Historic Census & Electoral Rolls

Audio and Video Recordings

Ancient Houses & Buildings

Historic Albury People

Albury War Memorials

Found: some iron letters of the original Chilworth and Albury station sign, circa 1860.


New version with 8 pages of photos - Win Browne's diaries covering her life in Ewhurst, Little London and Albury are here.

Programme of meetings and visits for 2024  Meetings are at 8pm in Albury Village Hall GU5 9AD 
Visitors welcome.  Become a member and support us: AHS Programme & reservations 2024 PDF

Tuesday 19 March	AGM plus Winterfold – Surrey School for Spies  Operated by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the stately home saw hundreds of trainee agents, French, Dutch, Belgian and British. Many served heroically in occupied Europe, including Violette Szabo. Many did not return. By Paul McCue.	Poster
Tuesday 16 April	350 Years of Weather in S.E. England  After thermometers were invented, vicars and people in country houses kept regular temperature readings. Trends and violent events, since the 1703 great storm, are examined. An illustrated talk by Ian Currie.	Poster
Tuesday 21 May	A Talk through History 1626-1920 – Chilworth Gunpowder Mills  The abridged story from embryonic beginnings, through periodic expansion, to the eventual closing of the works after nearly 300 years of continuous production. By Andrew Norris.	Poster
Tuesday 18 June 2.30pm	A Walk through History 1626-1920 – Chilworth Gunpowder Mills  “If you go down to the woods today...” a guided tour by Andrew Norris of the topography and visible remains of the Lower and Middle Works site, concluding with (optional) refreshment at the Percy Arms. Reservation essential.
Tuesday 16 July 2.00pm	Visit to King John's House, Gomshall  This Jacobean House, perfectly preserved, was the erstwhile tan master's house for Gomshall Tannery. 12.30 Optional lunch at Gomshall Mill. Reservation essential.
Tuesday 17 September	The Changing Face of Local Media  Tracing the history of local newspapers from the mid-19th century. Production and printing from the days of hot metal through to the computer age. By David Rose.	Poster
Tuesday 15 October	The Life and Loves of Ada Lovelace  Daughter of Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace was a mathematician and writer well-known for her work on the early mechanical computer. By David Taylor.	Poster
Tuesday 19 November	Albury Park and Mansion  A Saxon Church, papermill, rerouted roads, cleared village, icehouse, Albury Conferences, Evelyn Gardens and deaths by gas explosion. An illustrated talk by Trevor Brook. Followed by mulled wine & mince pies.	Poster
	Talks on our media page are available for other organisations. Forthcoming: - The History of Newlands Corner   Fairyland, a hospital, soil buildings, army, airshows, Stracheys, Agatha Christie, Clough Williams-Ellis, evacuees, kindertransport, Cossacks and two petrol stations. An illustrated talk by Trevor Brook at Puttenham and Wanborough History Society at 8pm on Friday 29th November 2024 - Albury Park and Mansion  A Saxon Church, papermill, rerouted roads, cleared village, icehouse, Albury Conferences, Evelyn Gardens and deaths by gas explosion. An illustrated talk by Trevor Brook. at Acorns History Group at 10am on Tuesday 1st April 2025.

Albury History Society, alburyhistory.org.uk, was founded in 1971 with the aims of promoting interest and research in local history. Between March and November each year we have a programme of illustrated talks and visits to places of historical interest. Honorary Secretary: Margaret Clarke, 01483 202 294, m.andm.clarke@gmail.com.

Search for a subject, place, person or event:

  Martin Tupper set his fictional Stephan Langton at Silent Pool and St Martha's while in 1933 Warwick Deeping foresaw a mass death ray in Albury in The Madness of Professor Pye.

  Robert H Charles stayed in 1928 and wrote of Jacob Toad on Albury Heath, wanting to see the world in A Roundabout Turn, illustrated by L Leslie Brooke, exhibited in 1981.

  Scarlet pimpernel and common rockrose are amongst a hundred specimens at RHS Wisley's Herbarium collected in 1831 on Albury Heath by W.H. Carr.

  Droves of 500 black cattle from Wales and Sherbourne Palm Sunday Fair are described in 1950's Walks Round Albury, noted for its wild flowers 'now becoming scarce'.

