Sunbury is a
post town that is in part north and south of the
M3, varying from 14m to 9m
AOD, with a term for each part.
Lower Sunbury Lower Sunbury, , locally known as 'Sunbury village', bordering the Thames and the M3, is just over half of the town forming an almost entirely
green-buffered residential suburb which contains eight schools, including three of the six secondary schools in the Borough (or of the eight, if independent schools too are counted). Opposed to London, partially in Shepperton are parts of the
Metropolitan Green Belt including four farms, a golf course, riverside horseriding centre at Beasley's Ait, the Swan Sanctuary, a rugby training centre and
Upper Halliford's park. Lower Sunbury has one of the larger NHS medical general practitioner (GP) centres in the Borough. Football fields, playgrounds and tennis courts are in both halves of the town;
London Irish rugby club is the main organised team in the village. Sunbury Park has dog-walking, cycle paths, parking and is in a cluster with five others including a tree-lined linear park, a modest, sloped riverside park and an adjoining café-served park. The town has since 1932 been the home to London Irish, whose Premiership team since 2001 has played at the
Madejski Stadium in
Reading, Berkshire. Many hundreds of players train at Sunbury during the rugby season. Its eastern border is
Kempton Park Racecourse which has on the far side of the town the main area of historic woodland and wildlife preservation, the Kempton Park Reservoirs SSSI, which blends into the park's own ponds, woods, Portman Brook and additional channels in the
Green Belt. The neighbourhood has a
tapestry known as the Millennium Embroidery, which was conceived and designed in the 1990s and completed in 2000. Since July 2006 its permanent home has been the purpose-built Sunbury Millennium Embroidery Gallery, in a well-tended, free-to-visit Walled Garden adjoining Sunbury Park. The opening of a café within the gallery building, which architecturally resembles a boat, has increased the leisure time spent in the predominantly Georgian and early Victorian
conservation area, the majority of which runs along Thames Street, a small section of which King's Lawn is a terraced public riverside. Fishing is permitted here for those with two
Environment Agency licences. The Walled Garden hosts annual concerts, flower displays, events related to its facing Millennium Embroidery Café and occasionally plays in summer. Three public pools attract swimmers: Nuffield Health; You Fit (next to the Shepperton border); and Everyone Active's Sunbury Leisure Centre. In July of each year, Lower Sunbury is the commencement point of the colourful traditional ceremony of
Swan Upping, where two livery companies carry out marking of the swans on all upper reaches of the
River Thames. In August, the traditional
Sunbury Amateur Regatta takes place on the stretch of the river around
Rivermead Island. Lower Sunbury has similar property plot sizes to
Shepperton and house prices as
Hampton. Most property is 1930s–1960s semi-detached or detached houses with gardens on verge or tree-lined roads. The railway here benefits from seating at peak times but gives lower speed of access to the
City of London relative to the
South West Main Line developments of
Elmbridge. Wide roads and parking provide strengths of the borough. The largest plots of garden measure only around an acre not covering any of the grassy plain, western outlying farms or boundary-lining trees in the far east and west. Lower Sunbury has numerous pubs, independent restaurants. A dog-free meadow permitting informal cricket and football is near the main parade of shops at which annual carols are held and at the regatta time in August a celebratory street market takes place.
Sunbury Common 's Diamond Jubilee. The northern section is
Sunbury Common, patches of which remain, commanded by its four tower blocks and two hotels, overall with a mixed-use urban composition; it also houses major employers, including offices of Siemens, European Asbestos Solutions, Chubb and BP. The M3, with its inaugural junction at Sunbury Cross, sections off Lower Sunbury. Sunbury Common has a long, curved shopping parade that includes
Marks & Spencer,
Halfords, Farmfoods supermarket,
Costa and
Boots as well as beauty and nail salons. Also in this area, set off the main road, is a
Tesco Extra. North and east of the area is part of the green belt: a small farm and larger natural brookland habitat. Most of this area is in the adjoining
London Borough of Hounslow, and was before the early 19th century part of distant Hanworth Park, historically part of
Hounslow Heath. Its wild flower meadows, brooks and human-made troughs with wetland plants and insects form the Kempton Park Reservoirs
SSSI. The operational Kempton Reservoirs and roads passing into
Hampton form the rest of the town's eastern border, a buffer further south. offices have since been converted to flats. Sunbury here has five or six high-rise
tower blocks: three residential (including the newly converted Chubb building) and two hotels. Similarly, it has industrial/business parks clustered generally in the acute angles between the
M3/A316 (Country Way) and the A308 (Staines Road West).
BP's
Engineering and Research Centre in the north replaced Meadhurst House and gardens occupied by the
Cadbury family and has evolved into BP's international centre for business and technology across a number of landscaped units. A number of other major companies have premises. Marking the western border of the
Upper Halliford/
Charlton parts of Sunbury
ecclesiastical and historic parish – though no longer by the town – is the
Queen Mary Reservoir, which was constructed from 1914 to 1925 and is home to a sailing club regularly used by schools and youth organisations to teach water sports. ==Landmarks==