Woking, Surrey, England

Woking appears in written materials which, though created in the 12th century at Peterborough Abbey, formerly known as Medeshamstede, reliably describe earlier events. The earliest of these is the grant by Pope Constantine (708-715) of privileges to a monastery at Wochingas. Later in the 8th century a charter of King Offa of Mercia granted further privileges, freeing this church from numerous standard liabilities. This charter is paraphrased in a 12th century interpolation to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's entry for 777 AD, also written at Peterborough:

In the time of [King Offa of Mercia] there was an ealdorman called Brorda who petitioned the king for love of him to free a church of his called Woking, because he wished to give it to Medeshamstede and to St Peter and the abbot that then was, who was called Pusa. ... And the king freed the church of Woking from all obligations due to king and to bishop and to earl and to all men, so that no one should have any authority there, except St Peter and the abbot [of Medeshamstede]. This was ratified in the royal manor of Freoricburna.

Woking appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Wochinges. Its description there is complex, since it was then held as three estates, by King William the Conqueror, Walter FitzOther, constable of Windsor Castle, and Ansgot and Godfrey from Osbern FitzOsbern, then bishop of Exeter.[6]


Woking Palace
A building was first recorded on the site of Woking Palace in 1272. In 1466 Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII and grandmother of King Henry VIII, and her third husband, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, obtained by royal grant the former Beaufort manor of Woking. They lived in the manor house at least until Henry Stafford's death in 1471. The modern Beaufort School in Goldsworth Park is named after Lady Margaret. Henry VII took the manor from his mother and began the process of converting the manor house into a palace. His son Henry VIII continued this process when he succeeded his father in 1509, and the palace became a favorite residence of the king. In 1490 a treaty with Austria, known as the Treaty of Woking, was signed at the Palace by Henry VII.[citation needed]

By 1620 the ownership of Woking Palace had passed by King James I to Sir Edward Zouch who abandoned the palace and built himself a new manor house at Hoe Bridge Place. Thereafter the buildings fell into decay and the original park surrounding the palace was turned over to agriculture.


17th century Woking
In 1651 the Wey Navigation Canal was opened for traffic from Guildford to the River Thames passing through Woking. Over a century later, in 1791, the canal from the Wey Navigation Canal to Basingstoke opened as far as Horsell. Then in 1792 the Basingstoke Canal opened as far as Pirbright. Navigation on the Brookwood Canal stopped in 1947. In 1991, the Basingstoke Canal was formally reopened along its whole length following renovation by volunteers.

In 1661 James Zouch, grandson of Sir Edward Zouch, obtained the Market Charter for Woking. A few years later in 1669 James Zouch from Woking was Sheriff of Surrey (1669-1670). In 1760, James Turner bought from the Earl of Onslow, owner of Woking Manor, some land in the "Tithing of Goldings".


1800s
In 1849, Necropolis (cemetery) was first proposed for Woking Parish by the Board of Health. Whilst in 1879 St John's Woking Crematorium was built to be used for the first time in 1884 when the first cremation in the UK was performed.

The railways came to Woking in 1838 when the London and Southampton company (renamed London and South Western Railway in 1839) railway opened as far as Winchfield. Woking Common Station (Now Woking Station) opened.