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High Street, FELTHAM, TW13 4BZ

Serviced by South Western Railway.

The plaque in the photo is under a bridge at Feltham station. Railway lines were built and measured in miles and chains. This plaque indicates that Feltham station is 14 miles and 68 chains (by rail) from the London terminus of the line at Waterloo. A chain is 22 yards, the length of a cricket pitch http://www.espncricinfo.com/wisden . Henry I (1100-1135) decreed the lawful yard to be the distance between the tip of his nose and the end of his thumb. This was within a tenth of an inch of the modern yard. There are 12 inches in a foot; and 3 feet, or 36 inches, in a yard. The chain is named after the Gunter's, or surveyor's, chain, invented by the Rev. Edmund Gunter (1581-1626), a professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London. 5½ yards = 1 rod, pole or perch (not as in dead parrot) 4 poles = 1 chain Medieval ploughing was done with oxen, up to 4 pairs at a time. The ploughman handled the plough and his boy controlled the oxen using a stick, which had to be long enough to reach all the oxen. This was the rod, pole or perch. 10 chains = 1 furlong (= 220 yards or 40 poles) 8 furlongs = 1 mile (= 1760 yards or 80 chains) A furlong is a "furrow long" or length of a mediaeval field. It is still used for the lengths of some horse races https://www.thejockeyclub.co.uk/ . 1 chain x 1 furlong = 1 acre (= 4,840 square yards) 10 square chains = 1 acre 640 acres = 1 square mile Just to the north of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, set into the marble wall, is a set of "Imperial Standards of Length, placed on this site by the Standards Department of the Board of Trade MDCCCLXXVI [1876] - Standards of Length at 62 degrees F" - see http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/units/oldunits/documents.htm#trafalgar and 4 photos http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=102740698 .

Opened in 1848 by the Windsor, Staines & South Western Railway on the line from London Waterloo to Staines and Reading. The original building (left) is slightly more appealing than the red appendage.