Teddington is an affluent suburb of London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex and situated close to the border with Surrey, the district became part of Greater London in 1965. In 2021, The Sunday Times named Teddington as the best place to live in London.
Teddington is situated on a long meander of the Thames between Hampton Wick and Strawberry Hill, Twickenham. Mostly residential, it stretches from the river to Bushy Park with the commercial focus on the A313 road. At Teddington's centre is the High Street, alongside mid-rise urban developments, containing offices and apartments. There is a suspension bridge over the lowest non-tidal lock on the Thames, Teddington Lock.
Economy
The district's commercial focus – containing shops, offices and other facilities – is along the A313, which is named (from west to east): Hampton Road, Broad Street and High Street.
There are two clusters of offices on this route; on the edge of Bushy Park the National Physical Laboratory, National Measurement Office and LGC form a scientific centre. Around Teddington station and the town centre are a number of offices in industries such as direct marketing and IT, which include Tearfund and BMT Limited. Several riverside businesses and houses were redeveloped in the last quarter of the 20th century as blocks of riverside flats. As of 2016 the riverside site of the former Teddington Studios was being developed to provide modern apartment blocks and other smaller houses.
The lowermost lock on the Thames, Teddington Lock, which is just within Ham's boundary, is accessible via the Teddington Lock Footbridges. In 2001 the Royal National Lifeboat Institution opened the Teddington Lifeboat Station, one of four Thames lifeboat stations, below the lock on the Teddington side. The station became operational in January 2002 and is the only volunteer station on the river.
History
Etymology
The place was known in Saxon and Norman times as Todyngton and Tutington. The first record of the area is as Tudintun in 969.
Teddington is at the point of the River Thames where tidal flow ceases owing to it containing the 'final lock'. It has been postulated that the name thus derives from "Tide End Town." Such theory featured in Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The River's Tale", which has the line "At Tide-end-town, which is Teddington." The poem was written to serve as the introduction to a history of England for schoolchildren, written by C.R.L.Fletcher, published by the Clarendon Press in Oxford in July 1911, and by Doubleday Page in New York in September 1911.
Teddington's beginnings
There have been isolated findings of flint and bone tools from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in Bushy Park, and some unauthenticated evidence of Roman occupation. However, the first permanent settlement in Teddington was probably in Saxon times. Teddington was not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as it was included under the Hampton entry.
Teddington Manor was first owned by Benedictine monks in Staines, and it is believed they built a chapel dedicated to St. Mary on the same site as today's St. Mary's Church. In 971, a charter gave the land in Teddington to the Abbey of Westminster. By the 14th century Teddington had a population of 100–200; most of the land was owned by the Abbot of Westminster and the remainder was rented by tenants who had to work the fields a certain number of days a year.
The Hampton Court gardens were laid out in 1500 in preparation for the planned rebuilding of a 14th-century manor to form Hampton Court Palace in 1521. They were to serve as hunting grounds for Cardinal Wolsey and later Henry VIII and his family. In 1540 some common land of Teddington was enclosed to form Bushy Park, and also used as hunting grounds.
Bushy House was built in 1663. One notable resident was British Prime Minister Lord North, who lived there for over twenty years.
A large minority of the parish lay in largely communal open fields, restricted in the Middle Ages to certain villagers. These were inclosed (privatised) in two phases, in 1800 and 1818. Shortly afterwards, the Duke of Clarence lived there with his mistress Dorothy Jordan before he became King William IV, and later with his Queen Consort, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. The buildings were later used for the National Physical Laboratory.