Fleet, Hampshire
Encyclopedia
Fleet is a town and civil parish in the Hart
Hart (district)
Hart is a local government district in Hampshire, England, named after the River Hart. Its council is based in Fleet. It was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the urban district of Fleet, and the Hartley Wintney Rural District.Hart District is one of the...

 district of Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

, England, located 37 miles (60 km) south west of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. It is part of Hart District
Hart (district)
Hart is a local government district in Hampshire, England, named after the River Hart. Its council is based in Fleet. It was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the urban district of Fleet, and the Hartley Wintney Rural District.Hart District is one of the...

. The 2007 population forecast for Fleet was 31,687.

History

The site of Fleet was originally heathland in the northern part of the Crondall
Crondall
Crondall is a village and large civil parish in the north east of Hampshire, England and is all that remains of the old Hundred of Crondall referred to in the Domesday Book of 1086. Various earlier spellings have in common the use of a "u" instead of the "o" and the village is still properly...

 Hundred. The name Fleet was probably derived from the Norman French word La Flete meaning a stream or shallow water - a reference to the Fleet Pond
Fleet Pond
Fleet Pond Local Nature Reserve is one of Hampshire’s hidden gems. Located on the northern edge of the town of Fleet in northeastern Hampshire, the 'pond', at 21 hectares , is Hampshire's largest freshwater lake...

 from which fish had been taken for the monks in Winchester in Medieval times.

Early Days (to 1904)

In 1792 the Basingstoke Canal
Basingstoke Canal
The Basingstoke Canal is a British Canal, completed in 1794, built to connect Basingstoke with the River Thames at Weybridge via the Wey Navigation....

 opened. The canal passed through the town site, but apart from a few inns to serve the passing trade it had little effect on the locality. Apart from the Farnham
Farnham
Farnham is a town in Surrey, England, within the Borough of Waverley. The town is situated some 42 miles southwest of London in the extreme west of Surrey, adjacent to the border with Hampshire...

 to Reading
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

 road, the site remained largely undeveloped until the construction of the London and South Western Railway
London and South Western Railway
The London and South Western Railway was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Its network extended from London to Plymouth via Salisbury and Exeter, with branches to Ilfracombe and Padstow and via Southampton to Bournemouth and Weymouth. It also had many routes connecting towns in...

, which opened in 1840. In that year a church - Christ Church that was to become the heart of the new ecclesiastial parish of Ewshot and Crookham was built midway between the villages of Crookham and Ewshot. This parish included the area that was to become the town of Fleet. The railway company promoted Fleet Pond for a destination for day excurisons and many people came down from London to skate on the Pond during the winter. This attracted a number of gentry, particularly retired army officers, who moved to the area bounded by Fleet Road, Elvetham Road and Reading Road North and laid the foundations of what was to become known locally as "The Blue Triangle".

By 1860 Charles Lefroy, a local squire, commissioned All Saints Church, Fleet
All Saints Church, Fleet
All Saints Church is an Anglican parish church of the town of Fleet in the county of Hampshire, England. It is notable due to its architect, William Burges and was constructed 1861-2 as a memorial church to Janet Walker. It was extended to the west in 1934 by A J Steadman and a Lady Chapel was...

 - in the Blue Triangle area in memory of his wife who had died in 1857. The architect was William Burges
William Burges (architect)
William Burges was an English architect and designer. Amongst the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, Burges sought in his work an escape from 19th century industrialisation and a return to the values, architectural and social, of an imagined mediaeval England...

. The ecclesiastical parish of Ewshot and Crookam was split into two in 1862 with the northern section based on the All Saints church, becoming the new parish of Fleet. The development of Fleet accelerated when the land to the south east of the Blue Triangle was sold for development in 1882 which, unlike the Blue Triangle, was laid out in a grid pattern. Thus it is that there are few very old buildings in Fleet, with much of the modern town formed around Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 buildings.

As part of the Urban District Council (1904 - 1974)

Under the Local Government Act 1894
Local Government Act 1894
The Local Government Act 1894 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level under the Local Government Act 1888...

 many of the duties that had previously been shouldered by the ecclesiastical parishes were transferred to new civil parish and Crookham, Fleet and Crondall each gained an elected parish council. In 1904 the civil parish of Crookham was split into two - Crookham Village and Church Crookham with Church Crookham and Fleet Rural Parish being merged to form the Fleet and Church Crookham Urban District.

As in many parts of Britain, there was a building boom between the First and Second World Wars. Fleet also contains structures built in the 1960s such as the line of shops on the left of the picture below.

As part of the Hart District Council (1974 onwards)

Fleet has expanded in the past few decades with new residential areas being built at Ancells Farm, Zebon Copse (in neighbouring Church Crookham) and Elvetham Heath
Elvetham Heath
Elvetham Heath is a residential area and civil parish, containing 1,868 residences, on a site, just outside the north western boundary of the town of Fleet in the English county of Hampshire.-Location:...

