Nowadays the London Tram link goes between Wimbledon and Beckenham, via Croydon.

However over a 100 years ago trams were popping up everywhere - including in Teddington.

So long before the new tram link was launched at the turn of the 20th and 21st Century lets head back to the turn of the 19th and 20th Century.

In July 1899 Middlesex County Council agreed to the proposal by the London United Tramway Company (LUT) to lay down a network of tracks in South West Middlesex, in particular one from Isleworth to Hampton Court via Twickenham and Hampton.

There had been no horse tramways in the immediate area, and people who could not afford to travel by train would generally have to walk.

Sir Clifton Robinson, General Manager of LUT, was a supporter of cheap and reliable public transport. Lines reached Twickenham and Fulwell in 1902 and Hampton Court in April 1903.

This caused a lot of disruption. The work in the Hampton, Twickenham and Teddington districts amounted to £202,000 or about £16,000 a mile, a huge sum in those days.

The walls around Bushy Park even had to be moved due to the tracks.

A number of bridges also had to be rebuilt and widened. In 1906 lines opened across Kingston bridge connecting the Surrey and Middlesex routes.

A large new tram shed was necessary to house all the trams. In 1901 a lease was obtained on the southern part of the Freake Estate by South Road in Teddington and a building erected on the Fulwell land.

The depot included 18 tracks of which 15 were available for through running from either end of the building. The other three tracks were used for the repair shop.

Today this area is now Fulwell bus garage.

During the First World War women were called upon to work in previously unavailable jobs, including on the trams, and in August 1918 there was a five day strike due to the claim of women workers for equal pay for equal work.

The trams provided frequent, cheap and reliable transport locally, carrying large numbers of visitors to Hampton Court and other riverside attractions.

However, they lasted barely thirty years and were replaced by trolleybuses from 1931.