Early history bell barrow on
Horsell Common The earliest evidence of human activity in the Woking area is from the
Palaeolithic. Flints dated to
years before present (BP) have been found at Horsell, and knife blades from BP have been discovered at Pyrford. Two
bell barrows and a
disc barrow at Horsell are thought to date from the early
Bronze Age.
Pollen samples taken from the westernmost barrow suggest that the local environment at the time of construction was predominantly open heathland with some areas of
deciduous woodland. Aerial photographs suggest that there may have been
field systems on Horsell Common, Smarts Heath and Whitmoor Common in the same period, although the local soils are relatively infertile and could not have sustained the farming practices of the time for very long.
Roman occupation in the borough appears to have been concentrated in the Old Woking and Mayford areas. The sites excavated to date show evidence of low-status dwellings, possibly connected to iron working and pottery making. Roman tiles can be found in the lower part of the tower of St Peter's Church. from The earliest documented reference to Woking suggests that there was a religious foundation in the area in the early 8th century. By 775, there was a
minster in Woking, which may be the forerunner of St Peter's Church and by the mid-late 9th century, the settlement was the centre of a
royal vill. Towards the end of the Saxon period, Surrey was divided into
hundreds, of which
Woking Hundred was one.
Governance Woking appears in Domesday book as
Wochinges. In 1086, it was partly held by
William I and partly by two lesser tenants of the
Bishop of Exeter. Together the two holdings had sufficient land for ploughteams, of meadow and woodland for 160
swine. Between them, the manors had two mills and one church, and the settlement was among the largest 20% of those recorded in the country in 1086. Three other manors in the modern borough are listed in Domesday Book: Byfleet and Pyrford were held by the abbeys of
Chertsey and
Westminster respectively; Sutton was held by Durand Malet as lesser tenant and by
Robert Malet as
tenant-in-chief. Woking was held by the Crown until 1189, when
Richard I granted it to
Alan Basset, who later received the manor of Sutton from
King John. Woking was inherited by his descendants until it passed, through marriage, to
Hugh le Despenser. It remained in the Despenser family until 1326 when it was granted to
Edmund Holland, the fourth Earl of Kent. On her death in 1509, Woking was inherited by her grandson, the future
Henry VIII.
James I sold the manor to
Edward Zouch, but it reverted to the Crown in 1671. In 1752, it was bought by
Richard Onslow, the third Baron Onslow and remained in his family's possession until the mid-19th century. Byfleet became a royal property at the start of the 14th century.
Edward II granted it to
Piers Gaveston, but following Gaveston's downfall in 1312, it reverted to the Crown. The
current manor house dates from 1686, but it was restored and extended in 1905. Pyrford was held by Westminster Abbey until the
dissolution of the monasteries when it became the property of the Crown.
Elizabeth I granted the manor to
Edward Clinton, the first Earl of Lincoln in 1574 and it was sold repeatedly until the mid-17th century. In 1677,
Richard Onslow, the first Baron Onslow purchased Pyrford, and it was owned by his family until 1805. By this time, the modern Borough of Woking was divided between four parishes: Woking, Byfleet,
Horsell and Pyrford. The vestries appointed constables, distributed funds to the poor and took charge of the repair of local roads. From the 17th century, the roles of
Justices of the Peace were expanded to take greater responsibility for law and order in the area. Following the
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, the parish of Woking was included in the
Guildford Poor Law Union, whilst the parishes of Byfleet, Horsell, and Pyrford were included in the
Chertsey Poor Law Union. These unions then formed the basis for the
rural sanitary districts established in 1872, which gradually took on more local government responsibilities.
Surrey County Council was established in 1889 under the
Local Government Act 1888 to operate as a higher-tier authority alongside the sanitary districts. In 1893 a separate
local board was established for the parish of Woking, making it its own urban sanitary district, independent from the Guildford Rural Sanitary District. After elections, the first meeting of the Woking Local Board was held on 4 October 1893. Under the
Local Government Act 1894, the Woking Local Board became an
urban district council (UDC). Byfleet, Horsell and Pyrford became part of the Chertsey Rural District, although the parish of Horsell was transferred into the Woking Urban District in 1907, It was not until 1933, when the Chertsey Rural District was abolished, that both Byfleet and Pyrford joined the Woking Urban District. The parishes within the borough were abolished at the same time, making it an
unparished area. A
civil parish council for Byfleet was created in 1990, As of 2022, there are no parish councils in the borough.
