Chertsey is a town southwest of central London. It has a few campsites managed by the camping and caravanning club and it’s also known for Its several listed buildings including the Cedars, home to Chertsey Museum. Other attractions include Thorpe Park, JB Waterski, St Ann’s Hill (a protected monument), Chertsey Meads and the Great Cockcrow miniature steam railway in nearby Lyne.
You can also visit Chertsey Abbey, which is the first of its kind in the country. It was founded in 666 AD and archaeological remains show the area was inhabited long before this. The Abbey was immensely wealthy and powerful and controlled over 50,000 acres of land in Surrey plus houses in London and Cardigan Priory in South Wales. The Abbey was ransacked by Vikings in 871 when the Abbot and 90 monks were killed. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Chertsey continued to thrive as a market town and, in the 17th and 18th centuries, a busy coaching town. In the 18th and 19th centuries it became an important center for clock making, as well as having a bell foundry and a separate iron foundry.
The summit of St Ann's Hill in Chertsey was a vital viewing point for the Anglo-French Survey, which calculated the distance between the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the Paris Observatory using trigonometry. A grid of triangles was measured all the way to the French coast, to join up with the French survey; St Ann's Hill was crucial for the link with the baseline of the English survey on Hounslow Heath.
In the 18th century, Chertsey Cricket Club was one of the best in the country and beat the rest of England by more than an innings in 1778. The Duke of Dorset, who played cricket for Chertsey, was appointed Ambassador to France in 1784. He arranged to have the Chertsey cricket team travel to France in 1789 to introduce cricket to the French nobility. However, the team, on arriving at Dover, met the Ambassador returning from France at the outset of the French Revolution and the opportunity was missed. Chertsey camping club is part of the camping and caravanning club, and the site is often spoken about as being very well maintained with well-priced services and facilities.
The Thorpe Park resort is easily the most desirable and popular attraction to visit when camping in Chertsey, it is also the UK’s third most visited theme park behind Alton towers with 2 million visits a year on average. The Thorpe Park resort is operated by Merlin Entertainments and includes themed cabins, live events, rides and the UK’s fastest roller coaster. Before it became an amusement park, Thorpe Park was an estate in the 1930s and was even used as a gravel pit site by Ready Mix Concrete. Another famous Chertsey attraction is Thorpe Lakes, which is an inland wakeboard, watersports and waterski resort. You can book wakeboard and waterski lessons or even summer camps. The lakes provide a fun, safe and challenging water-based experience for children and adults who love the outdoors.
Visitors in Chertsey seeking a rush of adrenaline and a chance to impersonate their favorite F1 race drivers can visit the 6th Gear Experience’s track and drive one of their custom supercars. The site can get very busy quick, so we advise any potential visitors to book in advance. For those wishing for a quieter experience, Big Hat Buschamp Day tours could just be the thing for you. Here you will get a chance to build shelters, stealth games, hot dogs and marshmallows. It is normally popular with children, but the adults love it just as much. The pricing is reasonable as as long as you make sure not to burn yourself during the backwoods cooking, you are guaranteed to have a memorable experience!
Don't forget to book your motorhome/campervan with us and choose from our range of berths. TMC is one of the leading campervans and motorhomes rental companies in the UK. We provide hire to adventurers who have a love of the outdoors and have worked with customers who have been on a journey from Lands ends to John O'groats. Our motorhomes and campervans for hire have no mileage limit and are available for long trips! Choose from any of our pet friendly motorhomes and state of the art campervans.
