User:Mertbiol/sandbox2

Farnham (/ˈfɑːnəm/) is a market town and civil parish in Surrey, England, around 36 mi southwest of London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, close to the county border with Hampshire. The town is on the north branch of the River Wey, a tributary of the Thames, and is at the western end of the North Downs. The civil parish, which includes the villages of Badshot Lea, Hale and Wrecclesham, covers 14.1 sqmi and had a population of 39,488 in 2011.

Among the prehistoric objects from the area is a woolly mammoth tusk, excavated in Badshot Lea at the start of the 21st century. The earliest evidence of human activity is from the Neolithic and, during the Roman period, tile making took place close to the town centre. The name "Farnham" is of Saxon origin and is generally agreed to mean "meadow where ferns grow". From at least 803, the settlement was under the control of the Bishops of Winchester and the castle was built as a residence for Bishop Henry de Blois in 1138. Henry VIII is thought to have spent part of his childhood under the care of Bishop Richard Foxe and is known to have lived at Farnham Castle when he was 16.

In the late medieval period, the primary local industry was the production of kersey, a coarse, woollen cloth. In the early modern period, the town's weekly corn market was said to the second largest in England after London. Between 1600 and the 1970s, the area was a centre for growing hops and for the brewing industry. The town began to expand in the early Victorian period, stimulated in part by the opening of the railway in 1849 and the arrival of the army in nearby Aldershot in 1855. Farnham became an Urban District in 1894, but under the Local Government Act 1972, its status was reduced to a civil parish with a town council.

The Farnham area has long been associated with the creative arts and with pottery making in particular. One of four campuses of the University for the Creative Arts is to the west of the centre and there are numerous works of public art on display in the town. Notable buildings in the civil parish include the ruins of Waverley Abbey and the 18th century Willmer House, now the location of the Museum of Farnham. Politician William Cobbett and writer George Sturt were both born in Farnham, as was Maud Gonne, the Irish republican suffragette. More recent residents have included the watercolour artist, William Herbert Allen, the Formula One driver, Mike Hawthorn, the England cricketer, Graham Thorpe, and the England rugby union captain, Jonny Wilkinson.

Toponymy
The oldest surviving record of Farnham is from a c. 1150 copy of a c. 688 charter, in which the settlement appears as Fernham. The name is written as Fearnhamme in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle from c. 900 and as Ferneham in Domesday Book. The town first appears with its modern spelling "Farnham" in 1233. The name is thought to derive from the Old English words fearn and ham and is generally agreed to mean "homestead or enclosure where ferns grow". Alternatively the second part could derive from hamm, meaning "river meadow".

Location and topography
Guildford is 4 mi north-north-east and London 30.5 mi north-east of Godalming. The Weald, a remnant forest of small wooded settlements, adjoins the town to the south-west. The North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is 2.9 mi north of the town centre.

Elevations vary between 36 m (118 ft) AOD by the Guildford Road Rugby Union ground and Broadwater lake at the River Wey's exit from Godalming into Peasmarsh, Shalford, and 106 m (347.76 ft) AOD where Quarter Mile meets Hambledon Road (both residential) in the south-east. Hurtmore Road is also residential: Upper Green/Hurtmore is at 102 m (334.64 ft) AOD. Immediately north and south of the town centre, steep hills reach 95 m (311.67 ft) AOD from 40-45m (131.23-147.63 ft) AOD in the town centre itself.

Geology
Godalming lies on the northwestern side of the Weald and primarily sits on the strata of the Lower Greensand Group, which were laid down in the early Cretaceous. Atherfield Clay is found in the extreme north of the civil parish at Binscombe, where there was a former brickworks. Holloway Hill and much of the town centre are on the Hythe Beds, a loamy, fine-grained sandy layer that also includes some sandstone and chert. Although rare elsewhere in these strata, fossils of mollusc species occur in these beds in the Godalming area, including the bivalves Ostrea macroptera and Exogyra sinuata, and the brachiopods Rhynchonella parvirostris and Waldheimia tamarindus.

