is the principal settlement of the
Royal Borough Of Kingston Upon Thames . It was the ancient
Market Town where Saxon kings were crowned and is now a lively borough of
London situated 10 miles (16.1 km) south west of
Charing Cross . It is twinned with
Delft in the Netherlands.
Kingston was built at the first crossing point of the
Thames upstream from
London Bridge and a
Bridge still exists at the same site. Kingston was occupied by the
Roman s, and later it was either a royal residence or a royal
Demesne . There is a record of a council held there in
838 , at which
Egbert Of Wessex , the first King of All England, and his son
Ethelwulf Of Wessex were present; and in this record it is styled ''Kyningestun famosa illa locus''. In
Old English , ''tun'', ''ton'' or ''don'' meant ''farmstead'' - so the name ''Kingston'' may have been thought to mean ''farmstead of the kings''. Seven
Saxon kings are traditionally said to have been crowned at Kingston, while seated on a large stone - The
Coronation Stone - that stands outside the Guildhall. There is a local rumour that these Saxon coronations gave Kingston its name, but the records of the 838 council disprove this. (Dickens 1887)
The first
Charter was granted by
King John in
1208 and this document still exists in the town's archives. Other charters were issued by later kings, including
Edward IV's charter that gave the town the status of a
Borough in
1481 .
Some interesting relics have been discovered to support this history, and statues of some of the Saxon kings and of King John were preserved in a chapel. In
1730 the chapel containing the royal ''effigies'' collapsed, burying the sexton, who was digging a grave, the sexton's daughter and another person. The daughter survived this accident and was her father's successor as sexton.
Another chapel, The Lovekyn Chapel, still exists. It was founded in
1309 by a former mayor of London,
Edward Lovekyn . It is the only private chantry chapel to survive the
Reformation .
Kingston sent members to early
Parliament s, until a petition by the inhabitants prayed to be relieved from the burden.
Kingston was one of the boroughs to be reformed by the
Municipal Corporations Act 1835 , becoming a
Municipal Borough . It retained this status until the
London Government Act 1963 came into force in 1965, merging it to form part of the
London Borough Of Kingston Upon Thames .
For much of the
20th Century , Kingston was a major military aircraft manufacturing centre - first with
Sopwith , then
Hawker Aviation and eventually
British Aerospace .
Central Kingston is a busy predominantly retail centre, with a small number of commercial offices and civic buildings. It has great many
Car Park s, connected by a notoriously difficult
One-way System . It is one of the main centres of the south west London
Bus network, and it is connected to
Twickenham ,
Richmond Upon Thames ,
Wimbledon , and
London Waterloo by overground
Train .
Shopping is well catered for and is generally towards the upper end of expectations, with a good mixture of familiar High Street chains and more select boutiques. The shopping centre includes a still continues daily in the Market Place.
Kingston's civic buildings include the Guildhall which houses
Kingston Council , the
Magistrates' Court , the
County Court , and a fine local
Museum and
Public Library . The main offices of
Surrey County Council are also in Kingston, even though Kingston is not administered by Surrey. Plans to move these offices to
Woking have been scrapped.
One of the more unusual sights in Kingston is several disused red telephone boxes that have been tipped on their sides in a pattern resembling dominos. This sculpture by
David Mach was commissioned in 1988, and is called
Out Of Order .
There are many schools in Kingston including
Surbiton High School ,
Kingston Grammar School and the
Tiffin School s, all of which are considered to be fine establishments. Kingston is also home to
Kingston University .
Kingston is the home of two non-league
Association Football clubs,
Kingstonian F.C. and
AFC Wimbledon , both of which play at
The Fans' Stadium, Kingsmeadow .
Kingston straddles two Parliamentary constituencies: the area north of the railway line is part of
Richmond Park represented by
Susan Kramer ; the area south of the railway line (which includes the ancient town centre) is part of
Kingston And Surbiton represented by
Edward Davey . Both
MPs are members of the
Liberal Democrat party.
Ecclesiastically, Kingston lies in the
Church Of England Diocese Of Southwark and
Roman Catholic Archdiocese Of Southwark . The
Suffragan or Area Bishop of Kingston is the Rt Rev. Dr Richard Cheetham.
- Dickens's Dictionary of the Thames 1887 ISBN 1873590121
