Virginia Water is a commuter village in the Borough of Runnymede in northern Surrey, England. It is home to the Wentworth Estate and the Wentworth Club. The area has much woodland and occupies a large minority of the Runnymede district. Its name is shared with the lake on its western boundary within Windsor Great Park. Virginia Water has excellent transport links with London–Trumps Green and Thorpe Green touch the M3, Thorpe touches the M25, and Heathrow Airport is 7 miles (11 km) northeast.
Many of the detached houses are on the Wentworth Estate, the home of the Wentworth Club which has four golf courses.[2] The Ryder Cup was first played there. It is also home to the headquarters of the PGA European Tour, the professional golf tour. One of the houses featured in a headline in 1998—General Augusto Pinochet was placed under house arrest having unsuccessfully resisted extradition, the facing of a criminal trial in Chile.[3]
In 2011 approximately half of the homes of the postcode district, which is narrower than the current electoral ward, were detached houses. In 2015 Land Registry sales data evinced Virginia Water's single postcode district as the most expensive as to the value of homes nationwide.
The Devil's Highway Roman Road, running from London, through Staines-upon-Thames (previously Pontes) to Silchester is thought to run through Virginia Water. Some of the local course has been lost, disappearing at the bottom of Prune Hill, and reappearing at the Leptis Magna ruins in the Great Park.
Nicholas Fuentes has argued that defeat of Boudica's insurrection by the Romans in AD 60/61 took place at Virginia Water, with the landscape between Callow Hill and Knowle Hill matching the battle landscape described by Tacitus, and the battle commencing roughly where the railway station lies.[4]
The area was for centuries similar to the Strode or (also written) Stroude tything, one of four divisions of the very large "ancient" parish of Egham. Egham the Domesday survey valued at £40 per annum.[5] Egham was in the original endowment of Chertsey Abbey in 666–75. The manor was included in all subsequent confirmations of the abbey land, and was held until the surrender of the abbey in 1537, since which time all its vestigial rights remained with the Crown, which thus sold much land piecemeal and controlled who could build major developments for centuries.[5]
Christ Church, in the Church of England was completed in 1838 and established as a parish the same year.[5]
To the east of the lake is the Clockcase tower, a Grade I listed, triangular belvedere built in the Great Park during 1750s.[6] It is three-storey Gothic style construction.[6]George III made it into an observatory and Queen Victoria occasionally had tea there.[6] The building is inaccessible to the public, lying within a private part of the park. It is still owned by the Royal Estate and when listed in 1984 used as a residence.[6]
After years of neglect, in 2000 the building and grounds were converted into private sector housing by a developer, Octagon.[8] Octagon produced 23 residences in the main building and built 190 new houses and apartments on the grounds.[9] Properties are expensive and typically reach beyond the £1 million mark.[7]
The main building is Grade I listed, the highest category of recognition and protection.[10] The sanatorium chapel is Grade II* listed, meaning in a constrained mid-tier of the statutory scheme.[11] The gated estate includes a spa, gymnasium, multi-purpose sports hall, and all-weather tennis court.[7]
1,750 square kilometres (680 sq mi) of Virginia Water is owned by a members' trustee body, known as the Wentworth Estate. Founded in the 1920s, this estate comprises private sector houses, luxury apartments, woodland, several golf courses and a leisure club. It also includes part of the River Bourne, Chertsey.
The estate, due to its high walls and electric gates, has been compared to a "fortified suburb" found more commonly in South Africa and a place "where money disappears from view".[12] Famous residents have included Elton John, Bruce Forsyth, Diana Dors and various professional golfers.[12] Properties on the estate are regarded as "super prime" and have sold for as much as £50 million.[12]
The 2011 census stated that the Virginia Water postcode district (post town) had the following dwellings, thus making up the relative proportions shown:
[13]
Type
Number
Proportion
Whole house or bungalow: Detached
1,175
49.9%
Whole house or bungalow: Semi-detached
478
20.3%
Whole house or bungalow: Terraced (including end-terrace)
247
10.5%
Flat, maisonette or apartment: Purpose-built block of flats or tenement
346
14.7%
Flat, maisonette or apartment: Part of a converted or shared house (including bed-sits)
52
2.2%
Flat, maisonette or apartment: In a commercial building
33
1.4%
Caravan or other mobile or temporary structure
26
1.1%
Government data in terms of sales of homes from Autumn 2014 to 2015 showed Virginia Water to be the most expensive post town nationally (i.e. excluding any part of London). The recent averaged sold price for its homes was just over £1.1m.[14]
Christ Church school was built by the National Society in 1843 on land given by Saint George Francis Caulfeild of The Wentworths. He attempted to bind the land with "all buildings thereon erected or to be erected to be forever hereafter appropriated and used as land for a School for the Education of Children and Adults or Children only of labouring manufacturing and other poorer classes". The school was built for £716. 16s 7d. In 2020, due to loss of intake, Surrey County Council set underway closure, moving attendees to consolidated Englefield Green Infant School by 2023.[15][16][17]
St Ann's Heath Junior School is on Sandhills Lane.
Trumps Green Infant School is on Crown Road in the south of the ward and the postcode district (the only of post town in this case).
Percy Fletcher - composer of classical music and musical director at London theatres.,[31] resident of Holloway Sanatorium[32]
Bryan Forbes - film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist, until his death in 2013. Ran a loss making bookshop on Virginia Water parade as he thought "it was 'right' to have a bookshop in his local village"[33]
Gulnara Karimova - Uzbekkleptocrat and daughter of Islam Karimov, former-president of Uzbekistan. Acquired hundreds of millions of dollars through bribery, convicted by Uzbek court in "one of the largest bribery and corruption cases of all time"[43] Resident of the Wentworth estate[22]
Bill Nankeville - runner, 1948 and 1952 [olympian|Olympic_Games], world record holder for 4x1500 metres and 4x1 mile. Ran the "Davro's" general store on the Virginia Water parade, named after his sons David and Robert. Father of Bobby Davro[47]
Vaslav Nijinsky - ballet dancer and choreographer, from 1947 for three years (until his death)[48]
Paul O'Grady - moved to Virginia Water at age 17, to work at the Wheatsheaf Hotel[49]
^"Joan Adeney Easdale". Helga Kaschl: Frauen in Virginia Woolfs Hogarth Press 1917-1941. Archived from the original on 25 June 2018. Retrieved 29 December 2018.
