Portal:Surrey

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Surrey (/ˈsʌri/) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, to the southwest of Greater London. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. With a population of approximately 1.2 million people, Surrey is the 12th-most populous county in England. The most populated town in Surrey is Woking, followed by Guildford.

The county is divided into eleven districts with borough status. Between 1893 and 2020, Surrey County Council was headquartered at County Hall, Kingston-upon-Thames (now part of Greater London) but is now based at Woodhatch Place, Reigate. In the 20th century several alterations were made to Surrey's borders, with territory ceded to Greater London upon its creation and some gained from the abolition of Middlesex.

Surrey is bordered by Greater London to the north east, Kent to the east, Berkshire to the north west, West Sussex to the south, East Sussex to the south east, and Hampshire to the west. (Full article...)

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The Old Bridge on the River Wey

Weybridge (/ˈwbrɪ/) is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, around 17 mi (27 km) southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as Waigebrugge and Weibrugge in the 7th century and the name derives from a crossing point of the River Wey, which flows into the River Thames to the north of the town centre. The earliest evidence of human activity is from the Bronze Age. During the Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods, Weybridge was held by Chertsey Abbey.

In the 1530s, Henry VIII constructed Oatlands Palace to the north of the town centre, which he intended to be the residence of his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. He married Catherine Howard there in July 1540 and the palace remained a royal residence until the Civil War. The buildings were demolished in the early 1650s and a new mansion, Oatlands House, was constructed to the east of Weybridge later the same century. Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany owned the mansion in the 18th century.

The town began to expand beyond its medieval footprint in the early 19th century, catalysed by the initial breakup of the Oatlands House estate, the enclosure of Weybridge Heath and the opening of the railway station in 1838. The developer, W. G. Tarrant, was responsible for the construction of housing on St George's Hill in the first half of the 20th century.

The world's first purpose-built racing circuit was constructed at Brooklands in 1907. The track hosted the first British Grand Prix in 1926 and was used by Malcolm Campbell to develop his final land speed record car, Campbell-Railton Blue Bird. Throughout the 20th century, Brooklands was an important location for the aerospace industry and aircraft developed and tested there included the Sopwith Camel, the Wellington bomber and the Hurricane fighter. Vickers established a factory at the circuit in 1915 and aircraft manufacturing continued at the site until 1988. (Full article...)

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middle-aged man in overcoat and trilby hat smiling cheerfully towards the camera
Wodehouse in 1930, aged 48

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE (/ˈwʊdhs/ WOOD-howss; 15 October 1881  14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and Mr Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls.

Born in Guildford, the third son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction. Most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in his native United Kingdom, although he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. He wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, that played an important part in the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his naive revelations of incompetence and extravagance in the studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary career reached a new peak.

In 1934 Wodehouse moved to France for tax reasons; in 1940 he was taken prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans and interned for nearly a year. After his release he made six broadcasts from German radio in Berlin to the US, which had not yet entered the war. The talks were comic and apolitical, but his broadcasting over enemy radio prompted anger and strident controversy in Britain, and a threat of prosecution. Wodehouse never returned to England. From 1947 until his death he lived in the US, taking dual British-American citizenship in 1955. He died in 1975, at the age of 93, in Southampton, New York, one month after he was awarded a knighthood of the Order of the British Empire (KBE).

Wodehouse was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short stories and other writings between 1902 and 1974. He worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words. After the scenario was complete he would write the story. Early in his career Wodehouse would produce a novel in about three months, but he slowed in old age to around six months. He used a mixture of Edwardian slang, quotations from and allusions to numerous poets, and several literary techniques to produce a prose style that has been compared to comic poetry and musical comedy. Some critics of Wodehouse have considered his work flippant, but among his fans are former British prime ministers and many of his fellow writers. (Full article...)

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