Template:Wp-Woking-History

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Early history

The earliest evidence of human activity in the Woking area is from the Paleolithic. 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.

The earliest documented reference to Woking suggests that there was a religious foundation in the area in the early-8th century.^[1] Around this time, the settlement was the administrative centre for northwest Surrey, with its western border as the watershed between the Rivers Mole and Wey and its southern border as the North Downs. 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 1200, when King John granted it to Alan Basset. It 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.^[2] In the mid-15th century, the manor was inherited by Margaret Beauchamp. It was briefly held by the Crown before it was passed to her daughter, Margaret Beaufort, in 1466. 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.^[2]

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.^[3] Anne of Denmark, wife of King James I was the manor's last royal owner and thereafter it was held by a series of private individuals. 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.^[3]

Reforms during the Tudor period reduced the importance of manorial courts and the day-to-day administration of towns became the responsibility of local vestries. 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.

The modern system of local government began to emerge in the second half of the 19th century. The south of the borough, including the manors of Woking and Sutton, was administered by the local boards in Guildford, whereas areas to the north and east, including Byfleet, Horsell and Pyrford, were managed by the Chertsey local board. Under the Local Government Act 1888, several responsibilities were transferred to the newly formed Surrey County Council, but it was not until June 1892, that an urban sanitary district was created specifically for Woking. The Woking local board was formed in October 1893 and was succeeded in January 1895 by the Woking Urban District Council (UDC). At the same time, Byfleet, Horsell and Pyrford became part of the Chertsey Rural District, although Horsell was moved into the Woking UDC area in 1907.

The Chertsey Rural District was abolished in 1933 and both Byfleet and Pyrford were transferred to the Woking UDC area.^[4] The council was granted a coat of arms in 1930 and three years later it applied to the Privy Council for borough status, but without success.^[5] A similar request made in 1955 was also declined. It was not until the 1974 reorganisation of local government, that Woking finally became a borough.

A civil parish council for Byfleet was created in 1990,^[6] but was abolished in April 2010. 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 since 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 authorised by Act of Parliament in 1651. Twelve locks (including two flood locks), and of new cuts were constructed between the Thames and Guildford. 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 Act of Parliament in 1778 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 Goldworth 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.

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^[7] and was from what is now the village of Old Woking. Nevertheless, it quickly became the 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.^[7] The station became a junction in May 1845 when the branch to Guildford was opened.^[8] Three other railway stations were built in the present borough: (opened in June 1864), (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 Act of Parliament in 1852 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

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 th 1790s, there were 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 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.^[9]

Modern Woking began to develop between the mid-1860s and late-1880s, as the London Necropolis Company sold excess land that had not been used for Brookwood Cemetery. A post office opened on the High Street in 1865 and, by 1869, the first houses had appeared in 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 develop 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.^[10] Nevertheless, housebuilding continued in the 1970s, including the Lakeview development and the construction of 440 homes on the former Inkerman Barracks site.^[11]

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.^[12] Elsewhere in the borough, the conversion of former industrial land to residential use is encouraged in preference to building on greenfield sites.^[13] Recent examples include the redevelopment of the former Unwins' Print Works at Old Woking into the Gresham Mill apartment complex.

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, Sutton and Pyrford in 1800, 1803 and 1805 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.^[14][15] No Act was passed for Horsell and the large area of common land to the north of Woking remains free of development as a result.^[15]

The Martinsyde aircraft company operated a major aircraft factory in the town during World War I and used nearby Brooklands Aerodrome for test flying and deliveries, but it was closed in the mid-1920s. This site was then the home of the engineering firm James Walker & Company for many years. Known as 'The Lion Works', this area was finally redeveloped in the 1990s into today's Lion Retail Park.

Woking in the Second World War

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.^[16] The final bomb attack on Woking, a V-2 rocket, fell on Woking on 2 March 1945.

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.^[17] Woking railway station was defended by troops operating light anti-aircraft artillery.