Wormley, Surrey

Wormley
Village
King Edward's School
Wormley
Location within Surrey
OS grid referenceSU947383
Civil parish
  • Witley and Milford
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townHaslemere
Postcode districtGU8
Dialling code01428
PoliceSurrey
FireSurrey
AmbulanceSouth East Coast
UK Parliament

Wormley is a village in the civil parish of Witley and Milford, in the Waverley district, in Surrey, England, around Witley station, off the A283 Petworth Road about 5 km (3.1 mi) SSW of Godalming.

History

Expansion from archetypal hamlet

Wormley developed primarily as a result of the construction in the 19th century of Witley station, on the Portsmouth Direct line. King Edward's School, Witley once had its own station platform.

Former businesses

Cooper & Sons Ltd owned the Combelane walking stick factory; this was replaced by houses with small gardens and a light industrial estate. The Institute of Oceanographic Sciences Deacon Laboratory was here from 1952 to 1995, housed in the former Admiralty Signals Establishment building on Brook Road.[2] The only public house, the Wood Pigeon, closed in 2007.[3]

Architecture and gardens

King Edward's School is a Grade II listed building,[4] the school war memorial is also Grade II listed.[5] Gertrude Jekyll designed the gardens at Tigbourne Court and Wood End, houses both designed by Edward Lutyens.[6][7]

Notable former residents

  • Louis de Bernières (b. 1954) based his collection of short stories, Notwithstanding, on the local area.[8] In the afterword of the book, he muses whether Wormley is no longer a rural idyll.[9][10]
  • George Eliot (1819–1880) was a resident.
  • Gertrude Mary Tuckwell (1861–1951) lived the last twenty years of her life in Little Woodlands, Combe Lane.[11]

References

  1. ^ "Location of Godalming and Ash". parliament.uk. July 2024. Retrieved 14 March 2025.
  2. ^ "Oceans Wormley". Oceans Wormley. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  3. ^ "Lost Pubs in Witley, Surrey". The Lost Pubs Project. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  4. ^ Historic England. "King Edward's School, Witley (1096890)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  5. ^ Historic England. "King Edward's School War Memorial (1434041)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  6. ^ Brown, Jane (1982). Gardens of a Golden Afternoon. The Story of a Partnership: Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll. London: Allen Lane. p. 164. ISBN 0-7139-1440-8.
  7. ^ Historic England. "Wood End (Grade II) (1334351)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  8. ^ Driscoll-Woodford, Heather (4 November 2009). "Stories from an English village". BBC News. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  9. ^ De Bernières, Louis (2010). "Afterword". Notwithstanding. Vintage. ISBN 0099542021.
  10. ^ Nikkhah, Roya (4 October 2009). "Louis de Bernieres: 'These are my stories of a vanished England'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  11. ^ John, Angela V. (25 May 2006). "Tuckwell, Gertrude Mary". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/36572. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)