. Completed in 2008, Elvetham Heath is one of the UK's largest new housing developments, and will add some 5,000 inhabitants to Fleet's population, bringing its total population up to around 36,000, a 20% increase in less than a decade.

Two earlier developments in Fleet involved the opening of a new shopping centre, the Hart Shopping Centre, which was opened officially by HRH The Duchess Of York
Sarah, Duchess of York
Sarah, Duchess of York is a British charity patron, spokesperson, writer, film producer, television personality and former member of the British Royal Family. She is the former wife of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, whom she married from 1986 to 1996...

 in 1991. On the same day, she attended the opening of the Hart Leisure Centre on Hitches Lane (towards Church Crookham). The shopping centre was itself developed further in 2001-2.

Although Fleet has traditionally been a dormitory town housing commuters to London, it now has several business parks, mainly occupied by Information Technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

 companies.

A plan to add a new multiplex cinema was abandoned, a gym was built on the proposed site instead.

Geography

Areas and suburbs of the town are Pondtail, Ancells Park and Elvetham Heath. The villages of Crookham Village
Crookham Village
Crookham Village is located south-west of Fleet, in northeast Hampshire, England and lies within the Hart District.-History:Crookham dates back at least as far as the Domesday Book, although Crookham Village and Church Crookham did not become separate entities until the founding of the Christ...

 and Church Crookham
Church Crookham
Church Crookham is a suburb, village and civil parish on the southern edge of the town of Fleet, in north east Hampshire, England, located south west of London...

 have also grown to be contiguous with the town. Immediately surrounding towns and villages include Winchfield, Dogmersfield
Dogmersfield
Dogmersfield is a small and peaceful village between the towns of Fleet and Hartley Wintney located in Hampshire, England.Places of interest include the village church, the Queen's Head pub and a mansion house known variously as Dogmersfield House or Dogmersfield Park...

, Crondall
Crondall
Crondall is a village and large civil parish in the north east of Hampshire, England and is all that remains of the old Hundred of Crondall referred to in the Domesday Book of 1086. Various earlier spellings have in common the use of a "u" instead of the "o" and the village is still properly...

, Ewshot, and Hartley Wintney
Hartley Wintney
Hartley Wintney is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Hampshire.-Location and character:Hartley Wintney is in the Hart district of North-East Hampshire...

.

The Fleet Pond
Fleet Pond
Fleet Pond Local Nature Reserve is one of Hampshire’s hidden gems. Located on the northern edge of the town of Fleet in northeastern Hampshire, the 'pond', at 21 hectares , is Hampshire's largest freshwater lake...

 Nature Reserve
Nature reserve
A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...

 is a notable beauty spot on the northern edge of the town. The 'pond' itself is in fact the largest freshwater lake in Hampshire. In times past, the lake has frozen over permitting skating.
Fleet can be reached from London and Southampton via the M3 motorway, the nearest junction being 4A. Fleet services on the M3 lies at the edge of the town. Its main road, Fleet Road, runs through the town centre from south-west to north-east. Fleet station is on the London Waterloo station
Waterloo station
Waterloo station, also known as London Waterloo, is a central London railway terminus and London Underground complex. The station is owned and operated by Network Rail and is close to the South Bank of the River Thames, and in Travelcard Zone 1....

 to Southampton main line. The train service is run by South West Trains (formerly Network South East). Journey time to Waterloo is about 50 minutes. Express trains do the journey in under 40 minutes. There are small airports nearby at Blackbushe Airport
Blackbushe Airport
Blackbushe Airport , in the civil parish of Yateley in the north-east corner of the English county of Hampshire, comprises an airfield, much reduced in size since its heyday, a British Car Auctions site, a kart track owned by Camberley Kart Club, and a small business park...

 and Farnborough Airfield
Farnborough Airfield
Farnborough Airport or TAG London Farnborough Airport is an airport situated in Farnborough, Rushmoor, Hampshire, England...

. The Basingstoke Canal
Basingstoke Canal
The Basingstoke Canal is a British Canal, completed in 1794, built to connect Basingstoke with the River Thames at Weybridge via the Wey Navigation....

, built at the end of the eighteenth century, connected Fleet to Basingstoke and, in the other direction, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 via the Wey
River Wey
The River Wey in Surrey, Hampshire and West Sussex is a tributary of the River Thames with two separate branches which join at Tilford. The source of the north branch is at Alton, Hampshire and of the south branch at both Blackdown south of Haslemere, and also close to Gibbet Hill, near Hindhead...

 navigation. By the early twentieth century, it had fallen into disrepair, but the section between the Wey Navigation and the Blackwell Tunnel (midway between Fleet and Basingstoke) has since been restored by volunteers and is maintained as a leisure facility.

Climate

Along with the rest of South East England
South East England
South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...

