Elmbridge (hundred)

The Hundred of Elmbridge or Elmbridge/Emley Hundred was a geographic subdivision (called a "hundred") in the north of the county of Surrey, England. The majority of its area forms the borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, with the remainder forming part of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in Greater London.

Elmbridge appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Amelebrige an area used for strategic, secular purposes with a Hundred Court where local wealthy and powerful figures met about once a month. It also had in early centuries a small number of owners who attempted to charge and collect rent of all of the owners of the main manageable medieval asset in the country, the manors.

The name refers to a bridge over the River Mole, which was originally called the River Emel or Amele, a word possibly meaning 'misty' and later had the alternate form Emlyn; the bridge may have been between Hersham and Esher and specifically close to the crossing of today's A244 road.

Elmbridge's name thus did not derive from elm trees which appeared on the Surbiton Urban District Council municipal arms and continue in the Elmbridge municipal arms.

Parishes within the hundred were:

At times it also included:

Surbiton had an elm tree on its crest as its area once lay within the Elmbridge hundred.

Its economic unity was shattered like most hundreds given the rise of smaller manors and newer manors which came to form the main, manageable agricultural asset throughout the country. It occupied just less than the central to north-west twelfth of the county.

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