Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England, about south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leatherhead was a royal vill and is first mentioned in the will of Alfred the Great in 880 AD. The first bridge across the Mole may have been constructed in around 1200 and this may have coincided with the expansion of the town and the enlargement of the parish church.
For much of its history, Leatherhead was primarily an agricultural settlement, with a weekly market being held until the mid-Elizabethan era. The construction of turnpike roads in the mid-18th century and the arrival of the railways in the second half of the 19th century attracted newcomers and began to stimulate the local economy. Large-scale manufacturing industries arrived following the end of the First World War and companies with factories in the town included Ronson and Goblin Vacuum Cleaners. Several organisations working with disabled people also opened treatment and training facilities, including The Royal School for the Blind, Queen Elizabeth's Foundation and the Ex-services Welfare Society.
Towards the end of the 20th century, manufacturing in Leatherhead had begun to decline and the town was instead starting to attract service sector employers. The former industrial areas were converted to business parks, which attracted multinational companies, including Esso and Unilever. A controversial redevelopment took place in the town centre in the early 1980s, which included the construction of the Swan Centre. The work, which also included the pedestrianisation of the main shopping area, was widely blamed for a decline in the local retail economy. In 2002, the BBC identified Leatherhead as having one of the worst High Streets in England, but in 2007, the local press described the town centre as "bustling".
Toponymy
thumb|Leatherhead Town Bridge over the [[River Mole ]]
The origins and meaning of the name 'Leatherhead' are uncertain. Early spellings include Leodridan (880), Leret (1086), Lereda (1156), Ledreda (1160) and Leddrede (1195).
The name is usually thought to derive from the Old English lēode (people) + rida (a riding path or ford that can be ridden), and thus meaning 'a public ford'. Richard Coates has suggested a derivation from the primitive Welsh lēd-rïd (Brittonic *letorito-) meaning 'grey ford', where the lexical field of lēd (grey) can also extend to brown, but this is not widely accepted.
Geography
Location and topography
Leatherhead is a town in central Surrey, around south of the centre of London. It lies on the southern edge of the London Basin and the highest point in the parish, at Leatherhead Downs, is above ordnance datum. The High Street runs roughly west to east and was part of the Guildford to Epsom road, which crossed the River Mole at the Town Bridge. The Mole, which passes to the west of the centre, has cut a steep-sided valley through the North Downs, south of the town.
Geology
Leatherhead is at the southern edge of the London Basin, where the permeable upper chalk of the North Downs dips beneath the impermeable London Clay. The difference in properties between the two formations results in a high water table and springs are found at regular intervals along the boundary between them. Several settlements were established along this spring line in Anglo-Saxon and early medieval times, including the villages of Ashtead, Fetcham and Effingham, which are linked to Leatherhead by the Guildford to Epsom road. Traces of Iron Age field systems and settlement activity have been observed at Hawks Hill, Fetcham (about southwest of the town centre) and on Mickleham Downs (about to the south). Also to the south, the Druid's Grove at Norbury Park may have been used for pre-Christian pagan gatherings.
An Anglo-Saxon settlement at Leatherhead was most likely founded on the east side of the River Mole in the second half of the 6th century. A burial ground, dating to the same period, has been identified on the west side at Hawks Hill. A second cemetery was discovered in 1984 on the site of the former Goblin factory in Ermyn Way (now the location of the offices of Esso). Excavations uncovered the remains of at least 40 individuals and the artefacts found, including knives, buckles and necklaces, suggest that they were pagan burials.
From the mid-9th century, Leatherhead was the centre of a royal vill, which encompassed Ashtead, Fetcham and Bookham. The first known reference to the settlement is in the will of Alfred the Great in 880, in which land at Leodridan was bequeathed to his son, Edward the Elder. To the south was the manor of Thorncroft, which was held by Richard son of Gilbert as tenant-in-chief. To the north was the manor of Pachesham, subdivided into two parts, each of which was held by a mesne lord to the tenant-in-chief, Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Finally there are sporadic mentions in surviving documents of a manor called "Minchin", which may have belonged to Kilburn Priory in Middlesex.
