Surrey

 ( Non-metropolitan Counties ) 

To the south of the Downs in the western part of the county are the sandstone Surrey Hills, while further east is the plain of the Low Weald, rising in the extreme southeast to the edge of the hills of the High Weald. The Downs and the area to the south form part of a concentric pattern of geological deposits which also extends across southern Kent and most of Sussex, predominantly composed of Wealden Group, Lower Greensand and the chalk of the Downs.

Much of Surrey is in the Metropolitan Green Belt. It contains valued reserves of mature woodland (reflected in the official logo of Surrey County Council, a pair of interlocking oak leaves). Among its many notable beauty spots are Box Hill, Leith Hill, Frensham Ponds, Newlands Corner and Puttenham & Crooksbury Commons.

Surrey is the most wooded county in England, with 22.4% coverage compared to a national average of 11.8% and as such is one of the few counties not to recommend new woodlands in the subordinate planning authorities' plans. In 2020 the Surrey Heath district had the highest proportion of tree cover in England at 41%. Surrey also contains England's principal concentration of lowland heath, on sandy soils in the west of the county.

Agriculture not being intensive, there are many Common land and access lands, together with an extensive network of footpaths and bridleways including the North Downs Way, a scenic long-distance path. Accordingly, Surrey provides many rural and semi-rural leisure activities, with a large horse population in modern terms.

The highest elevation in Surrey is Leith Hill near Dorking. It is above sea level and is the second highest point in southeastern England after Walbury Hill in West Berkshire which is .

The River Wey is the longest tributary of the Thames above London. Other tributaries of the Thames with their courses partially in Surrey include the River Mole, the Addlestone branch and Chertsey branch of the River Bourne (which merge shortly before joining the Thames), and the Hogsmill River, which drains Epsom and Ewell.

The upper reaches of the River Eden, a tributary of the River Medway, are in Tandridge District, in east Surrey.

The River Colne and its anabranch, the Wraysbury River, make a brief appearance in the north of the county to join the Thames at Staines.

Much of the north of the county, extending to Guildford, is within the Greater London Built-up Area. This is an area of continuous urban sprawl linked without significant interruption of rural area to Greater London. In the west, there is a developing conurbation straddling the Hampshire/Surrey border, including the Surrey towns of Camberley and Farnham.

Guildford is often regarded as the historic county town, although the county administration was moved to Newington in 1791 and to Kingston upon Thames in 1893. The county council's headquarters were outside the county's boundaries from 1 April 1965, when Kingston and other areas were included within Greater London by the London Government Act 1963, until the administration moved to Reigate at the start of 2021.

In about AD 42 King Cunobelinus (in Welsh legend Cunobelin) of the Catuvellauni died and war broke out between his sons and King Verica of the Atrebates. The Atrebates were defeated, their capital captured and their lands made subject to Togodumnus, king of the Catuvellauni, ruling from Camulodunum (Colchester). Verica fled to Gaul and appealed for Roman aid. The Atrebates were allied with Rome during the invasion of Britain in AD 43.

During the Roman era, the only important settlement within the historic area of Surrey was the London suburb of Southwark (now part of Greater London), but there were small towns at Staines, Ewell, Dorking, Croydon and Kingston upon Thames.Remains of Roman rural temples have been excavated on Farley Heath and near Wanborough and Titsey, and possible temple sites at Chiddingfold, Betchworth and Godstone. The area was traversed by Stane Street and other Roman roads.

Surrey may have formed part of a larger Middlesex kingdom or confederacy, also including areas north of the Thames. The name Surrey is derived from Sūþrīge (or Suthrige), meaning "southern region" (while Bede refers to it as Sudergeona) and this may originate in its status as the southern portion of the Middle Saxon territory.

If it ever existed, the Middle Saxon kingdom had disappeared by the 7th century, and Surrey became a frontier area disputed between the kingdoms of Kent, Essex, Sussex, Wessex and Mercia, until its permanent absorption by Wessex in 825. Despite this fluctuating situation it retained its identity as an enduring territorial unit. During the 7th century Surrey became Christian and initially formed part of the East Saxon diocese of London, indicating that it was under East Saxon rule at that time, but was later transferred to the West Saxon diocese of Winchester. Its most important religious institution throughout the Anglo-Saxon period and beyond was Chertsey Abbey, founded in 666. At this point Surrey was evidently under Kentish domination, as the abbey was founded under the patronage of King Ecgberht of Kent. However, a few years later at least part of it was subject to Mercia, since in 673–675 further lands were given to Chertsey Abbey by Frithuwald, a local sub-king (subregulus) ruling under the sovereignty of Wulfhere of Mercia. A decade later Surrey passed into the hands of Caedwalla of Wessex, who also conquered Kent and Sussex, and founded a monastery at Farnham in 686.

