Wraysbury

Wraysbury in Victorian times was described as being "three miles south of Colnbrook and within one mile of Horton Village, joining Staines, four miles from Windsor and about 20 miles from London by road". It is a parish, "about 3½ miles long, on the northern bank of the Thames, in the hundred of Stoke, union of Eton, county court district of Windsor, rural deanery of Burnham, archdeaconry of Buckinghamshire and diocese of Oxford." In the Domesday Book it is written Wyrardisbury. James B. Johnstone, in "The Place Names of England & Wales" (1915) says it derives from the town or burgh of Waerheard or Weradus. Both are common Saxon names. The church of St Andrew is an old Gothic structure, between Norman and Early English, supposed to have been built by King John. The register dates from the year 1734. On the Ankerwycke estate are the ruins of a Benedictine nunnery, founded in the reign of Henry II. The village was once a portion of the hunting grounds when the Saxons resided at Old Windsor. New Windsor was built in 1110 by King Henry I and he moved in in 1163. The lands around Wraysburg were held by a number of noblemen.