Weybridge

Weybridge, an urban district in the Chertsey parliamentary division of Surrey, England; 19 m. W.S.W. from London by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 5329. It lies in the flat valley of the river Wey, i m. above its junction with the Thames. The river is locked up to Godalming, and navigation is assisted by cuts. Weybridge has grown in modern times out of a village into a residential town. The church of St James is modern but contains numerous ancient memorials, and one by Sir F. Chantrey for the duchess of York (d. 1820), daughter of Frederick William II. of Prussia, to whose memory there is also a column on Weybridge Green. The summit of this column is that which formerly stood at Seven Dials, London. The Roman Catholic chapel of St Charles Borromeo was the burial-place of Louis Philippe, ex-king of the French (d. 1850), who resided at Claremont in the neighbouring parish of Esher, his queen and other members of his family; but their bodies were subsequently removed to Dreux in Normandy. To the east of Weybridge lies Henry VIII.'s park of Oatlands (see Walton-on-Thames). In 1907 the Brooklands racing track for motorcars was opened near Weybridge. It has a circuit of 2 6 m. round the inner edge, and including the straight finishing track is 34 m. in total length; its maximum width is 100 ft., and at the curves it is banked up to a maximum height of 28 ft. 8 in.