  Though in brick, Henry Drummond based Albury church on Thaon, France. In 2003 Brief History of Albury Village was published with A stroll along 'The Street'.

  Some history of the Saxon Old Church, Barn Church, Irvingite Catholic Apostolic Church and St Peter & St Paul is at Albury Churches.

  Revealed beneath plaster in 1885 and facing the unusual north door of Albury's Saxon Church is this c1480 wall painting of St Christopher.

  Why two families appear on the Devis-Tupper Vault outside the Old Church west wall is explained in The Sage of Albury and the Man Mushroom.

  Albury Church's 1939 Northumberland Chapel was designed by Guildford Cathedral architect Edward Maufe and hung with brocatelle from King George VI's coronation.

  Founded during The Years of Ferment, the Apostolic Church has an octagonal Chapter House, with pew ends carved by craftsman Anthony Browne: audio 043.

  1850s photographs show eleven Apostles and the AHS talk about the Irvingite Albury Conferences, Albury and the Catholic Apostolic Church by Dr Tim Grass, is here.

  A detailed history of Albury, from 'ald' and 'burh', and Weston Street published by Victoria County History in 1911 is here.

  Shere road via the Saxon Church was closed in 1785, with George Inn/Grange Cottage and papermill shut and 14 dwellings cleared to Weston Street.

  In 1066 Albury and 22 households appear in the Domesday Book. Over a dozen historic spellings of Albury in Blackheath Hundred are documented.

  Several historical maps, some history and William Cobbett extracts from the University of Portsmouth's Vision of Britain Through Time are here.

  Albury photographer Percy Lloyd introduced postcards to Britain: penny-plain-tuppence-coloured; Lloyd's son interviewed: audio.

  The BBC TV Domesday Project of 1986 includes The Old School, Albury and Farley Heath, Tillingbourne Trout Farm, the Roman Temple and White Lane Farm.

  AHS has this model of Farley Heath Roman Temple. A lead curse was found and an archaeology paper also covers the nearby Skemp Pond.

  The story of this Samian bowl find is in Surrey Archaeological Collections of 1932 and a 1939 summary of Farley Green Temple appeared in Nature.

  Much about 1841 Albury, the Roman site on Farley Heath and surrounding villages appears in A Topographical History of Surrey by E.W. Brayley.

  Seventy old photographs covering Albury, Silent Pool and Newlands Corner from 1890 are in the Francis Frith collection, here.

  Bargate Stone, Hythe Sand, Gault Clay and Upper Greensand are explained in Newlands Corner - Albury Geology Trail, by Surrey RIGS.

  Joan Harding's 1963 Bronze Age Weston Wood excavation details are here and here, in Surrey Archaeology and audio 023.

  Old stones were mapped in 1975 and this 200mm long polished Neolithic axe was found in the 1990s as the smaller, western, Weston Fishery lake was dredged.

  Megalithic Portal lists Albury Park Mound, Weston Wood Tumulus, Albury Fishponds Stone, Tyting Farm Barrow, St Martha's Circles and Lid Well.

  AHS has this 1830 court model of Albury Mill, when James Warner was executed for attempted murder and arson in the Swing Riots; page 23 here.

  Scheduled monument Chilworth Gunpowder Works [video] had WW1 anti-aircraft guns and employed 600. More in Wey River and a walk by Glenys Crocker.

  Albury's unusual octagonal Tudor Pigeon House in Weston Yard (for saltpetre in gunpowder) was restored by Dr Maurice Burton, 1979-1980; talk.

  Albury Pigeon House in Weston Yard is visible beyond the estate Carpenters Yard and its workshops.

  Henry Drummond's Plan of Farm Buildings shows a network of tram roads and turntables in Albury Estate yard, with moveable railroad tracks to the hay ricks.

  Maurice Burton, zoologist, Elusive Monster author and New Scientist writer dismissing Loch Ness monster claims, lived at Weston House.

  Albury had a bakery and petrol station until the 70s. Surrey Life has articles on Silent Pool, Albury Park Mansion and Albury.

  The Running Horse, rebuilt as Drummond Arms c1850, had assembly rooms, stables and Albury Brewery occupying the western end.

