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Desborough Island

Island in the River Thames, England

Desborough Island
Summary

Island in the River Thames, England

One of the two bridges across Desborough Cut to the Island
Open space on Desborough Island

Desborough Island is a 112 acre manmade island in the River Thames on the reach above Sunbury Lock in Surrey, England. It was formed in the 1930s by the digging of a channel – the Desborough Cut – by the Thames Conservancy as a meander cutoff of narrow width on the right bank. The island and cut are named after Lord Desborough, a chairman of the Thames Conservancy.

Construction

The –mile (1–km) Desborough Cut takes the Thames directly between the brief Weybridge bank to the upper (south) part of the Walton bank — creating Desborough Island between it and the river meanders which front much of Old Shepperton and Lower Halliford in Shepperton. The cut alleviated flooding at Hamm Court and in Shepperton and halves the distance of travel from its start to its finish.

Uses

Waterworks on Desborough Island

The island is almost uninhabited: mainly open space, playing fields and water treatment facilities. The island has access over two bridges from Walton Lane; the upper bridge connects a green-buffer part of Weybridge, the other into a similar area of Walton-on-Thames. The parish boundaries are medieval. It covers 112 ha of which 14 ha is open space. It is a site of nature conservation importance and is looked after by Elmbridge’s commons management team. The island contains the Walton Water Treatment Works, owned by Affinity Water, and has some sporting facilities. Other parts of its land are owned by the EA, Surrey County and Elmbridge Borough councils. Pleasure boats operate from Walton, making a trip round the island.

The late 2000s decade saw paths re-laid, seating added and hedges relaid to improve plant diversity and provide animal habitats.

In film, fiction and the media

The island and the surrounding river stood in for the banks of the Mississippi in the music video for "Karma Chameleon" by Culture Club in 1983.

References

References

  1. "The Hundred of Spelthorne: Shepperton".
  2. [http://www.shepperton-rotary.org.uk/alfpitfieldmemorium.htm Shepperton Rotary Club] {{webarchive. link. (2011-10-06)
  3. "British History Online. The Hundred of Elmbridge: Introduction and map.".
  4. OS 25-inch-to-mile map of Middlesex of 1912, sheet XXV.9, published 1915.
  5. "PMZ22, Desborough Island, Walton-on-Thames". [[Surrey County Council]].
  6. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927023417/http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/news/default.asp?mode=1&newsid=1677 Elmbridge Borough Council news]
  7. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927023503/http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/news/default.asp?mode=1&newsid=1216& Habitat renovation]
  8. "Boy George Fever.com: Behind the videos.".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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