Transport and communications The unimproved River Wey is thought to have been used for the transport of goods and passengers from ancient times. In the early Tudor period, there was a wharf at Woking Palace and in 1566 there is a reference to a "certaein locke... between Woodham lands and Brook lande upon the water of the Weye". The
River Wey Navigation was first authorised by an act of the Commonwealth Parliament in 1651. Twelve
locks (including two flood locks), and of new
cuts were constructed between the Thames and
Guildford, of which three are in the borough. The opening of the new navigation had a modest effect on the local area, and, by the 18th century, flour produced by watermills at Woking was being shipped to London from a new wharf at Cartbridge near
Send. The
Basingstoke Canal was authorised by the
Basingstoke Canal Act 1778 (
18 Geo. 3. c. 75) and was intended to provide a route for the transport of farm produce and timber from Hampshire to London. The section between the Wey Navigation and Horsell opened in 1791 and the canal was finally completed in 1794. Although the route was too far from Old Woking for it to have an effect on its development, a wharf was provided at Horsell for the use of local farmers. In the first half of the 19th century, bricks were manufactured in the area now occupied by Goldsworth Road and were transported to London via a wharf adjacent to the Rowbarge pub. The canal declined sharply after the opening of the
London and Southampton Railway in the late 1830s and traffic west of Woking had ceased by 1921. The final commercial delivery, a consignment of timber to Woking, was made via the canal in 1947. By the mid-1960s, the canal was derelict, but between 1970 and 1976 it was purchased by Surrey and Hampshire county councils. Restoration of the canal was completed in 1991 and the canal is now open for navigation from the Wey to the eastern portal of
Greywell Tunnel. steam locomotive hauls an express passenger train through in 1961. The construction of the
London and Southampton Railway began in October 1834 and the first train ran between and on 12 May 1838. When it opened, Woking station was surrounded by open heath Nevertheless, it quickly became the
railhead for west Surrey and the main entrance was positioned on the south side of the tracks for the convenience of those travelling by stagecoach from Guildford. (opened in March 1883) and (opened in December 1887 as Byfleet). The track through Woking station was quadrupled in 1904 and
electrified in 1937. The
London Necropolis Company was established by the
London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Act 1852 (
15 & 16 Vict. c. cxlix) to create
Brookwood Cemetery. New burials had been banned in central London graveyards in 1850, and the company was able to purchase of common land in the Woking area in 1854. The cemetery was consecrated by the
Bishop of Winchester in November 1854. Coffins were transported to by train and the cemetery was served by
a short single-track branch line with two stations. The company ran funeral trains to Brookwood at least twice a week until April 1941, when
the London terminus was bombed.
Residential development , St John's Construction of
St John's, the only significant area where housebuilding was directly stimulated by the opening of the Basingstoke Canal, began in the first decades of the 19th century. In the 1790s, there had been a few scattered smallholdings and squatters' cottages to the south of Knaphill, but the opening of a wharf to serve the
nurseries and new brickworks attracted new workers, requiring more extensive accommodation. By the late 1830s, the new village, initially known as Kiln Bridge, was large enough to support the construction of a chapel dedicated to
St John the Baptist. The chapel was
replaced by a larger church, designed by
George Gilbert Scott and consecrated in 1842, and the surrounding area acquired the name "St John's" at around the same time. Further expansion in the area continued with the opening of the
Woking Convict Invalid Prison and
Brookwood Hospital in the mid-19th century. The High Street had been laid out by 1863, and a post office opened there in 1865. By 1869, the first houses had appeared on Ellen Street (now West Street), Providence Street (now Church Street) and Commercial Road. By the 1890s, most of the land to the north of the railway line had been sold, but the London Necropolis Company had been unable to find a buyer for Hook Heath, to the south. The company decided to develop the area itself and divided it into plots for large, detached houses. A golf course was built on part of the heath to attract residents and visitors. The first
council housing in Woking was constructed following the end of the
First World War, and by the summer of 1921, around 100 families had moved into new properties in Old Woking, Horsell, Knaphill and Westfield. In the same year, Chertsey Rural District Council developed their own schemes in Byfleet and Pyrford, and, in the two decades to 1939, Woking UDC constructed a total of 785 houses. Following the end of the
Second World War, the borough council began to build estates at Maybury, Barnsbury and St Mary's Byfleet. In the 1944
Greater London Plan, Pyrford and Byfleet were identified as areas for
overspill development and homes for 3,250 former London residents were expected to be built in the borough. In 1947,
London County Council purchased at
Sheerwater and by 1951 had constructed 1,279 houses and flats for new tenants. In 1965, much of the remaining open space in the borough was placed into the
Metropolitan Green Belt, restricting the potential for future development of
greenfield land. Redevelopment has resulted in the demolition of the majority of the Victorian buildings in the town centre. Since 2012, the policy of the borough council has been to permit high-density residential development in this area, exemplified by two residential towers completed in Spring 2022 as part of the Victoria Square project.