, Fleet has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and warmer than the rest of the country. The annual mean temperature is approximately 9 °C (48.2 °F) and shows a seasonal and a diurnal
Diurnal motion
Diurnal motion is an astronomical term referring to the apparent daily motion of stars around the Earth, or more precisely around the two celestial poles. It is caused by the Earth's rotation on its axis, so every star apparently moves on a circle, that is called the diurnal circle. The time for...

 variation, but due to the effect of the sea the range is less than in most other parts of the UK. January is the coldest month with mean minimum temperatures between 0.5 °C (32.9 °F) and 2 °C (35.6 °F). June and July are the warmest months in the area with average daily maxima around 25.5 °C (77.9 °F).

Politics and administration

Fleet is administered by Hart District Council and Hampshire County Council
Hampshire County Council
Hampshire County Council is the county council that governs the majority of the county of Hampshire in England. It provides the upper tier of local government, below which are district councils, and town and parish councils...

. The parliamentary constituency is North East Hampshire. In April 2010 some of the responsibilities of Hart District Council were devolved to three new parish councils: Fleet Town Council, Elvetham Heath Parish Council and Church Crookham Parish Council.

Education

The town has a number of schools including:
  • Fleet Infants
  • Heatherside Infants
  • Heatherside Juniors
  • All Saints
  • Tavistock Infant School
  • Elvetham Heath Primary School
  • Church Crookham Juniors
  • Tweseldown Infants
  • Velmead
  • Calthorpe Park School
    Calthorpe Park School
    Calthorpe Park School is an average-sized mixed 11–16 comprehensive school in Fleet, Hampshire. There are over 1000 students most of whom are White British and speak English as their first language. The school shares the excellent sports facilities of an adjacent community leisure centre. It...

  • Court Moor School
    Court Moor School
    Court Moor School is one of two secondary schools in the town of Fleet, in Hampshire for pupils aged 11–16. The school was awarded Science College status in 2004....

  • St. Nicholas', an independent school
    Independent school
    An independent school is a school that is independent in its finances and governance; it is not dependent upon national or local government for financing its operations, nor reliant on taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of tuition charges, gifts, and in some cases the...

     for girls

Culture

The biggest events in the town's calendar are the summer Carnival
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...

, the switching on of the Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 lights as December approaches and the Fleet Half Marathon commonly used in preparation for the London marathon.

Notable people

The art critic and man of letters, John Russell
John Russell (art critic)
John Russell CBE was a British American art critic.-Life and career:John Russell was born in Fleet, Hampshire, England, in 1919. He attended St Paul's School and then Magdalen College, Oxford....

, was born in Fleet in 1919.

The actress Raquel Cassidy
Raquel Cassidy
Raquel Josephine Dominic Cassidy is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her television roles as Susan Gately in Teachers , the Home Office Junior Minister Jo Porter in Party Animals, and Mel in Lead Balloon, as well as her various stage works.-Filmography:-Selected...

 was born in Fleet.

The actress Juliet Aubrey
Juliet Aubrey
Juliet Aubrey is a British actress, best known for her role as Helen Cutter on Primeval .-Career:Aubrey attended to King's College London, where she studied Classics and Archaeology...

 was born in Fleet in 1969.

The musician Tim Battersby
Tim Battersby
-Biography:Tim Battersby was born in Fleet, Hampshire on 16 March 1949 and educated at Lancing College. His father was British diplomat E.W. Battersby, OBE ....

 was born in Fleet in 1949.

The professional tennis player John Feaver
John Feaver
John Feaver is a former professional tennis player from the United Kingdom.Feaver enjoyed most of his tennis success while playing doubles. During his career he won 1 doubles title and finished runner-up another 9 times. He achieved a career-high doubles ranking of World No...

 was born in Fleet in 1952.

The Formula Renault UK driver Jeremy Metcalfe
Jeremy Metcalfe
Jeremy Metcalfe is a British motor racing driver who last competed in 2008 in the British GT Championship where he finished the season as Vice-Champion along with team-mate Luke Hines. Racing in the Formula Renault UK championship prior to his move into GT, Metcalfe enjoyed a good level of success...

 was born in Fleet in 1988.

The late 1980s pop group Jim Jiminee
Jim Jiminee
Jim Jiminee was an Indie Pop band in the late 1980s in England. While active they released 1 LP and 3 EP vinyl records.-History:Jim Jiminee was founded in September 1986, releasing their first EP "Do It on Thursday" in 1987 with Cat & Mouse Records...

 originated from Fleet.

The golfer Justin Rose
Justin Rose
Justin Peter Rose is a South African-born English professional golfer who plays most of his golf on the PGA Tour while keeping his membership on the European Tour...

 grew up in Fleet.

The band The Clientele
The Clientele
The Clientele are a London-based British band with Alasdair MacLean on vocals and guitar, Mark Keen on drums, James Hornsey on bass and Mel Draisey on violin, keyboards, backing vocals and percussion....

grew up and formed in Fleet.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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