Sunbury-on-Thames, known locally as Sunbury, is a town on the north bank of the River Thames in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, England, 13 mi (21 km) southwest of central London.

[6][7][8] Lower Sunbury presented for two centuries a mainly rural and quite gentrified village as still visible in many conserved buildings and structures, see Landmarks.

Gilbert White described Sunbury, in The Natural History of Selborne, letter xii, 4 November 1767 as "one of those pleasant villages lying on the Thames, near Hampton Court".

In 1889 a group of music hall stars met in the Magpie Hotel in Lower Sunbury to form the Grand Order of Water Rats.

[10][11] In the twentieth century, kennels near Sunbury Cross in the town were used for keeping greyhounds for racing at the former stadia at Wandsworth, Charlton and Park Royal.

Football, playgrounds and tennis grounds are in both halves of the town with London Irish rugby club being the main organised team in the village.

The opening of a café within the gallery building, which architecturally resembles a boat, has increased the leisure time spent in the predominantly Georgian and early Victorian conservation area, the majority of which runs along Thames Street, a small section of which King's Lawn is a terraced public riverside.

[18][19] The Walled Garden hosts annual concerts, flower displays, events related to its facing Millennium Embroidery Café and occasionally plays in summer.

The railway here benefits from seating at peak times but gives lower speed of access to the City of London relative to the South West Main Line developments of Elmbridge.

The largest plots of garden measure only around an acre not covering any of the grassy plain, western outlying farms or boundary-lining trees in the far east and west.

A dog-free meadow permitting informal cricket and football is near the main parade of shops at which annual carols are held and at the regatta time in August a celebratory street market takes place.

The northern section is Sunbury Common, patches of which remain, commanded by its four tower blocks and two hotels, overall with a mixed-use urban composition; it also houses major employers including offices of Siemens, European Asbestos Solutions, Chubb and BP.

Sunbury Common has a long, curved shopping parade that includes Marks & Spencer, Halfords, Farmfoods supermarket, Costa and Boots as well as beauty and nail salons.

Its wild flower meadows, brooks and human-made troughs with wetland plants and insects form the Kempton Park Reservoirs SSSI.

Marking the western border of the Upper Halliford/Charlton parts of Sunbury ecclesiastical and historic parish, however no longer by the town,[27] is the Queen Mary Reservoir which was constructed 1914–25 and is home to a sailing club regularly used by schools and youth organisations to teach water sports.

A solitary central monument in the church itself is to Lady Jane Coke (died 1761), stained glass and a vestry much extended in the early 20th century.

The vast bulk of the land behind and across the road belonging to the house was re-planned in stages in the mid 20th century as private detached homes with gardens.

It was designed by John Stamp and David Brown to be a large patchwork of Sunbury landmarks, including St. Mary's Church, the Admiral Hawke/Hawke House and the river.

The main weir, maintained and owned by the Environment Agency, connects the downstream end of the island to Sunbury Lock Ait, which is almost uninhabited, and is within the modern parish bounds of Walton and has the Middle Thames Yachting and Motorboat Club.

This was a period when military commissions were still bought and sold, and training of officers in the army itself was quite rudimentary, so these establishments existed to teach students the necessary skills before taking up their posts.

An alternative, progressive form of independent education for boys and girls aged 3 to 18, is provided by St Michael Steiner School in Hanworth Park.

The riverside St Mary's Anglican Church and the Ferry House nearby are mentioned in the book Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

[41] Sunbury is mentioned in the opening chapter of Rural Rides by farmers' champion William Cobbett: "All Middlesex is ugly, notwithstanding the millions upon millions which it is continually sucking up from the rest of the kingdom; and though the Thames and its meadows now-and-then are seen from the road, the country is not less ugly from Richmond to Chertsey-bridge, through Twickenham, Hampton, Sunbury and Sheperton [sic], than it is elsewhere.

A few years after Cobbett's death Thomas Babington wrote in 1843, "An acre in Middlesex is worth a principality in Utopia" which contrasts neatly with its agricultural caricature.