Surrey Archaeological Society

'Damnable inventions' were the words used by William Cobbett, when he visited the Tillingbourne valley in Surrey in 1822, to describe: the industries of Chilworth and Albury - the manufacture of gunpowder and of paper for printing banknotes.

A mill is known to have existed on the site Downside Mills, Cobham, River Mole, from as early as 1331 and in the eighteenth century it operated both as a corn and a paper mill prior to becoming an iron Mill.

In this little pleasant Valley, the Springs serve not only to water the Grounds, but for the driving of 18 Powder Mills, 5 whereof were blown up in a little more than halfe a Years Time. 'Tis a little Commonwealth of Powdermakers, who are as black as Africans.

The Borough of Waverley in south-west Surrey was formed under the re-organisation of local government in 1974 and named after Waverley Abbey, the first Cistercian house in England which was founded in 1128. It was created from the Borough of Godalming, the Urban Districts of Farnham and Haslemere, and Hambledon Rural District and its four main centres of population are the towns of Godalming. Farnham and Haslemere and the village of Cranleigh.

The name Surrey Heath has no historical connections being merely a convenient description of the area covered by the Borough created in 1974 by the union of Frimley and Camberley Urban District Council and Bagshot Rural District Council. In 1990 the part of Sunningdale in Surrey Heath was transferred, together with another part in the Borough of Runnymede, to the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, to be united with the rest of Sunningdale.

Recognising Surrey's Industrial Past