Our local ramble ‘A walk around Laleham’ has been reviewed and updated!

The walk combines exercise with local history, (which property was the countries first prep school? No, it wasn’t Dr Thomas Arnold’s), local architecture, (where might there be cottages within a barn?) and quirky local facts, (which historic county is across the river from Town Quay?); and it’s all totally free of charge.

The walk is an ongoing project that will be updated and expanded as information on our buildings, our past residents and our environment comes to light.

If your property isn’t there, and you think it’s interesting enough to be included, contact the Heritage Centre curator Dominic O’Malley on dom.omalley@hotmail.co.uk with your information.

It seems that the dump have started charging us for the disposal of certain items from today, 1st September. There is a link below for the details...

No need to panic immediately as the sort of rubbish they want to charge for is not the sort of thing you need to dispose of every day. However the fact that charging has started does bring up a few issues…

Who is to say that the list of chargeable items will not grow over time?

This encourages fly tipping?

Queues at the dump are already unacceptable. Staff investigating the content of rubbish bags will increase them.?

Who wants staff looking into their rubbish bags anyway??

The decision to charge could cause argument - for example who is to say that a couple of bags of soil and rubble from your garden is the result off regular gardening or renovation??

Charges are punitive. Just follow the link.?

I am sure Surrey CC will say that this is all very reasonable given the cost of waste disposal. However it FEELS like we are already starting to pay for their jolly building project…

It says on the website:- Work is underway on Surrey County Council's innovative new Eco Park development at Charlton Lane, Shepperton. This collection of facilities will process waste from Surrey households to create fuels to produce power for the national grid and a fertiliser for use in farming.

They should add:- “It will also produce an income from local residents who dare to re-tile the bathroom”.

Follow the link below and click on "introduction-of-charging-at-surreys-community-recycling-centres"

At the recent Residents Association AGM, I asked ‘Where is Thames Cottage?’ Nobody was sure, although there was recognition of a few local family surnames associated with it.

For the Village Heritage Collection I want to gather something more personal, more emotionally tangible, which will complement the maps, the photos and the documents, (not forgetting the gas mask, the brick and the Codd bottles), that form the basis of Laleham’s local history collection.

For this I’m seeking and pestering for memories of Laleham from past or present residents. A few weeks before the AGM a friend sent me extracts from the memoirs of Muriel (Danny) Daniels.

Muriel had lived with her mother at Thames Cottage and … well, it’s written from a perspective that few today will have experienced and you’ll have to read it for yourself...