Giggs Hill Green

From Dittopedia

Giggs Hill Green ** (I)

Originally a marshy area, Giggs Hill Green was probably named after a small artificial mount on which a maypole or gig was erected, and around which country games were played. St Leonards Cottages, on the northern edge of the Green, is described on a an 1823 watercolour as 'Poorhouse'.

Giggs Hill Green is a large triangular stretch of common ground in Thames Ditton, bordered on one side by the Portsmouth Road. Previously part of the 'waste' belonging to the manor of Kingston, the eight acres of Giggs Hill Green were purchased in 1901 for a mere £250 by the Esher and Dittons Urban District Council. ^[1]

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Origins of its Name

Note the absence of the War Memorial from this scene of a crowd waiting for cyclists on the Green

The mystery of Giggs Hill Green is that there is no hill. The Green has had several different spellings over the centuries. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it was known as Le Gighill, Gyghyll, the lane called Gyghill and Giggehill. In Middle English, gigge means a whirling thing, so perhaps a maypole was implied. ^[1]

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Crime in the Giggs Hill area

Horace Walpole wrote of the dangers of the Portsmouth Road in 1784:

But here is a worse calamity; one is never safe by day or night: Mrs Walsingham, who has bought your brother's late house at Ditton, was robbed a few days ago in the high road, within a mile of home, at seven in the evening.

(Letter 275 to Hon HS Conway. By 'Mrs Walsingham', Walpole was referring to the mother of Charlotte Boyle Walsingham). ^[1]

Portsmouth Road and the surrounding commons were notoriously dangerous. There was the serious risk of both footpads (i.e. unmounted robbers) and highwaymen. Tom Waters, Jerry Abershawe, Evan Evans, William Hawke and Thomas Banks were all hanged in the 17th/18th centuries for banditry on the Portsmouth Road. ^[1]

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Reference

1. Wikipedia
2. Burchett, P. 1984. A Historical Sketch of THAMES DITTON. Surrey: Thames Ditton and Weston Green Residents' Association. ISBN 0-904-81120-4.

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