Woking is a large town and local government
district with borough status in the west of Surrey in South East
England. It functions as a dormitory town of the London commuter belt
and is located 23 miles (37 km) south west of Charing Cross in central
London. Woking town itself, excluding the district, has a population of
64,000.
Woking also plays a role in literature: it is the town in which the
Martians landed in H. G. Wells science fiction novel The War of the
Worlds. It also features in Douglas Adams's The Meaning of Liff, as the
word for when you go to the kitchen but forget why.
Woking's history starts in 673AD. Woking
began around this time as a settlement of a Wessex tribe, followers of
Wocca. The name has been corrupted and was spelt as Woccingas, Wochinges,
Wokynge, Wochynghe at different times.
Modern Woking was formed around the railway station built over 150 years
ago at the junction between trains to the south coast, the south-west of
England and the necropolis railway to Brookwood Cemetery. This cemetery
was developed by the London Necropolis Company as an overflow burial
ground for London's dead. Later, Woking was home to the first
crematorium in the United Kingdom (St Johns) and the first mosque in the
UK (on Oriental Road). The Shahjehan Mosque was commissioned by
Shahjehan, Begum of Bhopal (1868-1901), one of the four female Muslim
rulers of Bhopal who reigned between 1819 and 1926.
Woking has a modern shopping centre called The Peacocks and an older
shopping area, Wolsey Place.
The main area for evening entertainment is around Chertsey Road which
contains restaurants serving a number of cuisines and there are also
numerous bars and pubs. The Ambassadors cinemas and New Victoria Theatre
can be accessed via the top floor of The Peacocks.