  Albury Park gardens, terrace, Silver Wood tunnel inspired by the Grotto of Posillipo and 'Roman Baths' created by John Evelyn c1665 are described in London's Lost Gardens.

  The Evelyn Gardens, Risbridger Monument and Henry Howard watercourse with its century of legal action are described in The Risbridger Story.

  John Aubrey FRS drew Albury Park and vineyard in 1673 while describing the Roman Temple, moving sand with water and listing each inscription in the Saxon Church here.

  Both Albury Park and Weston House had ice houses and some watercolours of Albury by John Hassell from about 1800 are here.

  Albury Park Mansion's hillside icehouse had a door leading to a brick lined passage, a further door and then a ladder into a deep pit for ice and produce.

  A lake, vineyard, swans and an arched building are depicted in a 1645 Wenceslaus Hollar print of Albury at the British Museum.

  Dog Kennel Lane connected Albury Heath with Albury Green until Henry Drummond constructed New Road around 1842 and enclosed the Park.

  North Downs Pillboxes, anti-tank ditches, ant-aircraft gun emplacements and searchlights are mapped in the wartime GHQ Line defence database.

  The Mass Observation diary of Helen Lloyd at Weston Lodge describes anti-tank defences... and how her car went into the Tillingbourne.

  1600s Albury rector William Oughtred, inventor of the slide rule and 'x' for multiplication, has a plaque in the Saxon Church and a biography in Geek Atlas. AHS talk script.

  British Film Institute has 1899 footage by Charles Goodwin Norton of Shere and Albury Volunteer Fire Brigade leaving the fire station in Shere on a turn-out: video.

  Maps and details of Albury, Weston Street, Brook, Little London and Farley Heath are in the 1980 booklet Curious Albury by Rideout and Brown.

  Country Life's 1950 articles and Helen Northumberland's 1951 Albury Park describe 'gardens which, without exception, are the prettiest in England'.

  103 Albury Park designs are in the Soane Collection. The Aesop's Fables dog and bone dining room fireplace was in Northumberland House in London, demolished 1874.

  Albury Trust erected Albury Heath's Field Marshal Montgomery Memorial, commemorating the review of Canadian troops in May 1944 prior to D-Day landings: audio.

  Between the wars, James Bushby managed 2,000 rabbits for Gavin Maxwell's aunt, Lady Victoria Percy, at Northfield Chinchilla Fur Farm.

  Thomas Malthus, whose Principle of Population inspired Darwin, lived at Dalton Hill. Antiquary Elias Ashmole lived at Weston House.

  Proverbial Philosophy author Martin Tupper excavated Roman remains and initiated the volunteer Albury Rifle Club in 1848.

  Albury House in 1792 and hilltop hut by 'Man Mushroom' Anthony Devis, an early umbrella user, described in Martin Tupper's autobiography. Talk.

  1860s photographer John Chaplin of Leapale Road, Guildford, made stereoscopics and glass plates of Martin Tupper and family at Albury House.

  Architect Evelyn Hellicar designed the Duchess Memorial Cross to Henry Drummond's daughter, Louisa Percy and the dining room at Dalton Hill.

  Albury Memorial Library was built after WW2, while church WW1 and WW2 war memorials, lists of names and biographies are at They Gave Their Today.

  Details of memorials, service, honours, families and photographs of those who lost their lives in WW1, including the Albury War Memorial dedication service, are here.

  Somme survivor Gilbert Bellinger of Little London and Brook was model for Gerald Metcalfe of Woodside for his watercolour and Albury's First World War memorial.

  The thriving Albury Brass Band or Silver Band, here in 1907, had over 25 members and was active until the First World War.

  Lloyd's clock from the Albury Old Post Office now displays alongside panels of war dead inside the Village Hall, in The Street.

  Royal Mail's van was garaged in the Forge and Albury Post Office progressively moved along the Street to Pratt's Stores.

  Originally Albury National School, from 1833 to 1894, some improvement works took place after a Dorking-bound bus crashed into the Village Hall in January 1982.

  From 1915 Newlands Corner Convalescent Military Hospital with massage equipment was in St Loe and Amy Strachey's house and grounds.

  Clough Williams-Ellis designed a pisé bungalow at Newlands Corner, built with rammed earth for £101 in 1919, and Albury Park's Half Moon Pond.