Frith Hill and Charterhouse are on the iron-rich Bargate Beds, a part of the more widespread lower Sandgate Formation that is only found in the Godalming area. This layer contains Bargate stone, a dark honey-coloured calcerous sandstone that was quarried until the Second World War at several sites in the civil parish. There are also small exposures of the sandy Folkestone Beds at Busbridge and to the northwest of Charterhouse. River gravels are found in the valleys of the Wey and Ock to the west and south of the town centre, and as a terrace at Farncombe. Alluvial deposits of sand and silt are found in the floodplain of the Wey, especially between Bridge Street and Cattershall.

Early history
The earliest indications of human activity in the civil parish are flint Acheulean hand axes from the Paleolithic, found in a former quarry pit on the site of St Thomas-on-the-Bourne church. During the Mesolithic, there were at least twelve settlements in the area, including three clustered around the Bourne Mill spring. Although fewer sites and artefacts from the Neolithic have been found, the Badshot Lea Long Barrow is thought to have been constructed during this period.

During the late Bronze Age, there was a settlement at Green Lane, Shortheath, and a burial urn from the period was discovered close to the Shepherd and Flock roundabout. The major Iron Age settlement in the area was Caesar's Camp, on the border with Hampshire, a 10.5 ha multivallate hillfort. There was also evidence of occupation close to the Bourne Mill Spring, now the site of the sewage works.

There is extensive evidence of activity during the Roman period and the majority of the sites excavated to date are associated with pottery kilns. In the 1940s, a villa with attached bathhouse was found to the east of the town centre. There is thought to have been a pottery works on the site from around 100 CE, although the baths are not thought to have been constructed until the late 3rd century. Water was supplied to the complex via an aqueduct from the Bourne Stream.

The name Farnham suggests an Anglo-Saxon origin for the modern town and a settlement was founded on the south side of the River Wey in the 6th or 7th centuries. A 12th century copy of a 7th century charter issued by Cædwalla of Wessex authorises the building of a monastery and the settlement was given to the church in 688. Remains of Saxon weavers huts have been found to the rear of the William Cobbett pub in Bridge Street and artefacts from the same period include an iron knife blade and pottery sherds.

Governance
By the early 9th century, Farnham was the property of the Bishop of Winchester; a charter written at some point between 801 and 814, records a grant of land by Bishop Ealhmund to an individual named Brihthelm. In 858, Bishop Swithun was compelled to lease the estate to Æthelbald, King of Wessex, but it reverted to the church two years later, on the monarch’s death. The settlement remained under the direct control of the bishop until the early 13th century. In Domesday Book 1086, Farnham provided an annual income of £47 to the Bishop of Winchester. With a population of the 89 households, it was in the top 20% of settlements by size recorded. The manor included 35 acre of meadow, sufficient woodland for 175 swine, six watermills and one church.

At some point before 1208, the settlement was granted increased administrative autonomy by the Bishop of Winchester. In exchange for an annual lump sum, Farnham became self-governing; it was allowed to hold its own court and was entitled to keep the fines and tolls levied. The new arrangement does not appear to have been formalised in a written charter and the yearly rent increased steadily, pushing the townspeople into arrears. In February 1249, Bishop William de Raley issued a new agreement, known as the "Farnham Charter", which confirmed many of existing rights and permitted the burgesses to appoint bailiffs. It made clear that the parts of the settlement outside the town ditch, including West Street and the Dogflud, would remain in the hands of the bishop. The agreement was amended by a new charter of March 1410, which regularised and restructured the system of payments from the town to the bishop.

The Local Government Act 1958 created a local board of health for Farnham, which took office in April 1866. The administrative boundaries were set tightly to the edges of the built up area of the town, but included the workhouse on Hale Road and extended to the Wey in the south east. Surrey County Council was formed in 1889 and took responsibility from the borough for roads and schools. Under the Local Government Act 1894, the local board became the Farnham Urban District Council (UDC) and a rural district council (RDC) was created to administer the surrounding villages. The urban district expanded in 1914 to include Hale, Heath End, Weybourne and Badshot Lea. The Farnham Rural District was abolished in 1933 and its area was divided between the rural districts of Guildford and Hambledon and the urban districts of Haslemere and Farnham. The most recent change in local government took place in 1974, when the municipal boroughs of Godalming and Haslemere were merged with the Farnham Urban District and Hambledon Rural District to form Waverley District. At the same time, Farnham Town Council was constituted as the lowest tier of local government in the civil parish.

