric to his memory in one of the later sections of Les Miserables. Cournet is burried in Egham parish church graveyard.

Marilyn and Arthur

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller, then newlyweds, spent four months (mid-July to November) of 1956, including their honeymoon, in Parkside House, Englefield Green for the duration of Monroe's work on the film The Prince and the Showgirl (costarring Lawrence Olivier); they were reported to having been seen bike riding in Windsor Great Park.Fact|date=January 2008

References

*"Englefield Green in Pictures", by Graham Dennis (ISBN 0-9524194-0-8) Fernhurst Books (7 Nov 1994)
*"Englefield Green Picture Book", by Graham Dennis (ISBN 0-9508234-6-5) Egham-by-Runnymede Historical Society (Nov 1992)
* [http://thebillbios.co.uk/hamill_interview.htm Hamill interview]
* The Staines Leader, June 14, 2007

External links

* [http://www.englefieldgreen.org.uk Community website]
* [http://cllrdanielhamilton.wordpress.com Cllr Daniel Hamilton - Borough Councillor for Englefield Green East]