This is our first of hopefully many caches.
Charlton Village appears in the Domesday Book as ‘Cerdentone’, when Roger de Rames held it. Its domesday assets were: 5 hides and 1½ ploughs (with potential for 3½). Strictly speaking it is a hamlet, traditionally defined as a village that does not have its own church but belongs to a parish of another village or town. The oldest building in the Village is the popular thatched Harrow inn, dating back to the 15th century, reputedly being the longest continuously inhabited building in what was Middlesex.
Charlton’s history is largely agricultural and up until the early part of the last century comprised a cluster of two or three larger farm houses and smaller dwellings for the farm labourers. This was to change in 1925 when the Queen Mary Reservoir was built, drowning 700 acres of land immediately to the west of the Village and, at 45ft high, dominating the area. Between the Village and the A306 Staines Road West, to the north, is located a large water treatment complex. To the east the M3 and south Charlton Lane form the other Village limits.
The Village currently consists of 388 dwellings, five specialist shops and a village store. There are also two working farms and two stables that organize show events during the year that, together with the Green Belt, reinforce the rural aspect of the Village.
This is a perfect cache and dash, accessed from the public footpath over the low level wall, no need to enter any of the front gardens. this cache has full permission from the landowner (me). BYOP.