The region remained under the control of Caedwalla's successor Ine in the early 8th century. Its political history for most of the 8th century is unclear, although West Saxon control may have broken down around 722, but by 784–785 it had passed into the hands of King Offa of Mercia. Mercian rule continued until 825, when following his victory over the Mercians at the Battle of Ellandun, King Egbert of Wessex seized control of Surrey, along with Sussex, Kent and Essex. It was incorporated into Wessex as a shire and continued thereafter under the rule of the West Saxon kings, who eventually became kings of all of England.

• Frithuwald ()
• Frithuric? ()

In 851 an exceptionally large invasion force of Danes arrived at the mouth of the Thames in a fleet of about 350 ships, which would have carried over 15,000 men. Having sacked Canterbury and London and defeated King Beorhtwulf of Mercia in battle, the Danes crossed the Thames into Surrey, but were slaughtered by a West Saxon army led by King Æthelwulf in the Battle of Aclea, bringing the invasion to an end.

Two years later the men of Surrey marched into Kent to help their Kentish neighbours fight a raiding force at Thanet District, but suffered heavy losses including their ealdorman, Huda. 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. Withdrawing with their loot, the Danes were intercepted and defeated at Farnham by an army led by Alfred the Great's son Edward, the future King Edward the Elder, and fled across the Thames towards Essex.

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. Kingston was the scene for the coronations of Æthelstan in 924 and of Æthelred the Unready in 978, and, according to later tradition, also of other 10th-century Kings of England. The renewed Danish attacks during the disastrous reign of Æthelred led to the devastation of Surrey by the army of Thorkell the Tall, which ravaged all of southeastern England in 1009–1011. The climax of this wave of attacks came in 1016, which saw prolonged fighting between the forces of Edmund Ironside and the Danish king Cnut, including an English victory over the Danes somewhere in northeastern Surrey, but ended with the conquest of England by Cnut.

Cnut's death in 1035 was followed by a period of political uncertainty, as the succession was disputed between his sons. In 1036 Alfred, son of King Æthelred, returned from Normandy, where he had been taken for safety as a child at the time of Cnut's conquest of England. It is uncertain what his intentions were, but after landing with a small retinue in Sussex he was met by Godwin, Earl of Wessex, who escorted him in apparently friendly fashion to Guildford. Having taken lodgings there, Alfred's men were attacked as they slept and killed, mutilated or enslaved by Godwin's followers, while the prince himself was blinded and imprisoned, dying shortly afterwards. This must have contributed to the antipathy between Godwin and Alfred's brother Edward the Confessor, who came to the throne in 1042.

This hostility peaked in 1051, when Godwin and his sons were driven into exile; returning the following year, the men of Surrey rose to support them, along with those of Sussex, Kent, Essex and elsewhere, helping them secure their reinstatement and the banishment of the king's Normans entourage. The repercussions of this antagonism helped bring about the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

The Domesday Book records that the largest landowners in Surrey (then Sudrie) at the end of Edward's reign were Chertsey Abbey and Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex and later king, followed by the estates of King Edward himself. 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. Given the vast and widespread landed interests and the national and international preoccupations of the monarchy and the earldom of Wessex, the Abbot of Chertsey was therefore probably the most important figure in the local elite.

The Anglo-Saxon period saw the emergence of the shire's internal division into 14 hundreds, which continued until Victorian era times. These were the hundreds of Blackheath, Brixton, Copthorne, Effingham Half-Hundred, Elmbridge, Farnham, Godalming, Godley, Kingston, Reigate, Tandridge, Wallington, Woking and Wotton.

• Wulfheard ()
• Huda (?–853)
• Æðelweard (late 10th century)
• Æðelmær (?–1016)

In 1088, King William II granted William de Warenne the title of Earl of Surrey as a reward for Warenne's loyalty during the rebellion that followed the death of William I. When the male line of the Warennes became extinct in the 14th century, the earldom was inherited by the Fitzalan Earls of Arundel. 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.