  In 1935 Newlands Corner, named Fairyland around ancient yews at the top of The Sweeps, had an RAC box, tea gardens, 6d car park fee and petrol.

  Newlands Corner Hotel, now Manor House Hotel, had an old world garden, library and striking colonnade.

  In the 1930s Clough Williams-Ellis did designs at nearby Stapledown, with its Hut studio theatre, where Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester lived.

  Air displays at Newlands Corner attracted 15,000 in 1933 and 1935 while on White Lane the RAF had Merrow Flying Field during WW2.

  Operation Pied Piper evacuees from St Michael's School in Southfields were billeted with Mrs Amy Strachey at Harrowhill Copse, described in The Way We Were by Toni Savage.

  Dragon's teeth and concrete remain from wartime roadblock defences, a checkpoint, 'thatched' pillbox and decoy petrol station on the Newlands Corner GHQ Stop Line.

  After World War II, Cossacks and prisoners of war deemed to be Soviet citizens were detained in Nissen huts at Newlands Corner Camp before their forcible repatriation.

  Earth removed for A25 widening in 1967 reshaped Waterloo Pond, creating wide lawns down to the reed beds at Vale End.

  First marked on John Rocque's 1762 map, Derek Nightingale published vintage North Downs photographs in Newlands Corner and its Environs of 1994.

  This concrete dew pond, beside Combe Lane, provided water for livestock following the North Downs Way Drove Road or after ascending Combe Bottom.

  Before fertilisers, every farm had a lime kiln like these structures still visible on Albury Heath and at Mayorhouse, for lime burning to produce quicklime.

  In 1935, 36 Albury WI members embroidered a screen depicting a cab, governess cart, Tillingbourne Flower Show and Brook Farm in 1890 with an undershot waterwheel.

  The WI screen designer, 1916 Embroidery and Design author, Artists' Suffrage League and NUWSS leader, Joan Harvey Drew moved to Heathfield on Albury Heath.

  The estate generated electricity at Albury Old Mill, using the miller's old turbine and the flow of the Tillingbourne, described by Alf Howick: audio 040.

  The Mill was dredged in 1926 as police and volunteers sought Agatha Christie after her car was abandoned by Water Lane chalk pit.

  SIHG won 2007's Margery Award researching Vale End pumping station's unusual Poncelet waterwheel which filled a reservoir up Albury Warren.

  Park Gate pumping station at the bottom of New Lane fed water from the Tillingbourne to Albury Park and occasionally for the village; audio 106

  Albury boasts a unique word: Paddlecombs is the area at the summit of the Warren, rising from the village, and once the path to school.

  Albury Estate shepherd Henry Morgan saw the thatched cricket pavilion built and during WWII a platoon of Canadian soldiers were photographed there.

  With the first match on the heath in 1761, Albury Cricket Club was founded in 1789. Albury Heath's wooden pavilion survived until 1974.

  Booklets list Trees at Albury Park, with an 1880 water turbine, mills and waterways in Home Farm Buildings and The Tillingbourne River Story.

  A brickworks and cottage for the worker attending the firing kiln existed beside Weston Wood and the A25.

  Until 1988 there was a sawmill by Albury Brick Field, shown with steam power for the machines and later, abandoned.

  Albury Police House, now Wood Lodge, was on Sherbourne. Inspector Robert Parker and family were photographed there in 1867.

  A Boat House and the greater part of Postford Pond were lost when new Chilworth Road bypassed Mill Lane in 1876.

  War stopped a 1939 Chilworth to Gomshall and Shere bypass road passing through 'open country' of Blackheath, Farley Heath, Brook, Shere Heath and Burrows Lea.

  Albury Heath Post Office at Park Corner, the junction of Sandy Lane, Park Road and New Road, saw violence and tragedy.

  Near Little London School, Albury Workhouse/Heath Lodge in Park Road, with brewhouse, was built in 1732 for 12 paupers and closed in 1836 with an auction.

  Following the Albury Workhouse closure, Sidney Attfield of Albury, the ninth sibling born in 1840, lived at Guildford Union Workhouse from nine years of age.

  Little London's William IVth was The Garibaldi till c1885, after the Italian patriot given Freedom of the City of London in 1864.

