Petersham obtained its name as long ago as those dim Saxon times when the great mitred Abbey of Chertsey was founded and dedicated to St. Peter. In charters of those times the land here is noted as the property of that Abbey, and the place is called “Patriceham” and “Patricesham.” In the Cartulary of Merton Abbey, in 1266, it becomes “Petrichesham.” It thus would appear fairly conclusive that the name originated with the land becoming the property of St. Peter’s Abbey at Chertsey, and in no other way. But none of those who delve deeply into the origins of place-names is ever satisfied with things as they are; and it would now appear that an effort has been made to derive “Petersham” from a supposititious early Saxon landowner, a certain—or as we find no real documentary or other evidence of his existence here, it would be better to say an uncertain—“Beadric,” whose “ham” it is thus assumed to have been. This is a heroic attempt to argue from the old original name of the town we now call “Bury St. Edmunds,” which was in its beginning “Beadric’s-worth.” Although the Saxon name of “Beadric” was not uncommon, it is surely something of an effort to drag this East Anglian example out of Suffolk arbitrarily to fit a place in Surrey; even though, in the course of the same argument, in citing the well-known parallel derivation of “Battersea” from the land there having anciently been the property of the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster, it is found that in the original charter of A.D. 693 the place-name is spelled “Batricesege.” This becomes, in a charter of 1067, “Batriceseie” or “Patriceseia.” [Illustration: THE OLD LODGES OF PETERSHAM PARK.]