For the majority of its history, Thorncroft Manor appears to have remained as a single, intact entity, with the exception of the subinfeudation of Bocketts Farm, which took place before 1300. In 1086, the manor was held by Richard fitz Gilbert and it passed through his family (the Clares) to his granddaughter, Margaret de Clare, who married into the de Montfitchet family of Essex. Her great-grandson, Richard de Montfichet, sold the manor to John de Cheresbure in around 1190 and it was next purchased by Philip Basset and his second wife, Ela, Countess of Warwick in around 1255. Merton College remained the lords of the manor until 1904 and the continuity of ownership ensured that an almost complete set of manorial rolls from 1278 onwards has been preserved. In 1497, Richard FitzJames, the Warden of the College, authorised the expenditure of £37 for a new manor house, which was used until the Georgian era. Excavations of the manor house site (now known as The Mounts) in the mid-20th century provided evidence of several medieval buildings, including a hall, a chapel and a probable stable block. The value of the manor appears to have declined in the mid-14th century and, in 1386, it was let to William Wimbledon for an annual sum of £20. In 1393, one year after a serious fire had destroyed much of Leatherhead, Wimbledon defaulted on the rent and was accused of dismantling several of the manor buildings. From the start of the 15th century, the land was divided between twelve lessees and the manor then disappears from the historical record.
Surviving records of Pachenesham Parva from around 1330 suggest that it covered an area of on the east bank of the River Mole, to the north west of the town centre. The manor appears to have remained intact through the Middle Ages and land was added to the estate as the remainder of Pachesham was broken up. By the early 17th century, the area was known as Randalls Farm and, in 1805, the associated land totalled .
Reforms during the Tudor period replaced the day-to-day administration of towns such as Leatherhead in the hands of the vestry of the parish church. The vestry was charged with appointing a parish constable, maintaining a lock-up and organising a basic fire service. Until 1834, it also administered poor relief and was responsible for building a workhouse on Kingston Road in 1808.
thumb|right|[[Wesley House, Leatherhead|Wesley House, Bull Hill, the former headquarters of the Leatherhead UDC]]
During the 19th century, local government reforms gradually removed the duties of running of the town's infrastructure and services from the vestry. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 placed the workhouse in the care of a board of guardians at Epsom and the Local Government Act 1888 transferred many administrative responsibilities to the newly formed Surrey County Council. The Leatherhead Urban District Council (UDC) was formed six years later and in 1903 the county council was placed in charge of the town's National schools. The Local Government Act 1972 created Mole Valley District Council, by combining the UDCs of Leatherhead and Dorking with the majority of the Dorking and Horley Rural District.
Transport and communications
Leatherhead developed at a crossing point of the River Mole at the intersection between the north–south Kingston–Dorking and east–west Epsom–Guildford roads. The original position of the ford is unclear, but it may have been around upstream of the present Leatherhead Bridge at a point where a continuation of Elm Road would meet the river. It is possible that the construction of the first bridge coincided with an expansion of the town and the enlargement of the parish church, which took place around 1200.
It is not clear to what extent the Mole was used for navigation in the past, but in the early Middle Ages, it is likely that shallow-bottomed craft were able to reach Leatherhead from the Thames for much of the year. In the late 13th century, Thorncroft Manor purchased a shout, a type of boat up to in length, used to transport produce to market. Several schemes were proposed to make the Mole navigable in the 17th and 18th centuries, but none were enacted.
The turnpike road between Epsom and Horsham, which ran through Leatherhead, was authorised by Parliament in 1755. Turnpikes to Guildford and Kingston were opened in 1758 and 1811 respectively and one of the tollhouses was sited near to the present Leatherhead Institute. Stagecoaches, which had begun to run through Leatherhead to London in the 1680s, increased in frequency after the building of the turnpikes. By 1838 there were daily coaches to Arundel, Bognor and Worthing, which typically stopped at the Swan Inn in the High Street. With the arrival of in 1847, the long-distance coaches were discontinued and horse-drawn omnibuses took over local journeys. The completion of the line through enabled these services to be extended to from April of the same year and, in August 1859, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) began to run trains from Leatherhead to .
