Giggs Hill Green
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Giggs Hill Green is a triangular park in Thames Ditton bordered on one side by the Portsmouth Road which has, since 1833, contained as a major part of it, the village's cricket green.
Previously part of the waste (unproductive land) with a high subsoil of clay, gravel and flint belonging to the manor of Kingston, the 8 acres (32,000 m2) of Giggs Hill Green were purchased in 1901 for £250 (equivalent to £34,282 in 2023) by Esher and Dittons Urban District Council.
The mystery of Giggs Hill Green is that there is no hill. The Green has had several different spellings over the centuries. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it was known as 'Le Gighill', 'Gyghyll', the 'lane called Gyghill' and 'Giggehill'. In Middle English, 'gigge' means a whirling thing, so perhaps a maypole was implied.
Highwaymen
Horace Walpole, resident in Twickenham, wrote of the dangers of the Portsmouth Road in 1784:
But here is a worse calamity; one is never safe by day or night: Mrs Walsingham, who has bought your brother's late house at Ditton, was robbed a few days ago in the high road, within a mile of home, at seven in the evening.
[1] By 'Mrs Walsingham', Walpole was referring to the mother of Hon. Charlotte Boyle Walsingham who constructed her mansion farmhouse, Boyle Farm, which has been turned into The Home of Compassion at the far end of the village centre by the Thames.
Portsmouth Road and the surrounding commons were notoriously dangerous. There was the serious risk of both footpads (i.e. unmounted robbers) and highwaymen. Tom Waters, Jerry Abershawe, Evan Evans, William Hawke and Thomas Banks were all hanged in the 17th/18th centuries for banditry on the Portsmouth Road.[2]