Commerce and industry
It is not clear when a market was granted to Farnham, but one was being held regularly by 1208. It most likely took place in Castle Street and the medieval Market House, at the junction with The Borough, remained standing until its demolition in 1789. The location of Farnham on the route from Hampshire and the southwest of England to London, allowed the market to prosper. The author, Daniel Defoe, writing in A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1742), stated that it was the "greatest corn market in England, particularly for wheat" outside of the capital. The annual fair, which took place on All Saints' Day, was granted by the Crown in 1233.

Bourne Mill is generally agreed to be one of the mills mentioned in Domesday Book and appears on John Rocque's map of c. 1768 as “Bone Mill“. It is located on a tributary of the Wey and, in 1849, it had two overshot waterwheels. Grain milling ceased at the start of the 20th century and the building was bought by the UDC in 1924. High Mill, on the Wey, is first recorded in 1287, but may also have been a Domesday mill. In the late 17th century, it is thought to have been a fulling mill and had a cast iron undershot wheel. Other former mills in the town include Willey Mill, Hatch Mill and High Mill.

Hops were introduced from Suffolk in 1597 and were grown extensively in the area until the 1960s. One of the local varieties was the Farnham Whitebine, which commanded high prices and was a key ingredient of India pale ale. Harvest time provided an opportunity for working class residents to supplement their income and even small children were involved in hop picking. From the mid-19th century, the railway enabled temporary workers from London to travel to Farnham to assist with gathering the crop. Hops were dried in kilns throughout the town, including at Downing Street and Malthouse Yard. Production peaked in 1875, when 41% of the arable land surrounding the town was dedicated to hop growing. However, in the following decade, the industry entered a steep decline as a result of poor harvests; much of the land was sold for housing or gravel extraction, or was rededicated to other crops. The final hop ground in the area closed in 1976.

As hop growing became widespread in the local area, Farnham became a centre for brewing. 104a West Street, which would later become the offices of the ‘’Surrey and Hants News’’, was used as a malt house and grain store from c. 1800. The Maltings, built as a tanhouse in 1729, was used as a malthouse from 1830. Brewing began on the site in 1845 and continued until 1956. In 1889, the Lion Brewery (founded c. 1840 ) and the Red Lion Brewery merged to form the Farnham United Brewers (FUB). FUB was acquired by Courage & Co. Ltd in 1927.

Residential development
The earliest known Saxon settlement, dated to the 6th or 7th centuries, was on the south side of the River Wey. However, by the Norman Conquest, the main focus had moved to the area around the present parish church. The current street layout is thought to have developed by the start of the 13th century, when the market was established at the junction of Castle Street and The Borough. The regular narrow plots, visible on the tithe map of 1839, suggest that there was an element of formal planning when this part of the town was established. There are references to a town ditch encircling this new settlement in 1218-19 and in the Farnham Charter of 1249.

Only limited expansion took place between the end of the Medieval period and the early Victorian era. Housebuilding was stimulated by the opening of the railway in 1849 and the arrival of the British Army at Aldershot in 1855. One of the earliest developments, The Fairfield estate, close to the railway station, was constructed in the 1870s. By 1901, the population of Farnham was over 5,000 and the urban district covered 795 acre. In the first decade of the 20th century, a new estate was built at St Cross (between South View and Sumner Road), villas were constructed along Edward Road and work on the town's first council housing in Adams Park Road began. Bridgefield was laid out in 1906, although most development on this road did not take place until after the First World War.

In 1918, the UDC purchased land at Firgrove Hill and Stoke Hills for council housing and construction began the following year. Broomleaf Farm was sold for development in 1921 and detached villas were built along Waverley Lane between 1922 and 1925. Construction of houses in Great Austins began in 1923 and the following year, housebuilding began on Longley Road and Menin Way. By the end of the 1920s, new council houses had been completed at Shortheath and Hale.

