The Town
The symbol of Leatherhead is a swan holding a sword in its beak. This can be seen on the old Leatherhead coat of arms, and on the Mole Valley coat of arms. The insignia of Leatherhead Football Club includes a swan, as do the logos of the Swan Shopping Centre, Therfield School and the leisure centre.
Bockett's Farm off Young Street has rare breeds and a petting zoo. It is open to the public almost all year round, and many local schools use the farm for teaching and day trips.
Leatherhead's Royal School for the Blind (now SeeAbility) was once the workplace for Paul Heaton; he was allegedly dismissed after he encouraged residents to try cycling. Most of the school has now been sold off as private flats.
In 2004, Leatherhead was officially twinned with Triel-sur-Seine, in the north-west of Paris, though informal exchanges have taken place since 1992. Exchanges and communication is promoted by a local group the 'Friends of Triel'.
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Famous quotes containing the word town:
“This was the most completely maritime town that we were ever in. It was merely a good harbor, surrounded by land, dry if not firm,—an inhabited beach, whereon fishermen cured and stored their fish, without any back country.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All of childhood’s unanswered questions must finally be passed back to the town and answered there. Heroes and bogey men, values and dislikes, are first encountered and labeled in that early environment. In later years they change faces, places and maybe races, tactics, intensities and goals, but beneath those penetrable masks they wear forever the stocking-capped faces of childhood.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)