Brookwood | |
---|---|
The Avenue leading from Brookwood Cemetery | |
Location within Surrey | |
Population | 2,565 (2011. Ward) [1] |
OS grid reference | SU952570 |
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Woking |
Postcode district | GU24 |
Dialling code | 01483 |
Police | Surrey |
Fire | Surrey |
Ambulance | South East Coast |
UK Parliament | |
Brookwood is a village in Surrey, England, about 3+1⁄2 miles (5.6 km) west of Woking, with a mixture of semi-rural, woodland-set and archetypal suburban residential homes. It lies on the western border of the Woking Borough, with a small part of the village in Guildford Borough. As part of the 2016 boundary review, Brookwood became part of the Heathlands ward which comprises Brookwood, Bridley, Hook Heath, Mayford, Sutton Green and Barnsbury and Wych Hill. [2]
The village is known for the 500-acre Brookwood Cemetery, also called the London Necropolis. The village also gave its name to the former Victorian Brookwood Hospital, once the leading mental institution in Surrey. Since its closure in 1994, it has been redeveloped as housing.
The village borders Knaphill, on the other side of the main A322 road, which is home to Brookwood Manor. The village also borders the Basingstoke Canal which has a flight of locks there. Pirbright Camp is a short distance to the west, with the decommissioned Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut slightly further away to the west. The village is surrounded mainly by heathland such as Sheet's Heath, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Smarts Heath and Brookwood Heath.
The main road is Connaught Road, a long road containing mixed Victorian terraces, a variety of 1930's semi-detached and larger detached houses. Branching off are smaller cul-de-sacs with more modern houses, some which back onto the canal itself. Along the road, there is a primary school which was established in 1906. [3]
Brookwood appears by name (as Brocwud and Brocwude) in the bounds of the Forest of Windsor as set down in 1225, [4] and is depicted within 'Brookewood Walke' on John Norden's 1607 map of the Forest. [5] It was mapped in detail for the first time in 1709, when it was recorded as covering 684 acres (excluding two large internal enclosures) bounded on all but the north-east side by Woking Common. [6] Timber from Brookwood was used for the repair of local bridges in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, [7] [8] [9] and by 1719 the wood appears to have been stripped of all trees. [10]
The village has grown over the 150 or so years since the vast cemetery and station first set roots in this area. Many of London's dead were buried in Brookwood Cemetery during the Victorian era due to the over-population of the city at that time. The logistics were accomplished using the London Necropolis Railway, consisting of funeral trains running from London Waterloo railway station to Brookwood and subsequently down a small branch line into the cemetery grounds. This branch-line is now disused. The main station and nearby Brookwood Club private members bar are at least 100 years old. [11]
The name, 'Brook wood', refers to the small streams which used to rise within it, and in particular to 'Coresbrook'. [12] The name is unlikely to derive from 'brocc' (meaning 'badger'), although the animal features on the village crest and on the school uniform.
Brookwood railway station is on the South West Main Line, with four trains per hour each way. The junction with the Alton Line is about 1+1⁄4 miles (2 km) further west. There is also a regular bus service to Guildford, Woking and Frimley.
Brookwood has a football team, Brookwood and District Football Club. Formed in 2007, B & D FC currently play in the Surrey and Hants Border League Division 3. Last season 2009/10 they were winners of the Prince Albert Cup, beating Abbey Rangers 5-4 in the match at Surrey Sports Park.
Brookwood is home to quite a number of youth organisations and clubs. Most of these meet at either the Memorial Hall, St Saviours Church or are based in the school.
Brookwood Scout Group meets in the Brookwood Memorial Hall every week during term time and offers both boys and girls between the ages of six and fourteen with the opportunity to take part in a wide range of activities and adventure. The group is a member of the Scout Association and covers the youngest three age bands that the Association caters for (Beavers, Cubs and Scouts).
Goldsworth Park Angling Club, established 2015, manages angling at Goldsworth Park Lake and Brookwood Ponds, under license with Woking Borough Council.
Surrey is a non-metropolitan county and also a ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the west. The largest settlement is Woking.
The London Necropolis Company (LNC), formally the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company until 1927, was a cemetery operator established by Act of Parliament in 1852 in reaction to the crisis caused by the closure of London's graveyards in 1851. The LNC intended to establish a single cemetery large enough to accommodate all of London's future burials in perpetuity. The company's founders recognised that the recently invented technology of the railway provided the ability to conduct burials far from populated areas, mitigating concerns over public health risks from living near burial sites. Accordingly, the company bought a large tract of land in Brookwood, Surrey, around 25 miles (40 km) from London, and converted a portion of it into Brookwood Cemetery. A dedicated railway line, the London Necropolis Railway, linked the new cemetery to the city.
Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Surrey Heath is a local government district with borough status in Surrey, England. Its council is based in Camberley. Much of the area is within the Metropolitan Green Belt.
Chobham is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England.
Bisley is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England, approximately 25 miles (40 km) southwest of central London. It is midway between Woking and Camberley. The village had a population of 3,965 in the 2011 Census.
Woking is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Will Forster, a Liberal Democrat. Since it was first created for the 1950 general election, it had only ever returned Conservative Party candidates until it elected a Liberal Democrat for the first time in 2024.
Lightwater is a village in the Surrey Heath district of Surrey, England, about 27 miles (43 km) southwest of central London. Immediately surrounding towns and villages include Bagshot, Deepcut, Windlesham, Camberley, and West End, Woking. It is bounded to the north-west by the M3 motorway and to the north-east by the "Lightwater Bypass" (A322). To the south-east it is bounded by the "Red Road" (B311), while to the south-west there are vehicle-testing tracks owned by the Ministry of Defence.
Goldsworth Park is a large housing estate to the north-west of Woking in Surrey, England. It was named after the nearby Goldsworth area which was a large 'tithing' of Woking Parish. The tithing included most of the north west of Woking, such as Brookwood, Knaphill and St. John's. It is bordered by villages such as St. John's, Knaphill and Horsell.
Woking means"(settlement belonging to the) followers of Wocc ". Over time, the name has been written variously as, for example, Wochingas, and Wokynge.
St. Andrew's Church is the parish church of Goldsworth Park, a district of Woking, Surrey, England. The church paid for and sponsors the secular local youth and community centre for Goldsworth Park, the A2 Youth and Community Centre or simply, the A2 Centre.
Normandy is a village and civil parish of 16.37 square kilometres in the borough of Guildford in Surrey, England. Almost surrounded by its hill ranges, Normandy is in the plain west of Guildford, straddles the A323 'Aldershot Road' and is north of the narrowest part the North Downs known as the Hog's Back which carries a dual carriageway. The parish in 2011 had a population of 2,981 living in 1,310 households, has woods, a public common and four government-operated commons to the north that are an SSSI heath. Normandy has been home to a number of notable residents, including William Cobbett.
West End is a village and civil parish in Surrey Heath, Surrey, England, approximately 25 miles (40 km) southwest of central London. It is midway between the towns of Camberley and Woking, 4 mi (6.4 km) to the west and east respectively. The River Bourne rises from its sources to the immediate west to run through the village. Until the mid 20th century, the West End consisted of a collection of smallholdings surrounded by a substantial area of common land
Knaphill is a village in Surrey, England, between Woking to the east and Farnborough to the west; to the south and north on the A322 – its western border – are Brookwood, and Bisley. Some of the village is on a hill, hence its name.
St Johns and Hook Heath is a suburban ward in Surrey consisting of two settlements founded in the 19th century in the medieval parish of Woking. The two 'villages' have residents' associations and are centred 2.5 km WSW and SW of Woking's town centre in the northwest of the English county – by including such suburbs, Woking is the largest town in the county. The ward in 2011 contained 1,888 homes across its 3.46 square kilometres (1.34 sq mi).
Sheerwater is a residential neighbourhood or small suburb of Woking, in the Woking district in Surrey, England, occasionally described as a village, between West Byfleet and Horsell. Its border is defined to the north by a gently winding part of the Basingstoke Canal and to the south by the South West Main Line which passes from cutting level to that of an embankment. The neighbourhood has a business park and light industry at its south-western end. The whole area is linear, includes diverse green spaces to north and south, and covers 92 hectares.
Woking is a town and borough in northwest Surrey, England, around 23 mi (36 km) from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as Wochinges, and its name probably derives from that of a Saxon landowner. The earliest evidence of human activity is from the Paleolithic, but the low fertility of the sandy local soils meant that the area was the least populated part of the county in 1086. Between the mid-17th and mid-19th centuries, new transport links were constructed, including the Wey Navigation, Basingstoke Canal and London to Southampton railway line. The modern town was established in the mid-1860s, as the London Necropolis Company began to sell surplus land surrounding the railway station for development.