Commerce and industry Until the mid-19th century, the local economy was dominated by agriculture, although large areas of the modern borough were covered by infertile waste land.
Acts of Inclosure were passed for Byfleet (1800), Sutton (1803) and Pyrford (1905) – the
Byfleet and Weybridge Inclosure Act 1800 (
39 & 40 Geo. 3. c. lxxxvii), ''''
(43 Geo. 3. c. 103
) and Pyrford Inclosure Act 1805 (45 Geo. 3. c. 49'' ), respectively – allowing landowners to rededicate land for pasture and growing crops. Inclosure was not completed at Woking until the London Necropolis Company purchased the common land in 1854. The opening of the Basingstoke Canal in 1794 enabled new industries to be established in the west of the borough. Brickmaking had been taking place on a small scale at Knaphill since at least 1709, but the works expanded following the opening of a wharf at Kiln Bridge. Although the local soils were unsuitable for large-scale agriculture,
nurseries were established on the Bracklesham Beds in the 1790s, to satisfy the increasing demand for ornamental garden plants from the growing middle class in London. In 1926, the site of the Lion Works was purchased by James Walker, whose company specialised in the production of packaging materials. By 1939, the factory was the largest employer in Woking Manufacturing ceased in Woking in 1993, but the company headquarters is still based in the town. The factory site was redeveloped into the Lion Retail Park. and during the Second World War, the company made self-sealing aircraft fuel tanks for the
Royal Air Force. The first known brewery in the area was founded in Old Woking in 1715 and continued to trade until 1890. Brewery Road in Horsell is named for the business owned by the Stedman family, which operated from the 1860s until the 1910s. Byfleet Brewery, the largest in the modern borough, was active for much of the second half of the 19th century, but production was moved to Guildford after the company was taken over by
Friary Ales in the 1890s. The multinational brewing and beverage company,
SABMiller, was based in Woking from 1999 until it was bought by
Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV in 2016. As part of the takeover deal, several former SABMiller brands, including
Peroni and
Grolsch, were purchased by the Japanese firm,
Asahi Breweries. As of 2022, the UK headquarters of Asahi Breweries is in Woking. The
McLaren Group was founded in 1981 by
Ron Dennis following his acquisition of the
McLaren Formula One team. The
McLaren Technology Centre, designed by
Foster + Partners as the headquarters of the group, was formally opened by
Elizabeth II in 2004. The site, to the north of the town centre, includes the McLaren Production Centre, the primary manufacturing facility for
McLaren Automotive. In 2013, McLaren was the largest employer in the borough.
Woking in the Second World War carrying
Tommy guns during a training exercise at Woking in July 1940 During the Second World War, the defence of Woking and the surrounding area was coordinated by the 11th Battalion of the South Eastern
Home Guard. Training was carried out at Mizens Farm, Horsell, and included a mock battle with Canadian, Polish and Free French troops in 1941. Dedicated Home Guard units were responsible for guarding the Woking Electric Supply Company power station, the GQ parachute factory and the Sorbo Rubber Works. Woking railway station was defended by troops operating light anti-aircraft artillery. Air raid shelters were opened on Commercial Road and at Wheatsheaf Recreation Ground in 1939, followed in 1941 by further shelters, including at Victoria Gardens. The presence of a major railway junction as well as several Vickers factories making aircraft parts, made Woking an obvious target for enemy bombing. The most severe attack took place in January 1941, in which seven people were killed. By the end of 1944, the borough had experienced 58 air raids, during which around 25 houses had been destroyed and almost 2300 damaged. Ultimately, 18 civilian deaths due to enemy action were recorded in Woking Urban District. ==National and local government==