Farnham in the world wars
In the early part of the First World War, Farnham became a garrison town. Around 3000 members of the King's Liverpool Regiment were billeted locally between December 1914 and March 1915. The majority of the recruits from the local area joined the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment; 450 Farnham men had enlisted by mid-September 1914. An auxiliary hospital opened at Waverley Abbey House on 23 September 1914; by the time of its closure in March 1919, over 5000 patients had been treated there. During the Second World War, the defence of Farnham was the responsibility of the 2nd Battalion of the South Eastern Command of the Home Guard. One Lewis gun was issued to each platoon, one of which was a specialist bomb disposal unit.

UK parliament
The entirety of the Godalming Civil Parish is in the parliamentary constituency of South West Surrey and has been represented at Westminster since May 2005 by Conservative Jeremy Hunt. Between 1984 and 2005, the seat was held by Virginia Bottomley, who was elevated to the House of Lords as Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone in the year she left the House of Commons.

County Council
Surrey County Council, headquartered in Reigate, is elected every four years. Godalming is represented by two councillors.

Borough Council
The town is divided into five wards; Binscombe, Central and Ockford, Charterhouse, Farncombe and Catteshall, and Holloway. Godalming has 10 representatives governing the Borough of Waverley, headquartered in Godalming:

Godalming Town Council
Godalming Town Council is the lowest tier of local government in the civil parish. A total of 20 councillors is elected every four years. Each year, one councillor is chosen as the Mayor, who represents the town on civic occasions and who is recognised as the principal citizen of Godalming. Godalming is twinned with Mayen, Germany (April 1982) and Joigny, France (May 1985). The town retains strong friendship links with the state of Georgia, USA, and with the cities of Savannah and Augusta in particular, through the organisation, the Friends of Oglethorpe. Since 2011, the town council has held the power to confer the titles of "Honorary Freeman" and "Honorary Freewoman" on residents who have demonstrated outstanding service to or made a significant contribution to the community. As of 2022, two people (Zadie Caudle and John Young) have been recognised in this way.

Utilities
The first piped water supply to the town was installed by the Farnham Water Company, founded in March 1836. The system was fed by springs on Lawday House Common on the north side of the town. Initially only the more prosperous areas of the town were served and poorer residents were required to obtain drinking water from wells until the 1870s. Victoria Reservoir, a covered service reservoir that still supplies central and south Farnham, was built between 1897 and 1899 and the UDC took over the water company in 1924.

The first drainage system in Farnham was installed in 1848 to carry rainwater from the town centre streets to the Wey. Before the sewerage system was completed in 1887, wastewater was emptied into ditches that also flowed into the river. A major expansion of the system took place in 1924-26, which included an enlargement of the sewage works on 11 acre of land purchased from the Farnham Gravel Company.

The Farnham Gas Company was founded in 1834 and constructed its gasworks on East Street. It began to supply gas for 39 streetlights in Castle Street, The Borough and Downing Street 1839, although the lamps were not lit on summer nights until 1889. The gasworks closed in 1953.

Although the UDC obtained and Electric Light Order in 1900, little progress towards generating electricity in Farnham was made in the subsequent decade. In 1909, the gas company was renamed to become the Farnham Gas and Electricity Company and the following year it began to construct a power station next to the gasworks in East Street. The generator was completed in 1912 and, unlike most others in Surrey, it was fuelled by diesel from the outset rather than with coke or coal. The station had an initial installed capacity of 180 kW, which had risen to 530 kW by the time of its closure in 1954. Under the Electricity (Supply) Act 1926, Farnham was connected to the National Grid, initially to a 33 kV supply ring, which linked the town to Guildford, Hindhead, Woking and Aldershot. In 1932, the ring was connected to the Wimbledon-Woking main via a 132 kV substation at West Byfleet. In 1931, the Farnham Gas and Electricity Company was absorbed into the Mid-Southern District Utility Company, which in turn became part of the Southern Electric|Southern Electric Board in 1948.

