35 Facts About Surrey

Surrey is a county in South East England which borders Kent to the east, East Sussex to the southeast, West Sussex to the south, Hampshire to the west, Berkshire to the northwest, and Greater London to the northeast.

Surrey is divided in two by the chalk ridge of the North Downs, running east–west.

Surrey contains England's principal concentration of lowland heath, on sandy soils in the west of the county.

Accordingly, Surrey provides many rural and semi-rural leisure activities, with a large horse population in modern terms.

Longest river to enter Surrey is the Thames, which historically formed the boundary between the county and Middlesex.

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At this point Surrey was evidently under Kentish domination, as the abbey was founded under the patronage of King Ecgberht of Kent.

In 892 Surrey was the scene of another major battle when a large Danish army, variously reported at 200, 250 and 350 ship-loads, moved west from its encampment in Kent and raided in Hampshire and Berkshire.

Surrey remained safe from attack for over a century thereafter, due to its location and to the growing power of the West Saxon, later English, kingdom.

Apart from the abbey, most of whose lands were within the shire, Surrey was not the principal focus of any major landowner's holdings, a tendency which was to persist in later periods.

Rather than try to attack London across the river, the Normans continued west through Surrey, crossed the Thames at Wallingford in Berkshire and descended on London from the north-west.

The Fitzalan line of Earls of Surrey died out in 1415, but after other short-lived revivals in the 15th century the title was conferred in 1483 on the Howard family, who still hold it.

However, Surrey was not a major focus of any of these families' interests.

Surrey had little political or economic significance in the Middle Ages.

The industry in Surrey was focused on Guildford, which gave its name to a variety of cloth, gilforte, which was exported widely across Europe and the Middle East and imitated by manufacturers elsewhere in Europe.

However, as the English cloth industry expanded, Surrey was outstripped by other growing regions of production.

The upheaval of 1381 involved widespread local unrest in Surrey, as was the case all across south-eastern England, and some recruits from Surrey joined the Kentish rebel army.

Glass industry developed in the mid-16th century on the southwestern borders of Surrey, but had collapsed by 1630, as the wood-fired Surrey glassworks were surpassed by emerging coal-fired works elsewhere in England.

Surrey made unsuccessful efforts to revitalise the local cloth industry.

Parts of it were outside the jurisdiction of the government of the City of London, and as a result the area of Bankside became London's principal entertainment district, since the social control exercised there by the local authorities of Surrey was less effective and restrictive than that of the City authorities.

Surrey raised his standard at Kingston and advanced south, but found little support.

Surrey had a central role in the history of the radical political movements unleashed by the civil war.

For two centuries before the Reform Act, the dominant political network in Surrey was that of the Onslows of Clandon Park, a gentry family established in the county from the early 17th century, who were raised to the peerage in 1716.

One of the principal residences of the British monarchy in the 18th century was Kew Palace in north Surrey, leased by Queen Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1728 and inhabited by her son Frederick, Prince of Wales, and later by King George III and Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Surrey's boundaries were altered again in 1974 when Gatwick Airport was transferred to West Sussex.

Eastern part of Surrey was transferred from the Diocese of Winchester to that of Rochester in 1877.

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The prominence of Surrey peaked in the 1890s, when it was the focus for globally important developments in domestic architecture, in particular the early work of Edwin Lutyens, who grew up in the county and was greatly influenced by its traditional styles and materials.

Southwark Priory, no longer in Surrey has survived, though much altered, and is Southwark Cathedral.

Accordingly, the administrative county of Surrey was formed in 1889 when the Provisional Surrey County Council first met, consisting of 19 aldermen and 57 councillors.

Surrey had been administered from Newington since the 1790s, and the county council was initially based in the sessions house there.

The boundaries of the non-metropolitan county of Surrey were similar to those of the administrative county with the exception of Gatwick Airport and some surrounding land which was transferred to West Sussex.

Average wage in Surrey is bolstered by the high proportion of residents who work in financial services.

Surrey has more organisation and company headquarters than any other county in the UK.

UK has a comprehensive, state-funded education system, accordingly Surrey has 37 state secondary schools, 17 Academies, 7 sixth form colleges and 55 state primaries.

Significant landscapes in Surrey include Box Hill just north of Dorking; the Devil's Punch Bowl at Hindhead and Frensham Common.

Surrey woodland represented Germany in the opening scene of Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe; it was filmed at the Bourne Woods near Farnham in Surrey.