Esher

Esher ( EE-shər) is a town in the borough of Elmbridge in north Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole. Esher is an outlying suburb of London, close to the London–Surrey border; with Esher Commons at its southern end, the town marks a southern limit of the Greater London Built-Up Area. Elevations range from 10m to 47m above sea level. Esher has a linear commercial high street and is otherwise suburban in density, with varying elevations, few high rise buildings and very short sections of dual carriageway within the ward itself. Esher covers a large area, between 13 and 15.4 miles southwest of Charing Cross. In the south it is bounded by the A3 Portsmouth Road which is of urban motorway standard and buffered by the Esher Commons. Esher is bisected by the A307, historically the Portsmouth Road, which for approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) forms its high street. Esher railway station (served by the South West Main Line) connects the town to London Waterloo. Sandown Park Racecourse is in the town near the station. In the south, Claremont Landscape Garden owned and managed by the National Trust, once belonged to Princess Charlotte and her husband Leopold I of Belgium. Accordingly, the town was selected to have a fountain by Queen Victoria and has an adjacent Diamond Jubilee column embossed with a relief of the monarch and topped by a statue of Britannia. Unite, the union, trains representatives at its Esher Place centre, and the town has the offices of Elmbridge Borough Council in its high street.