Emergency services
The first fire brigade was established by the Farnham Local Board in 1870; initially it was a voluntary force, although two men were employed to maintain the equipment, which was kept at the Town Hall. The first steam-powered fire engine was purchased in 1903 and the first diesel engine was commissioned in 1927. The fire brigade came under the control of the UDC in 1925. During the Second World War, the brigade was part of the National Fire Service and Surrey Fire and Rescue Service was formed in 1948.

In 2023, the local fire authority is Surrey County Council and Farnham Fire Station is on Guildford Road.

Healthcare
The first Farnham hospital was built by a consortium of the Farnham UDC, RDC and Frimley UDC on the workhouse site on Hale Road. The Trimmers Hospital, in Menin Way, opened in 1935 and later became the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice.

Schools
The earliest written reference to Farnham Grammar School is from 1585, when a donation was made by a yeoman for "the maintenance of the school in Farnham". It may date from the 1351, when a chantry was built at the castle. By the mid-17th century, the boys were being taught in the parish church, but they moved to West Street in 1682. Farnham Grammar School moved to a new building in the same road in 1872 and again to Morley Road in 1906.

The West Street building became Farnham Girls Grammar School, which soon outgrew the site and moved to new premises in Menin Way in 1939. The two grammar schools amalgamated on the Morley Road site in 1974, to become a co-educational sixth-form college, known as Farnham College. The College merged with Guildford College of Further and Higher Education in 2007. The former Girls' School in Menin Road became South Farnham School, a primary school, and the 1872 building in West Street became the Farnham Adult Education Centre.

Weydon School, on Weydon Lane, opened in 1957 as the Weydon County Secondary School. All Hallows Catholic School, in Weybourne, was founded in 1961.

University
The Farnham campus of the University for the Creative Arts was founded as the Farnham School of Art in 1866. It merged with the Guildford School of Art in 1969 to form the West Surrey College of Art & Design, which was offering eleven subjects at undergraduate level by 1981. A second merger with the Epsom School of Art and Design followed in 1995 and, four years later, the Privy Council granted University College Status. After a further merger with the Kent Institute of Art & Design in 2005, the combined institution became the University College for the Creative Arts in 2008. Since 2014, the university has operated from four campuses in the south of England, of which Farnham is one.

Gostrey Meadow
Until the late 17th century, Gostrey Meadow was part of a larger area of land owned by the Bush Hotel. The estate became progressively fragmented as building plots were sold and by 1900, the meadow was being used as an illegal rubbish dump. The 4 acre site was purchased by the UDC in 1909 and repurposed as a public park. The area was landscaped and the ground flattened. The drinking fountain was installed in 1911 and, the following year, the public shelter and wooden bridge over the Wey were opened. The war memorial at the east end of the meadow was designed by the architect, W. C. Watson, in Portland stone and was dedicated in April 1921.

Farnham Park
The area now known as Farnham Park was created for Bishop William of Wykeham in 1376 and was initially known as the New or Little Park. Like the larger Old or Great Park to the west, it was used as a deer park for Farnham Castle. By 1690, the Great Park was being used as farmland, but the Little Park was used for intended purpose until the late 18th century. Under Bishop Brownlow North in the early 19th century, the park was landscaped with the addition of walkways and planting of new trees. 295 acre were offered for sale to the borough in 1928 and the purchase was completed in July the following year.

Tice's Meadow, Bagshot Lea
The 55 ha Tice's Meadow at Bagshot Lea was previously a former quarry, operated by Hanson plc. Sand and gravel extraction ended in 2010 and the site was redeveloped as a community nature reserve. A formal opening ceremony took place in May 2018, following the installation of two new footbridges over the River Blackwater. Tice's Meadow was purchased by Surrey County Council in 2021, supported by funding from five other local councils. The reserve features areas of open water, exposed gravel islands, seedbeds and woodlands. It provides a habitat for bird species, including reed warblers and sand martins, and has been designated a Site of Nature Conservation Interest. In November 2022, the Tice's Meadow Bird Group was given a National Biodiversity Network award for its work in surveying and recording bird species at the site.