WOKING HUNDRED 



WOKING 



marriages from 1669 to 1752, baptisms from 1670 to 

 1798, and burials from 1699 to 1798. The second 

 book contains marriages from 1754 to 1812. The 

 baptisms and burials from 1798 to 1812 are missing. 

 There is also a book of churchwardens' accounts 

 from 1669, and in another book are the affidavits for 

 persons buried in woollen from 1680 to 1697. 



There was a church at Wisley at 



JDrOWSON the time of Domesday." The advow- 



son followed the descent of the manor 



(though the Black Prince presented in 1345 and in 



1370) until the beginning of the igth century, when 



the manor was transferred to Lord King. The 

 Onslow family then retained the advowson and still 

 hold it. The living is now held with Pyrford. 



Smith's Charity is distributed as in 

 CHARITIES other Surrey parishes. 



The parish books record the request, 

 2 May 1837, to the Poor Law Commissioners for 

 leave to sell a double tenement which had belonged 

 to the parish from time immemorial, and a single 

 tenement erected on land inclosed from the waste 

 about thirty years before, for the advantage of the 

 parish. The present advantage resulting is unknown. 



WOKING 



Wocingas (viii cent.) ; Wochinges (xi cent.) ; 

 Wokynge, Wockynge, Wochynghe, &c. (xiii and xiv 

 cent.). 



Woking is a large parish giving its name to the hun- 

 dred, 6 miles north from Guildford. It contains 8,802 

 acres, and is in extreme dimensions 6 miles from east 

 to west and 4 miles from north to south. It is 

 bounded on the north by Bisley and Horsell, on the 

 east by Pyrford and Send and Ripley, on the south 

 by Worplesdon, on the west by Pirbright. There is 

 still a little open land about Woking Heath, but it is 

 being covered rapidly with houses. Farther west 

 there is more open land towards Pirbright Common 

 and Brookwood. The soil is mainly Bagshot Sand, 

 with alluvium in the Wey Valley. The river and 

 the artificial navigation run through the parish. The 

 Basingstoke Canal also runs through it. It is traversed 

 by the main line of the South Western Railway, made 

 in 1838, and carried by a branch to Guildford from 

 a station at Woking Junction in 1845. Worplesdon 

 Station on this line to Guildford, and Brookwood 

 Station on the main line, are also in Woking Parish. 

 The road also from Guildford to Chertsey passes 

 through it. 



Woking is ruled by an Urban District Council 

 under the Local Government Act of 1894. In 1901 

 part of Horsell was added to the Woking district. 1 

 There are eighteen members chosen from five wards. 



The parish is agricultural, where not occupied by 

 new houses on the former waste. A certain number 

 of small businesses have grown up in the new town. 

 In Old Woking Village is an extensive printing estab- 

 lishment of Messrs. Unwin, the Gresham Press. 

 Old Woking Mill is a paper mill. Woking Broad Mead 

 is the old common pasture of 150 acres along the 

 river, also called Send Mead. It is on the border of 

 the parishes, and Woking and Send have rights in it. 

 The old practice was, after the hay was cut, to 

 close it till 1 8 September, then to throw it open to 

 pasture for the occupiers till March, when it was 

 closed again for the grass to grow. The waste in 

 Sutton in Woking was inclosed in 1803.' The In- 

 closure Awards of 29 September 1815, Pyrford 

 and Woodham, and that of Sutton in Woking, 1803, 

 affected waste in the parish of Woking. 



The parish was divided into nine tithings : Town 

 Street, the old village ; Heathside, the rising ground 

 north of it towards the railway; GoldsworthorGoldings, 

 to the west of Woking Junction ; Kingfield, north-west 

 of Woking ; Sackleford, at the west end of Woking 

 Street ; Mayfield, south-west ; Hale End, near Gold- 



ings ; Crastock, in the part of the parish near Brook- 

 wood ; and Sutton, on the Wey. 



The character of the parish has been entirely 

 transformed in about sixty years by the railway. 

 Woking village lies on the river (on the old river, , 

 not on the navigation), and is out of the way, on no 

 frequented road. It was a market town, but obscure ' 

 even when Aubrey wrote, and is probably quite 

 unknown to many people who pass through or stay 

 in the modern Woking near the railway. In 

 addition to the market house of 1665, which still 

 stands in Woking village street, there are other pic- 

 turesque old houses, notably a considerable brick 

 gabled house of the 1 7th century, near the west end. 

 On the hill above Hoe Bridge Place stood a brick 

 beacon tower, said to have been built by Sir Edward 

 Zouch to burn a light for directing messengers for 

 James I, when staying with him, across the trackless 

 wastes from Oatlands. It was more probably a beacon 

 tower for the public service. It was ruinous and 

 inaccessible for many years in the igth century, and 

 was finally taken down in 1858. 



Whitmoor House is the property of Mr. Philip 

 Witham, owner of a considerable estate in Woking. 

 Sutton Park Cottage is the seat of Sir Joseph Leese, 

 K.C., M.P. ; Little Frankley, Hook Heath, of the 

 Rt. Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, K.C., M.P. ; Uplands, 

 Maybury, of Sir A.T. Arundel, K.C.S.I.; Hook Hill, 

 Hook Heath, belongs to His Grace the Duke of 

 Sutherland ; and Fishers Hill is a modern house built 

 by the Right Hon. G.W. Balfour for his own occupation. 



St. Edward's Roman Catholic Church in Sutton 

 Park was built by Captain Salvin in 1876. There 

 is an iron Roman Catholic chapel, St. Dunstan's, in 

 Woking Town. There is a Baptist chapel built 

 in 1879. Mount Hermon Congregational Church 

 was built in 1903. There are also two chapels of 

 the Wesleyans at Woking and Knapp Hill, three of 

 the Primitive Methodists at Brookwood, Maybury, 

 and Woking, and a meeting-place of the Plymouth 

 Brethren. The Mosque at Maybury was built in 

 1889. The extensive buildings here were opened as 

 the Dramatic College for the training of actors in 

 1865 ; but failing to answer its purpose the place was 

 transformed by the exertions of Dr. G. W. Leitner, in 

 1886, into the Oriental Institute, for the accommoda- 

 tion of Indian subjects of the Crown visiting Eng- 

 land, with two separate departments for high-caste 

 Hindus and for Mohammedans respectively. The 

 Public Hall, Woking, was built by a company in 

 Commercial Road in 1896. 



88 V.C.H. Surr. i, 3284. 



1 By Local Govt. Bd. Order 41688. 

 381 



1 Tithe Commutation Returns, Bd. of Agric. 



