Egham is a small town near the Thames, 5 miles from Windsor and 4 miles north-west of Chertsey. The parish is bounded on the north-east by the Thames, on the south-east by Thorpe and Chertsey, on the south-west by Chobham, on the north-west by Berkshire. Thorpe is a small parish on the banks of the Thames. The village is 2 miles north-west of Chertsey, and nearly 2 miles south-east of Egham. The soil is river gravel, sand, and alluvium. The church stands close against a background of trees. The Chertsey extension branch of the London and South Western Railway from Chertsey to Egham cuts the extremity of the parish on the south-west. It measures about 5 miles from southwest to north-east, and about 3 miles from north-west to south-east. It contains 7,624 acres of land and 162 of water. It is divided into four tithings, the Town Tithing in the northern part of the parish, Strode in the southern part, the Hythe in the north-eastern part along the Thames, Englefield, the western part. The soil is Bagshot sand with the gravel and alluvium of the Thames Valley.
The Thames Valley and the less barren stream beds in the Bagshot sand were inhabited in early times. A polished stone celt has been found near Egham, and a bronze spear-head in the Thames near Runnimede. The great Roman road from the Thames Valley to the south-west crossed the Thames near the ancient parish of STAINES and ran through Egham parish along the border of the counties of Surrey and Berkshire towards Easthampstead Plain in Berkshire, where it exists as the Devil's Highway. Staines lies on the east bank of the Thames, which separates it from Surrey, while the branch of the Colne known as the Shire Ditch divides it from Buckinghamshire. The town lies at the narrowest point of the parish, with two wider and roughly equal portions extending to north and south along the Shire Ditch and the river. By the bridge a piece of the Surrey bank, which was once an island, forms part of the parish and in Middlesex.
Ashford, LALEHAM, and Teddington were all chapelries of Staines in the earlier Middle Ages, but a reference to the beating of the parish bounds in 1491 shows that, though Ashford was still ecclesiastically dependent on Staines, it was by the nconsidered to be in some sense a separate parish and there was a fixed boundary between the two.
The Thames Valley ran through Virginia Water, an artificial lake of much later construction, past Englefield Green to the Thames. The Roman station Ad Pontes, or Pontibus, was near Staines, and from its name appears to have been the passage of the Thames before other bridges were made. STAINES parish lies between 25 and 75 feet above sea level. The soil is gravel, except for a stretch of brick-earth north of Knowle Green and along the London Road and for the alluvium of Staines Moor and the stream beds. The gravel stretches over to Egham, and Staines is the only place west of London where it is possible to cross the Thames without leaving gravel for alluvial soils either at the river itself, as is necessary farther east, or before reaching it, as farther west where the much-flooded Colne valley lies in the way.While the name Pontes, generally believed to refer to Staines, implies that the Staines Bridge existed in Roman times. The bridge is first mentioned after Roman times in 1222, when the king gave a tree from Windsor Forest for its repair.
EGHAM was included in the original endowment of Chertsey Abbey in 666–75. Confirmation of the grant was made in 727 and in 967, and in both cases the property at Egham is referred to as '20 mansae cum porcorum pascuis in pene wold.' Egham, Englefield Green in this parish was not the scene of the battle with the Danes in 871; this was fought at Englefield near Reading. Runnimede, however, is in Egham, and one of the greatest events in English history was consummated on Surrey soil. The charter itself is the witness that it was given in Runnimede. Magna Charta Island, as the name of the island in the Thames, is a comparatively late name. The Domesday Survey records that in the time of King Edward, Egham was assessed for 40 hides, whereas in 1086 it was assessed for 15. Its value, previously £40, was then £30 10s. Of this land Gozelin held 3 hides which were of the abbey's demesne in King Edward's time.
Land at PERNEHRS in Egham, described as 'half a hide of land and 5 acres, with appurtenances,' now known as ANKERWICK PARISH, was confirmed to the priory of Ankerwick in Buckinghamshire by Henry III in 1252, when it was stated to have been given to the priory by Hugh, Abbot of Chertsey. He is called Hugh the abbot, nepos meus, and if the charter is genuine must be Hugh de Puiset, Stephen's nephew, who became Bishop of Durham in 1153. The possessions of the priory in Egham included also 1 acre of land of the gift of Grunwin de Trottesworth, land which Almerus held of the gift of Godfrey de Middleton, 13 acres of land of the gift of Robert de Middleton, and a croft called Tutescroft of the gift of Henry son of Henry de Middleton.
The road which comes out of Sussex through Somersbury and Ewhurst (q.v.) would lead here if continued in a nearly straight line. Nevertheless the Roman bridge has disappeared. Egham lay in the confines of the forest of Windsor. The dispute about the boundaries of the forest finally left some of the parish and of the county of Surrey within it. The boundary perambulated in 1226 is for some distance the boundary of Berkshire and Surrey, but in its later course, where it runs from Thornhill to Harpesford, and then 'along the water to Inggfield' (Englefield) it followed the stream which runs into Virginia Water. The earliest record of a bridge at Staines seems to date from the reign of Henry III, 1229, though the Danes crossed here in 1009, uniting their forces, which had been on both sides of the river, without the aid of their ships, which were on the coast of Kent.