North Sheen

North Sheen is an area of London, England in the former Municipal Borough of Richmond (Surrey). It was incorporated into Kew in 1965 when the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames was created.

Although North Sheen no longer officially exists as a place name, it survives as the name of a station. Being south of the A316 road, the station is in Richmond rather than Kew, and so was not actually in North Sheen. Kew also has North Sheen Bowling Club, North Sheen Cemetery and North Sheen Recreation Ground.

History


North Sheen, whose etymology is shared with East Sheen, formed a civil parish from 1894 to 1965. Historically, it formed part of the Mortlake parish and became part of the expanded Municipal Borough of Richmond in 1892. Under the Local Government Act 1894, a new North Sheen parish was created from part of Mortlake, with the remainder of Mortlake then forming part of Barnes Urban District. The North Sheen parish covered an area of 329 acre. In 1901 the population was 2,807 and in 1951 it was 7,429.

North Sheen was first marked on maps from 1904. At that time it was mostly undeveloped, but by 1920 residential building was underway.

In fiction
A major section of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds takes place at Sheen, depicting with considerable detail the destruction caused there by Wells' Martian invaders.