The Mole Gap through the North Downs had been identified as a potential railway corridor as early as the 1830s, but the line south from Leatherhead to was not opened until 1867. The Kingston Road station, which had been laid out as a terminus, was closed and two new adjacent stations (either side of the present Station Approach) were opened. The LBSCR station, which was closer to the town centre, was initially the only one connected to the line to Dorking. It was designed by C. H. Driver in a fine Gothic Revival style and is the station that survives today. The LSWR built its station as a terminus, but its line was extended westwards to in 1885. The two railway companies were amalgamated in 1923, when the Southern Railway was formed. All railway lines through Leatherhead were electrified in 1925 and the LSWR station was closed in 1927. In the late 1930s, a southward extension of the Chessington branch line was proposed, but the creation of the Metropolitan Green Belt prevented the scheme from being enacted. and the final section opened in May 1934. Young Street (the A246 between Bocketts Farm and Givons Grove) was built by the Corps of Royal Canadian Military Engineers between June 1940 and May 1941. In October 1985, the town was joined to the UK motorway system when the M25 was opened between Wisley and Reigate.
Commerce
The right to hold a weekly market and an annual fair was granted to Leatherhead in 1248 by Henry III. The market appears to have ended in the mid-Elizabethan era, however the annual fair continued and in the late 17th century was held on 8 September, the feast of the Nativity of Mary.
The construction of the turnpikes, and later the railways, attracted wealthier residents to Leatherhead. Many of these incomers had accumulated their wealth as entrepreneurs in London and had no previous connection to the area. By the start of the Victorian era, they were beginning to influence the local economy. Small, family-based manufacturing firms began to grow, engaged in industries such as brick-making, milling of logs, tanning, shoemaking, malting and brewing. In the 1841 census, 18.5% of the town's inhabitants were employed in agriculture-related trades, but forty years later, the proportion had fallen to 5.4%.
Larger-scale industries arrived in Leatherhead in the first half of the 20th century. In 1928, the Rayon manufacturing company opened a factory in Ermyn Way, close to the border with Ashtead parish and was replaced ten years later by the manufacturing plant for Goblin Vacuum Cleaners. Also in the 1930s, a silk-making farm and electrical cable factory were established in the town. Following the end of the Second World War, Ronson, the US-based manufacturer of cigarette lighters, opened a manufacturing plant at Dorincourt, to the north of the town. The factory moved to Randalls Road in 1953, but it closed in 1981 when the company went into liquidation. A business park opened in its place.
The Ex-services Welfare Society purchased Long House on Ermin Way following the end of the First World War. The charity constructed a factory in the grounds to provide employment for disabled veterans, producing electrical items, such as electric blankets. In 1933, the organisation opened a treatment centre at Tyrwhitt House in Oaklawn Road, named after Reginald Tyrwhitt, its president at the time. In 1981, the factory was purchased by Remploy. It continued to manufacture electrical goods, but under the new ownership, its operations expanded to include the assembly and packaging of mechanical equipment. The Remploy factory closed in 2007, with the loss of 43 jobs. The Ex-services Welfare Society, now known as Combat Stress,
Large-scale manufacturing in Leatherhead was short lived and, as the 20th century progressed, the town started to attract service sector industries. Among the research institutes formerly based in the town, Leatherhead Food Research was founded in 1919 and the Central Electricity Research Laboratories (CERL) opened in 1950. Both organisations left the town in the early 2000s. The Ronson and Goblin factories closed in the early 1980s and their sites were redeveloped, in the latter case for the UK headquarters of Esso.
[[File:Swan Centre, High Street entrance, Leatherhead, Surrey.jpg|thumb|right|Swan shopping centre