Hinchley Wood  Hinchley Wood is a largely residential suburban village approximately 12.3 to 13.4 miles south-west of Charing Cross in central London, and within the Greater London Urban Area. It developed largely around its railway station at its heart on the New Guildford Line — and many of its homes house at least one commuter to Central London. The village has one main parade of convenience shops, local services and a petrol station; throughout the area is a light smattering of small businesses. A double-width section of the A309 bisects the village which acts as a local spur road to a semi-urban section of the motorway-standard A3 road. The village's main retail area is directly north of a traffic light intersection adjoined by a large set of the village's retirement flats. The village has no high-rise buildings and gained its first place of worship in 1953 (meaning the place meets the conventional criterion for villages in England). Hinchley Wood, also considered a suburb, has the London dialling code 020. The only old listed building is the 16th century Old Farm House in the town. Its listing states '... C16 with C18 addition to front left, C19 addition to right. Timber framed core, stuccoed over with plain tiled roofs. Large brick stack to rear and ends. 2 storeys with 2 tripartite wood casements to centre of first floor...' and is now on an ordinary street. Initially the farmland on which Hinchley Wood was to be built was part of Thames Ditton. In 1925 Esher Council considered a petition from the small number of residents of Manor Road, in which ribbon development from Thames Ditton was taking place, for the provision of a new station between Surbiton and Claygate on the railway that had opened in 1885. The Southern Railway was not interested in a new station; the low population would create negligible new custom; the opening of the Kingston Bypass changed the commercial viability of new station. Immediately the speculative possibilities created by the bypass were considered. Furthermore, even as it was being built a sewer was laid under it, at Manor Road, to facilitate development. The opening of Hinchley Wood railway station brought about the rapid emergence of Hinchley Wood as a coherent, identifiable settlement, with a housing stock so plainly superior to that typical of the 1930s. At its annual general meeting in 1927, the chairman called attention to "great increment in the value of the land, which goes into the pockets of vigilant people at our expense".