Merstham

Merstham 'mɜrstəm is a town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead in Surrey, England. It lies 25 miles south of Charing Cross just beyond the Greater London border. Part of the North Downs Way runs along the northern boundary of the town. Merstham has community associations, an early medieval church and a football club. Old Merstham forms the north and north-west of modern Merstham and is the original village centre. There is a small day school by the railway station, a pub, a few barbershops and a small number of other shops. After World War II the London County Council built the Merstham Estate, originally entirely public housing, was built to a geometric layout in the eastern fields. This area has its own parade of shops, the Brook recreation ground, three schools, and a youth/community centre along Radstock Way. Oakley, a small country house, is listed and has Victorian gothic architecture features. South Merstham is made up of mainly Victorian and Edwardian terraces. It provided a workforce for Albury Manor and nearby chalk quarrying and brickworking. Nutfield Road has a long parade of shops. South Merstham is home to Connevans Limited, who, in April 2016 became holders of the Royal Warrant, by Appointment to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II Supplier and Manufacturer of Audio Equipment. The area has been settled since pre-Roman times. The village lay within the Reigate hundred, an Anglo-Saxon administrative division. Its name was recorded in 947 as Mearsætham, which seems to be Anglo-Saxon Mearþ-sǣt-hām = "Homestead near a trap set for martens or weasels". The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 851 states that a Viking army 'went south over the Thames into Surrey; and King Aethelwulf and his son Aethelbald with the West Saxon army fought against them at Aclea, and there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding-army that we have heard tell of up to the present day, and there took the victory.' According to Stenton, the name Aclea nearly always appears in modern times as 'Oakley'.