page_title: Surbiton Park
section_title: The 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Surbiton Park / History / The 20th century
caption_attribution_description: The first tram to cross Kingston Bridge. The Mayor of Kingston upon Thames is about to drive number 320 onto the bridge. Clifton Robinson the Managing Director of London United Tramways is on the upper deck.
context_page_description: Surbiton Park is an area in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in Greater London, United Kingdom. It was the southernmost part of the pre-1965 Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey and corresponds roughly to the southernmost part of the present-day Kingston upon Thames postal district.
  It lies between Portsmouth Road, Kingston and Maple Road, Surbiton and includes Surbiton Crescent, Anglesea Road, Palace Road and Uxbridge Road. It is largely residential, but there are office buildings and a school on the eastern side.
  The Surbiton Park estate was established after the arrival of the railway in the mid 19th century. It occupies much of the grounds of a minor stately home, which survived until the 1930s.
  Surbiton Park was developed as a residential area in the middle of the 19th century after the opening of the London and Southampton Railway. However, by the first decade of the 21st century the name was fading from the public consciousness. It appeared to survive principally in the wording Surbiton Park Terrace on the 20th-century row of shops on the south-west side of Surbiton Road, just to the north of the original park.
context_section_description: In 1906 Surbiton Park became a great deal noisier with the coming of the tramway. The route between Kingston and Surbiton town centre passed along Surbiton Crescent, although this necessitated the demolition of a shop at the junction with Surbiton Road.
  Mrs Shrubsole died in 1914 after four decades of widowhood. The next occupant of Surbiton Hall was also its last, Sir Sidney Pocock. He had an adventurous life and there is a biography of him, including a history of the house, on the UK Genealogy Archives website.
  Sir Sidney died in 1931 and soon afterwards Surbiton Hall was demolished. Semi-detached houses were built in Surbiton Road, Maple Road, Surbiton Crescent and a new cul-de-sac called Surbiton Hall Close.
  During the Second World War a V-1 flying bomb, or doodlebug, destroyed houses on Portsmouth Road between Palace Road and Uxbridge Road. This led to the creation of a new road called Home Park Walk.
  The post-war period has not been kind to Surbiton Park. Many of the Woods mansions and houses have been demolished and replaced piecemeal with blocks of flats and houses of various designs. Only in Uxbridge Road does there remain a substantial group of Victorian houses.
  In 1965 the Greater London area was created and Surbiton, which had been granted a Borough Charter in 1936, was incorporated into the new Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. The old borough boundary remained for some time as constituency and ward boundaries, but these have now been moved.
  During the last two decades of the 20th century attitudes changed towards buildings of historical interest. Steps were taken to protect the architectural heritage of the area and Cadogan Road and Claremont Road Conservation Areas both include parts of Surbiton Park.
caption: The first tram to cross Kingston Bridge - 1 March 1906. (Public domain.) These trams with roofs were not typical of the trams used on routes through Kingston. Most pictures show open-topped vehicles.
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