In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Bagshot like this:
BAGSHOT, a village and a chapelry in Windlesham parish, Surrey, and an extensive heath in Surrey and Berks. The village stands on the Great Western road, 5½ miles NNE of Farnborough r. station, and 10 SW of Staines. It has a post office‡ under Farnborough station, and an inn; and a fair is held at it on 15 July. ...
It was a place of hotels, posting-houses, and much thoroughfare prior to the railway period; and it bore the name of Holy Hall in the times of the Stuart kings. Bagshot Park, to the N of it, was a hunting-seat of these kings, and a residence of George IV. when Prince of Wales, and passed afterwards to the Duke of Gloucester. Au American garden here, and a neighbouring large nursery, are remarkable for very fine azaleas and rhododendrons.—The chapelry includes fully one half of Windlesham parish. The rated property amounts to £2,250, and is much subdivided. The living is a p. curacy, annexed to the rectory of Windlesham. The church was built by the Duke of Gloucester about 1816. There is a Baptist chapel.-The heath contains 31,500 acres; and is a sandy flat, diversified with long dusky ridges, at an elevation of 463 feet above sea-level. It was once an enclosed royal hunting ground; but was disparked during the civil war in the time of Charles I.; and it afterwards lay long waste, and was the scene of many highway robberies. Much of it has been again enclosed, and subjected to the plough, and produces tolerable corn crops; and the rest is notable for depasturing small sheep, with very excellent mutton. The geognostic nature of it is so peculiar as to give the name of Bagshot sand to the uppermost deposit of the so called London basin.
Bagshot through time
Bagshot is now part of Surrey Heath district. Click here for graphs and data of how Surrey Heath has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Bagshot itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Bagshot in Surrey Heath | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/20169
Date accessed: 24th April 2024
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