  The 1867 inquest into death by lightning strike of farm worker Charles Cannon and two horses at Dilton Farm, Farley Green, was held at the Garibaldi Inn.

  In 1928, at a maximum speed marked on the charabanc of 12 miles per hour, some two dozen people enjoyed a day trip from the William IVth to Southsea.

  With signs for Courage beer and Black Cat, the William IVth had a postbox and offered Teas, Wines, Spirits, Bed and Breakfast, Stables and a Garage.

  Behind the pub, J Travers, late of the Weedon Royal Horse Artillery equestrian school, ran the William IV Hunting & Riding Stables.

  Holt's Store and post office in Brook delivered milk, had an electric bell push for its Aladdin Pink Paraffin pump and closed c1978.

  Across the road on Brook Hill, F Holt & Sons had larger Brook Stores premises with a topiary pheasant outside, also selling antiques.

  The mill pond area is visible but by the early 1900s Brook Farm barn's sluice gates and water wheel had fallen into disuse.

  White painted Brook Lodge guest house dominated Brook in 1939, looking over Brook Farm, Lawbrook stream and Holt's shop.

  From 1854, watercress beds, including Postford and these at Ford Farm, grew 400 tons a year along Law Brook and the Tillingbourne; more.

  Chilworth and Albury Station with porter signalman Henry Dowling featured in this 1950s Sugar Puffs advertisement.

  Brook Crossing had catch points and a wooden Box while South Eastern Railway operated Chilworth and Albury Station.

  A Portsmouth extension to the Guildford and Reigate Railway was mooted in the 1870s, running from Little London, across Brook Hill and through Blackheath.

  Jessie's Seat, a topiary pheasant at Lockner, marks the 1892 death of guard Henry Wicks. North Downs Line history by Alan Edwards is here.

  Bottings Flour Mill in Mill Lane, 1911-1990, is described in Milling in Albury and also appears in videos VTS 01 1, VTS 01 2 and audio 082.

  C A Botting and Sons had a large turbine, a Dennis lorry and won wheat flour awards at the Bakers', Confectioners' and Allied Traders' International Exhibition.

  Using the flowing river water and with eight large tanks, Tillingbourne Trout Farm was beside Bottings Mill, 1977-1990.

  Flora Russell painted Farley Green in 1923 and a Tuck postcard, looking towards the postbox from August Lane, shows Teas available at Greenacres.

  Norman Hughes photographed Farley Green Farm beyond grazing sheep, while cows, piles of road chippings and a Tillingbourne Bus appear in 1939.

  From 1925 using bell tents, Farley Green's first holiday camp, Treetops, had 30 cabins, woodland swimming pool and a tennis court.

  Also with croquet and golf greens, dining room, swing, see-saw and nearby horse riding, more chalets appeared at Treetops.

  Treetops postcards and brochures were produced and disused railway carriages added for more accommodation.

  Supported by Rev. Philip Gray, over 100 Sudeten Czech refugees from the Munich Nazi takeover built chalets at Surrey Hills and had a school at Brook Lodge: audio 105.

  Born at Surrey Hills and before emigrating to Australia, the first refugee baby was Edeltrude Christ, baptised by Rev. Philip Gray at Albury Church on 31 March 1939.

  Refugee Gerhard Höfner published his account of coming to Albury, the Red Falcon Scouts and Brook Lodge School, in One of the Lucky Ones.

  Greta Jelinek's account of her family's flight from Czechoslovakia to the beautiful grounds of Brook Lodge on Albury Heath is in Greta's Story.

  In 2019 this table emerged in Upham, Hampshire: "Sudeten German Refugees/works for the comrads in/Surrey Hills/Thomas Haberkorn-Heinrich Wirnitzer/Henry Weisbach/17th March 1939".

  From 1941 to 2011 the naturist Surrey Downs Sun Club had a clubhouse, swimming pool and chalets at Edgeley Egg Farm/Edgeley Park in Farley Green.

  The first in the country in 1926, Hurtwood Gypsy School served families living in a camp around Wicket's Well.

  From large numbers in 1912, the hundred year old Winterfold encampments were burned in 1934 and Hurtwood School moved to Walton.

  Following on from cycle tours in earlier years, in the 1930s the Junior Car Club, JCC, ran competitive car rallies through the steep lanes of Winterfold.

