Thames Ditton Island

[1] Travelling from London to Hampton Court, instead of carriages through villages of Middlesex including the market town of Brentford monarchs down to the last regular visitor, George II, tended to be rowed up from Westminster to the palace.

[2] As the lack of locks and limited fish weirs (under Magna Carta) attest, the river beside the palace was a broad but twisting creek, especially at low tide at times of lower rainfall.

To have a grander arrival and alleviate flooding of the village, Cardinal Wolsey or Henry had the main channel locally dug out straighter [citation needed], doing away with the ford from the grounds of Hampton Court on the north bank (in Middlesex).

Before locks and weirs controlled the levels, Summer Road in Thames Ditton would flood at most high tides – its mud would not dry in the winter months, making it impassable, hence its name.

This lane ran northwards along Thames Ditton High Street, over what is now a public slipway where the river is wide, and at lowest water through the ford to the other side.

[2] As time passed, the attractions of the waterside location drew more and more people, so that by 1930, the whole of the perimeter was covered in wooden bungalows, with the owners' boats moored at the bottom of their gardens.

The building of the suspension bridge in 1939 by David Rowell & Co. really opened up the island as a place for permanent occupation by providing passage on foot, carrying water, electricity and gas in, and enabling installation of WCs by transferring sewage out to the town drains.

Originally leased from the island's owner, the publican at the Olde Swan, by 1963 all the houses had passed into freehold ownership and a limited company was formed to take over the bridge and adjacent gardens and to provide maintenance services.

Local historian Philip J. Burchett surmised that the original incumbent must have passed a meagre life, taking people across the main stream and to and from the island for a small fee at all times of the day and night.