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Woking Leasing

Did You Know?

Woking is one of the largest town's in Surrey and is known as the landing place for the aliens in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. The town boasts the country's oldest mosque, the Shah Jahan, the innovative Lightbox art and heritage centre, and motorsport legends McLaren. It is also the home town of The Jam.

It was not until the 1970s that Woking had its first purpose-built theatre. The Rhoda McGaw Theatre was named after a local councillor who had died in 1971. During the latter part of the twentieth century, the impressive Ambassadors Complex was built. The small Rhoda McGaw Theatre remained at the bottom of the complex and continues to be used regularly by amateur dramatic groups and operatic societies.

In the 1870s, there was no church in the centre of Woking and services were held in a room above a shop in Chertsey Road. It was not until 1887 that enough money had been found to start building. The Duchess of Albany, a daughter-in-law of Queen Victoria, laid the foundation stone.

In May 1895, H. G. Wells moved to Woking with his new wife; they lived in Lynton in Maybury Road. While there, he wrote his most famous book, War of the Worlds, which was published in 1898. In the novel, Martians invade the town of Woking and destroy it. On April 8, 1998, it was officially unveiled by television presenter Carol Vorderman.

Although only 25 miles from London, a green belt area surrounds Woking. There is an abundance of wooded areas, which contain a great number of ancient pine trees. Legend says that it was Sir Edward Zouche who introduced pine trees into Woking in the seventeenth century. He was a resident of Woking and attended St Peter's Church.

The Salvation Army was established in Woking in the nineteenth century and, in 1897, the Salvation Army hall was officially opened on an empty site on the corner of Church Street and Clarence Avenue. The site has moved locations multiple times due to redevelopment projects over the years, but is now situated in Sythwood, Horsell.

In the late nineteenth century, an inn was built on Horsell Common. Because the land around it was very desolate and bleak, Bleak House was considered an appropriate name. With the advent of the motor car, traffic increased and a main road was eventually constructed between Woking and Chertsey. Named Chertsey Road, it was soon a busy highway.

Ethel Smyth was born on April 23, 1858 in Sidcup, Kent. She studied music and became a prolific composer; she wrote songs, piano music, orchestral and choral works and operas. She moved to Hookheath in Woking at the beginning of the twentieth century and lived there for the rest of her life.

Did you know that the Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking was the first purpose-built mosque in Britain, and that it dates from 1889? It was the brainchild of polyglot polymath orientalist Gottlieb Leitner. The mosque is named for its original benefactor, Shah Jahan, Nawab of Bhopal.

Most of what you see in Woking today has come in the last 150 years – in the middle of the town there are very few buildings more than 40 years old.  But Woking does have a history.   There are three burial mounds on Horsell Common which are 3000 years old and there was a small Roman settlement east of Old Woking.