Esher appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Aissela and Aissele, where it is held partly by the Abbey of the Cross in Normandy; partly by William de Waterville; partly by Reginald; partly by Hugh do Port; and partly by Odard Balistarius. Its domesday assets were: 14 hides, 6 ploughs and 2 acres of meadow. It rendered £6 2s 0d per year to its feudal overlords.
In the 16th century King Henry VIII annexed several of the manors to the Honour of Hampton Court to form a royal hunting ground, and new residences were permitted by a number of wealthy courtesans. Esher’s town slowly grew as a stagecoach stop on the London–Portsmouth road that was later numbered the A3, although it was bypassed in the mid-1970s when it became the A307. Clive of India built the Claremont mansion and this later became a royal residence used by Queen Victoria. In 1841 Esher had 1261 inhabitants across 2,075 acres. Queen Victoria lent Claremont to the exiled French King Louis-Philippe and his consort Queen Marie-Amelie after the revolution of 1848. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg lived there until he became King of the Belgians
By 1908, Esher contained the fashionable residences of several important figures including Lady Emma Talbot; Sir Robert Hawthorn Collins, the Duchess of Albany and Sir Edgar Vincent, K.C.M.G. who was later created 1st Viscount D’Abernon.
George Harrison of the Beatles had a house (called Kinfauns) in Esher, during the 1960s. The other Beatles were regular visitors to the house, and Harrison’s primitive home recording studio.
When the railway arrived here in 1838 immediately a minor request stop opened on a station built here and named Ditton Marsh as the wetter part of Ditton Common. The common marks the boundary separating what was then the west of Thames Ditton, from Esher. The station was opened on 21 May 1838, and the name was soon changed to Esher and Hampton Court about 1840. It has since been renamed twice more: to Esher and Claremont in July 1844, and to Esher on 1 June 1913.