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Byfleet is a village forming a suburb of Woking in Surrey, England and is situated south of Weybridge. Its location on the side of the River Wey reflects its name Byfleet, meaning 'by the stream.'
Byfleet appears in the Domesday Book as 'Biflet' and its assets were recorded as 2 and a half hides, 1 church, 1 mill worth 5 shillings, 1 and a half fisheries worth 325 eels, and 6 acres of meadow and woodland worth 10 hogs, rendering £4 in total.
Although traces of a Neolithic village have been found, Byfleet isn't mentioned in the records until 727. Around this time a charter was made when the area was granted by the King of Mercia to the Abbey of Chertsey. An original church, which would have been made of roughly chopped wood, could very well have been built around 597 A.D which was when St.Augustine re-introduced Christianity to the South-East of England, however, the first mention of a church in Byfleet is that which is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.
At the time of the Conquest, Byfleet was a Saxon manor under the Abbot of Westminster and part of the Forest of Windsor. King William I considered the area of Windsor to be an ideal spot for a royal country home and hunting base and so secured it from the Abbot, along with Byfleet, in exchange for land in Essex. And so, Byfleet became a Royal Manor and was to remain so until 1826.
It was in 1917 that West Byfleet became a separate parish from that of the Parish of Byfleet. Up until that time the area was thought of and spoken about as the 'West End.' Referred to as the 'Tin Tabernacle' the first place of worship in West Byfleet in1872 was a temporary corrugated iron building situated at the entrance to the house and estate known as Broad Oaks. Access was gained to the church via a plank bridge placed across the ditch to the door. The 'Tin Tabernacle' was to serve the community of West Byfleet as a church for the next 40 years.
Brooklands, located between Byfleet and Chertsey is the site of the first purpose built motor racing track in the world. Completed by Hugh Locke King in 1907, the 2 mile banked circuit was a major civil engineering achievement, and not only hosted early RAC Grand Prix but also provided a place to test cars and make early Land Speed Record attempts. In 1917, Percy Lambert broke the record, setting an average speed of 103.84mph. A few months later, Lambert attempted to break his own record. After promising his fiancée that this would be his last attempt, he crashed and died at the track. Many say his ghost regularly walks at Brooklands still in full racing attire.
Byfleet and New Haw railway station is on the mainline to Waterloo. The A3 trunk road passes to the south of the village, providing access to junction 10 of the M25 motorway.
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