Gerrards Cross facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Gerrards Cross
Gerrards Cross Town Centre
Gerrards Cross
Area	10.88 km2 (4.20 sq mi)
Population	8,017 (2011 Census)
• Density	737/km2 (1,910/sq mi)
OS grid reference	TQ00258860
Unitary authority	Buckinghamshire
Ceremonial county	Buckinghamshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Gerrards Cross
Postcode district	SL9
Dialling code	01753
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Buckinghamshire
Ambulance	South Central
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Beaconsfield
List of places UK England Buckinghamshire 51°35′13″N 0°33′14″W / 51.587°N 0.554°W / 51.587; -0.554

Gerrards Cross is a town and civil parish in south Buckinghamshire, England, separated from the London Borough of Hillingdon at Harefield by Denham, south of Chalfont St Peter and north bordering villages of Fulmer, Hedgerley, Iver Heath and Stoke Poges. It spans foothills of the Chiltern Hills and land on the right bank of the River Misbourne. It is 19.3 miles (31.1 km) west-north-west of Charing Cross, central London. Bulstrode Park Camp was an Iron Age fortified encampment.

The town has a railway station on the Chiltern Main Line with services to London, and the M40 motorway runs beside woodland on its southern boundary.

History

The town name is new compared with the great bulk of English towns. Gerrards Cross did not exist in any formal sense until 1859, when it was formed by taking pieces out of the three parishes of Chalfont St Peter, Fulmer, Stoke Poges and Upton cum Chalvey to form a new ecclesiastical parish. It is named after the Gerrard family who in the early 17th century owned a manor here. At that time, homes which were not farms, were smallholdings clustered in a hamlet in the south of an elongated parish of Chalfont St Peter. Near its centre is the site of an Iron Age minor hillfort, Bulstrode Park Camp, which is a scheduled ancient monument. Originally named Jarrett's Cross, before the times of the Gerrard family, after a highwayman, some areas retain the original name, such as Jarrett's Hill leading up to WEC International off the A40 west of the town.

In 2014, a major national surveying company named Gerrards Cross as the most sought-after and expensive commuter town or village in their London Hot 100 report, with an average sale price of £1,000,000.

Facilities

St James's Church, Gerrards Cross, built in 1861.

The large and distinctive parish church is dedicated to St. James. It was built in 1861 as a memorial to Colonel George Alexander Reid who was MP for Windsor, and designed by Sir William Tite in yellow brick with a Byzantine-style dome, Chinese-looking turrets and an Italianate Campanile. In 1969 the singer Lulu married Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees in the church. The actress Margaret Rutherford is buried with her husband Stringer Davis in the St James Church graveyard. The town has its own library, various restaurants and its own cinema, the Everyman Gerrards Cross.

Independent schools include St Mary's (all girls- through to sixth form) and Thorpe House (all boys). Students of secondary school age attend either one of the local grammar schools, such as Dr Challoner's Grammar School (Boys with co-educational Sixth Form), Dr Challoner's High School (Girls), The Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe (Boys), John Hampden Grammar School (Boys), and Beaconsfield High School (Girls) Chesham Grammar School (Co-ed), and the local Upper School, Chalfonts Community College, which is the catchment school.

On the south side of the town is the Gerrards Cross Memorial Building, on the site of the former vicarage. The building was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1922 to commemorate the town's losses during the First World War. It is the only example of a Lutyens war memorial designed with a functional purpose.

Transport

Gerrards Cross station, in 1994. The view NW from the footbridge, towards Princes Risborough

The town has a railway station on the Chiltern Main Line which opened on 2 April 1906. This provides services to London and Birmingham with a commuting time of 18 minutes on the fast train to London Marylebone. A new arch over the section of deep railway cutting to allow Tesco to build a supermarket collapsed on 30 June 2005 at 19:30. Nobody was injured but the line was closed for over six weeks. Compensation by Tesco to Chiltern was reported as £8.5m and the retailer compensated by funding a media campaign to reinstate business immediately lost by the closure. Construction of a correctly constructed arch began in January 2009.

The 11.36am from London Paddington to Gerrards Cross was an official or 'parliamentary train' recognised as an outlandish loss-making service to prevent the link to that terminus being closed or re-allocated. This train now terminates at West Ruislip. In 2011, National Rail was lobbied to phase the service out.

The town lies 8.4 miles (13.5 km) north west of London's Heathrow Airport.

Recent history

Many houses built during development in the 1950s had defective tiles, leading to the highest court reported judgment Young & Marten Ltd v McManus Childs Ltd, holding that a person who contracts to do work and supply materials implicitly warrants that the materials will be fit for purpose, even if the purchaser specifies the materials to be used.

See also

In Spanish: Gerrards Cross para niños