Founded 1968 as Mayford History Society
Registered Charity number 801665
Some Highlights in Woking's Past
| Stone Age | Implements found at Goldsworth Park | |
|
Bronze Age |
Burial mounds on Horsell Common | |
| Roman | Coins and pottery found on Horsell Common and in Old Woking | |
| Saxon | Monastery in Old Woking, probably on the site of St Peter’s Church | |
| Norman | Woking was listed in the Domesday Book,1086 | |
| Mediæval | Churches built in Horsell, Old Woking, Pyrford and Byfleet | |
| 1272 | A royal residence by the Wey. In 1490 Henry VII signed the Treaty of Woking here. It was the home of his mother, Margaret Beaufort | |
| 1651 | The Wey Navigation was opened for water traffic from the Thames to Guildford | |
| 1790 | Goldsworth Nursery, one of many commercial nursery gardens, opened in the area | |
| 1794 | Basingstoke Canal completed, linking the Wey Navigation to Basingstoke | |
| 1838 | The railway came with the opening of Woking Common station on the London and Southampton Railway | |
| 1854 | Brookwood Cemetery, the largest in Europe, with its own railway branch line, opened by the London Necropolis Company | |
| 1885 | The first legal cremation in modern Britain took place at Woking Crematorium | |
| 1889 | Shah Jehan Mosque, the first in Britain | |
| Late 19th and early 20th century | Residents included H G Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Dame Ethel Smyth | |
| 1850 to 2000 | Woking grew to a bustling commercial centre with 100,000 residents from many varied backgrounds, while large areas of open common land remained, the legacy of medieval society. Woking's social and economic tranformation in the last century and a half tells a complex and dramatic story | |