Guildford Castle, one of many fortresses originally established by the Normans to help them subdue the country, was rebuilt in stone and developed as a royal palace in the 12th century. Farnham Castle was built during the 12th century as a residence for the Bishop of Winchester, while other stone castles were constructed in the same period at Bletchingley by the de Clares and at Reigate Castle by the Warennes.

During King John's struggle with the barons, Magna Carta was issued in June 1215 at Runnymede near Egham. John's efforts to reverse this concession reignited the war, and in 1216 the barons invited Prince Louis of France to take the throne. Having landed in Kent and been welcomed in London, he advanced across Surrey to attack John, then at Winchester, occupying Reigate and Guildford castles along the way.

Guildford Castle later became one of the favourite residences of King Henry III, who considerably expanded the palace there. During the baronial revolt against Henry, in 1264 the rebel army of Simon de Montfort passed southwards through Surrey on their way to the Battle of Lewes in Sussex. Although the rebels were victorious, soon after the battle royal forces captured and destroyed Bletchingley Castle, whose owner Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Hertford and Gloucester, was de Montfort's most powerful ally.

By the 14th century, castles were of dwindling military importance, but remained a mark of social prestige, leading to the construction of castles at Starborough near Lingfield by Lord Cobham, and at Betchworth by John Fitzalan, whose father had recently inherited the Earldom of Surrey. Though Reigate and Bletchingley remained modest settlements, the role of their castles as local centres for the two leading aristocratic interests in Surrey had enabled them to gain Ancient borough status by the early 13th century. As a result, they gained representation in Parliament when it became established towards the end of that century, alongside the more substantial urban settlements of Guildford and Southwark. Surrey's third sizeable town, Kingston, despite its size, borough status and historical association with the monarchy, did not gain parliamentary representation until 1832.

Surrey had little political or economic significance in the Middle Ages. Its agricultural wealth was limited by the infertility of most of its soils, and it was not the main power-base of any important aristocratic family, nor the seat of a bishopric.Brandon and Short, The South East from AD 1000, pp. 8–10, 62–64, 127–131. The London suburb of Southwark was a major urban settlement, and the proximity of the capital boosted the wealth and population of the surrounding area, but urban development elsewhere was sapped by the overshadowing predominance of London and by the lack of direct access to the sea. Population pressure in the 12th and 13th centuries initiated the gradual clearing of the Weald, the forest spanning the borders of Surrey, Sussex and Kent, which had hitherto been left undeveloped due to the difficulty of farming on its heavy clay soil.

Surrey's most significant source of prosperity in the later Middle Ages was the production of woollen cloth, which emerged during that period as England's main export industry. The county was an early centre of English textile manufacturing, benefiting from the presence of deposits of fuller's earth, the rare mineral composite important in the process of finishing cloth, around Reigate and Nutfield. 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.

Though Surrey was not the scene of serious fighting in the various rebellions and civil wars of the period, armies from Kent heading for London via Southwark passed through what were then the extreme north-eastern fringes of Surrey during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and Cade's Rebellion in 1450, and at various stages of the Wars of the Roses in 1460, 1469 and 1471. The upheaval of 1381 also 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.

In 1082 a Cluniac abbey was founded at Bermondsey Abbey by Alwine, a wealthy English citizen of London. Waverley Abbey near Farnham, founded in 1128, was the first Cistercian monastery in England. Over the next quarter-century monks spread out from here to found new houses, creating a network of twelve monasteries descended from Waverley across southern and central England. The 12th and early 13th centuries also saw the establishment of Augustinian priories at Merton Priory, Newark Priory, Tandridge Priory, Southwark and Reigate. A Dominican Order friary was established at Guildford by Henry III's widow Eleanor of Provence, in memory of her grandson who had died at Guildford in 1274. In the 15th century a Carthusian priory was founded by King Henry V at Sheen Priory. These would all perish, along with the still important Benedictine abbey of Chertsey Abbey, in the 16th-century Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Now fallen into disuse, some English counties had nicknames for those raised there such as a Yorkshire, or a 'yellowbelly' from Lincolnshire. In the case of Surrey, the term was a 'Surrey capon', from Surrey's role in the later Middle Ages as the county where chickens were fattened up for the London meat markets.

