Egham Ephemera:
a Cabinet of Local Curiosities
13thC
The Magna Carta was signed 15 June 1215 in Runnymede. The document was an agreement
between the feudal barons and King John that the monarch should conform to feudal law. It
was the first such concession by an English monarch to his subjects, and was forced upon the
King by the barons in order to protect themselves against potential abuses of power.
17thC
John Denham lived in Egham and his Civil War poem on the local 'Cooper's Hill' (1642) is the
first example of loco-descriptive poetry in English literature. His (locked) tomb is in Egham
Church, which also has a statue of him in its entrance. A juicy Restoration tale is attached to the
manner of his death; he supposedly was so annoyed that James, Duke of York was having an
affair with his young wife, that he deliberately went out and caught the pox, so as to pass it on to
them both.
18thC
Alexander Pope's 'Windsor Forest' (1713) follows in Denham’s topographical tradition (and
similarly includes Cooper’s Hill)
The Old Red Lion pub, in the throbbing heart of downtown Egham, is mentioned in Henry
Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742)
19thC
Mary Robinson is buried in Old Windsor; she wrote a poem called ‘Written on seeing a Rose
still blooming at a Cottage Door on Egham Hill, the 25th of October, 1800’ and lived
somewhere nearby.
Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826) has a heroine, Perdita, who lives in a cottage near Virginia Water.
The Barley Mow pub in Englefield Green was the site of the last duel fought in Britain (c.1855,
fought between two French men). Frederic Cournet, was brought, fatally wounded, into the
pub. It is thought the duel was a disguised political assassination. Cournet’s opponents
tampered with his pistol, hired from a range in Hyde Park, while on the train. (This was a
regular way of getting rid of people in the 19th century - dupe them into undertaking a duel,
then fix it.) Cournet was instructed to take his stand with a tree somewhere behind him, which,
had he had seconds who weren't in on the game, would not have been allowed, as giving
assistance to his opponent's aim. The pub is still open and can be reached by foot from Egham
campus.
Harrison Ainsworth’s Windsor Castle (1842) popularised the folklore legend of Herne the
Hunter, a ghost associated with Windsor Forest and Great Park. He also appears in
Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597). He has antlers on his head and his
appearances – on his horse or near the tree from which he was hanged, Herne’s Oak - are said
to signify ill omen generally, but to the Royal Family in particular.
20thC
Agatha Christie lived in Sunningdale in the 1920s. Sunningdale Golf Course features in the
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford short story ‘The Sunningdale Mystery’ (Partners in Crime,
1929).
The Wentworth estate in Virginia Water, developed in the 1920s from land originally owned
in the 19thC by the Duke of Wellington’s family, is one of the country’s most luxurious
residential areas. Current residents include the Sultan of Brunei, Eddie Jordan and Sir Bruce
Forsyth. One notorious past resident is General Pinochet, the Chilean former president, who
was kept here in 1998 under house arrest before his extradition.
John le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974) begins in a safe house in Englefield Green.