  Rose Macaulay ate hurts in the Hurtwood pines and heard mortar shells from the Western Front in France in Picnic: July 1917.

  Till his death in 1942, Rose Macaulay's lover, priest, friend of W.B. Yeates and author, Gerald O'Donovan lived with his wife Florence and 3 children at Church Lane Cottage.

  From 26 miles, sea is visible through the Shoreham gap from Winterfold Hill, marked for 90 years Mariners' Landmark by Ordnance Survey.

  About The Hurtwood of 1991 documents 1970s stories of the Surrey Puma, spotted a dozen times by the ranger, Bob Ware. Albury's Dr Maurice Burton remained unconvinced.

  An ancient burial site, Albury Estate workers covered St Martha's Church with fir tree camouflage during WWI to stop use as a landmark by Zeppelins.

  Long a ruin after a 1745 gunpowder explosion, St Martha's, on Martyr's Hill, was once owned by Newark Priory. Histories here and here.

  St Martin's, Blackheath, by Charles Townsend has unique Anna Lea Merritt murals, described by Olive Maggs, and a window to asbestos maker John Bell of Lockner.

  From 1931, Shere and District Rural Preservation Society published leaflets: Farley Heath & Roman Temple; Merrow Downs & St Martha's Chapel; Stephen Langton & Silent Pool.

  Cartographer John Flower of Farley Green created his first illustrated map of The Tillingbourne Valley in 1986, PDF, followed by the 1993 edition.

  Along the Pilgrims' Way Illustrated Map - Winchester, Alton, Farnham, Guildford, Reigate, Maidstone, Canterbury was created by John Flower in 1998, here.

  Newdigate Burne, Angel-in-Charge at Albury Catholic Apostolic Church, wrote in 1897 parish magazines of road changes and the coming of railways, here.

  The first of several Albury Schools existed in 1822, the last in 1974, while Albury Bonfire Boys started in 1887 and disbanded in 1947.

  With its Pugin chimney inspired emblem designed by Janet Allen, the Albury Trust published Albury - A Short Guide to the Parish in 1994.

  In 2011 AHS produced Social History of the Parish of Albury and many 1964-2000 photos and events are in Scrapbook of Albury by Mary Sherman.

  1939 Register pages covering every property in Brook, Farley Green and Albury are collected together here with an index here.

  From 18 in 1832 to 888 in 1961, Albury's voters, listed alphabetically with their addresses, are recorded in the Electoral Rolls here.

  A Millennium Celebration, one thousand years in the life of Albury Son et Lumière was staged on the lawns of Albury Park Mansion in 2000. Script.

  Privies of wood planks, at Sera in Farley Green, and a galleted 18-19th century dry privy at Lockhursthatch appear in Surrey Privies.

  Tree ring dendrochronology helped the DBRG date ancient timber framed buildings in Albury, Brook and Farley Green.

  DBRG's study of 2 bay and internal jetty Meadow Cottage in Brook is here and Caroline Martin's talk and notes about ancient buildings and people are here.

  Around 1900, Northumberland Estates built several concrete houses. Some are detached and some have concrete staircases and ceilings: here.

  The Albury Conservation Area illustrated brochure and map produced by Guildford Borough Council in 1989 is here.

  Albury Parish Council has its current brief history of Albury here. Albury St Peter And St Paul Parish Records, 1559-1981, are here.

  Wikipedia has entries on Albury, Albury Park, Farley Green, Newlands Corner, the Tillingbourne, Lawbrook or Postford Brook and Silent Pool.

  The Exploring Surrey's Past article about Albury is here: exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/themes/places/surrey/guildford/albury.

  Albury was included in 2016's Tales & Trails of the Tillingbourne Valley HLF Project, researching a unique industrial past which stamped its character on communities.


Over the years Albury History Society has built up an extensive archive of historical material going back to the 16th Century, which is housed at the Surrey History Centre in Woking. These records have been catalogued, 8261 and 8261ADD combined, and are available to visitors for research or general interest. Their National Archives record is here: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F216060.

A searchable index of Albury History Society slides, photographs and talk scripts is here with a map of houses here.

Around 100 Albury History Society audio and video recordings, from 1947 onwards, are here.