Woking's Heritage

Discover

Woking was formed in the area to the south of the Basingstoke Canal (opened in 1794), and around the railway station, built in 1838 at the junction between the lines to London, the south coast, and the southwest of England, and the private railway to Brookwood Cemetery. 

In 1889 Dr Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, constructed the first purpose-built mosque in the UK, and the first mosque built in Northern Europe, on Oriential Road, around which Woking's Muslim community grew.

In the years that followed, famous and influential figures made Woking their home including novellest, H.G. Wells who moved to Woking in 1895, and suffragette, Dame Ethel Smyth in 1910.