During the Cornish Rebellion of 1497, the rebels heading for London briefly occupied Guildford and fought a skirmish with a government detachment on Guildown outside the town, before marching on to defeat at Blackheath in Kent. The forces of Wyatt's Rebellion in 1554 passed through what was then northeastern Surrey on their way from Kent to London, briefly occupying Southwark and then crossing the Thames at Kingston after failing to storm London Bridge.

Surrey's cloth industry declined in the 16th century and collapsed in the 17th, harmed by falling standards and competition from more effective producers in other parts of England. The iron industry in the Weald, whose rich deposits had been exploited since prehistoric times, expanded and spread from its base in Sussex into Kent and Surrey after 1550. New furnace technology stimulated further growth in the early 17th century, but this hastened the extinction of the business as the mines were worked out. However, this period also saw the emergence of important new industries, centred on the valley of the Tillingbourne, south-east of Guildford, which often adapted watermills originally built for the now moribund cloth industry. The production of brass goods and wire in this area was relatively short-lived, falling victim to competitors in the Midlands in the mid-17th century, but the manufacture of paper and gunpowder proved more enduring. For a time in the mid-17th century the Surrey mills were the main producers of gunpowder in England.

A glass industry also 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. The Wey Navigation, opened in 1653, was one of England's first canal systems.

George Abbot, the son of a Guildford clothworker, served as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1611–1633. In 1619 he founded Abbot's Hospital, an almshouse in Guildford, which is still operating. He also made unsuccessful efforts to revitalise the local cloth industry. One of his brothers, Robert, became Bishop of Salisbury, while another, Maurice Abbot, was a founding shareholder of the East India Company who became the company's Governor and later Lord Mayor of London.

Southwark expanded rapidly in this period, and by 1600, if considered as a separate entity, it was the second-largest urban area in England, behind only London itself. 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. Bankside was the scene of the golden age of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, with the work of playwrights including William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and John Webster performed in its playhouses. The leading actor and impresario Edward Alleyn founded the College of God's Gift in Dulwich with an endowment including an art collection, which was later expanded and opened to the public in 1817, becoming Britain's first public art gallery.

Surrey almost entirely escaped the direct impact of fighting during the main phase of the English Civil War in 1642–1646. The local Roundhead gentry led by Sir Richard Onslow were able to secure the county without difficulty on the outbreak of war. Farnham Castle was briefly occupied by the advancing Cavaliers in late 1642, but was easily stormed by the Parliamentarians under Sir William Waller. A new Royalist offensive in late 1643 saw skirmishing around Farnham between Waller's forces and Ralph Hopton's Royalists, but these brief incursions into the western fringes of Surrey marked the limits of Royalist advances on the county. At the end of 1643 Surrey combined with Kent, Sussex and Hampshire to form the South-Eastern Association, a military federation modelled on Parliament's existing Eastern Association.

In the uneasy peace that followed the Royalists' defeat, a political crisis in summer 1647 saw Sir Thomas Fairfax's New Model Army pass through Surrey on their way to occupy London, and subsequent billeting of troops in the county caused considerable discontent. During the brief Second Civil War of 1648, the Earl of Holland entered Surrey in July, hoping to ignite a Royalist revolt. He raised his standard at Kingston and advanced south, but found little support. After confused manoeuvres between Reigate and Dorking as Parliamentary troops closed in, his force of 500 men fled northwards and was overtaken and routed at Kingston.

Surrey had a central role in the history of the radical political movements unleashed by the civil war. In October 1647 the first manifesto of the movement that became known as the Levellers, The Case of the Armie Truly Stated, was drafted at Guildford by the Agitators of army regiments and civilian radicals from London. This document combined specific grievances with wider demands for constitutional change on the basis of popular sovereignty. It formed the template for the more systematic and radical Agreement of the People, drafted by the same men later that month. It also led to the Putney Debates shortly afterwards, in which its signatories met with Oliver Cromwell and other senior officers in the Surrey village of Putney, where the army had established its headquarters, to argue over the future political constitution of England. In 1649 the Diggers, led by Gerrard Winstanley, established their communal settlement at St. George's Hill near Weybridge to implement egalitarian ideals of common ownership, but were eventually driven out by the local landowners through violence and litigation. A smaller Digger commune was then established near Cobham, but suffered the same fate in 1650.

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. After the latter's death at the palace in 1818 it was sold. The White House was demolished about this time, but the Dutch House survives and is now a museum.

In 1765 the Richmond Theatre was built in Surrey under the supervision of David Garrick. It was modelled after the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and served as one of Surrey's main theatre's until it was demolished in 1884.

Until the modern era Surrey, apart from its northeastern corner, was quite sparsely populated in comparison with many parts of southern England, and remained somewhat rustic despite its proximity to the capital. Communications began to improve, and the influence of London to increase, with the development of Turnpike trust roads and a stagecoach system in the 18th century. A far more profound transformation followed with the arrival of the railways, beginning in the late 1830s. The availability of rapid transport enabled prosperous London workers to settle all across Surrey and travel daily to work in the capital. This phenomenon of commuting brought explosive growth to Surrey's population and wealth, and tied its economy and society inextricably to London.

There was rapid expansion in existing towns like Guildford, Farnham, and most spectacularly Croydon, while new towns such as Woking and Redhill emerged beside the railway lines. The huge numbers of incomers to the county and the transformation of rural, farming communities into a "commuter belt" contributed to a decline in the traditional local culture, including the gradual demise of the distinctive Surrey dialect. This may have survived among the "Surrey Men" into the late 19th century, but is now extinct.

Meanwhile, London itself spread swiftly across north-eastern Surrey. In 1800 it extended only to Vauxhall; a century later the city's growth had reached as far as Putney and Streatham. This expansion was reflected in the creation of the County of London in 1889, detaching the areas subsumed by the city from Surrey. The expansion of London continued in the 20th century, engulfing Croydon, Kingston and many smaller settlements. This led to a further contraction of Surrey in 1965 with the creation of Greater London, under the London Government Act 1963; however, Staines and Sunbury-on-Thames, previously in Middlesex, were transferred to Surrey, extending the county across the Thames. Surrey's boundaries were altered again in 1974 when Gatwick Airport was transferred to West Sussex.

In 1849 Brookwood Cemetery was established near Woking to serve the population of London, connected to the capital by its own railway service. It soon developed into the largest burial ground in the world. Woking was also the site of Britain's first crematorium, which opened in 1878, and its first mosque, founded in 1889. In 1881 Godalming became the first town in the world with a public electricity supply.

The eastern part of Surrey was transferred from the Diocese of Winchester to that of Rochester in 1877. In 1905 this area was separated to form a new Diocese of Southwark. The rest of the county, together with part of eastern Hampshire, was separated from Winchester in 1927 to become the Diocese of Guildford, whose cathedral was consecrated in 1961.

During the later 19th century Surrey became important in the development of architecture in Britain and the wider world. Its traditional building forms made a significant contribution to the vernacular revival architecture associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, and would exert a lasting influence. 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.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the demise of Surrey's long-standing industries manufacturing paper and gunpowder. Most of the county's paper mills closed in the years after 1870, and the last survivor shut in 1928. Gunpowder production fell victim to the First World War, which brought about a huge expansion of the British munitions industry, followed by sharp contraction and consolidation when the war ended, leading to the closure of the Surrey powder mills.

New industrial developments included the establishment of the vehicle manufacturers Dennis Brothers in Guildford in 1895. Beginning as a maker of bicycles and then of cars, the firm soon shifted into the production of commercial and utility vehicles, becoming internationally important as a manufacturer of fire engines and buses. Though much reduced in size and despite multiple changes of ownership, this business continues to operate in Guildford. Kingston and nearby Ham became a centre of aircraft manufacturing, with the establishment in 1912 of the Sopwith Aviation Company and in 1920 of its successor H.G. Hawker Engineering, which later became Hawker Aviation and then Hawker Siddeley.

During the Second World War a section of the GHQ Line, a system of pillboxes, gun emplacements, anti-tank obstacles and other fortifications, was constructed along the North Downs. This line, running from Somerset to Yorkshire, was intended as the principal fixed defence of London and the industrial core of England against the threat of invasion. German invasion plans envisaged that the main thrust of their advance inland would cross the North Downs at the gap in the ridge formed by the Wey valley, thus colliding with the defence line around Guildford.

Between the wars Croydon Airport, opened in 1920, served as the main airport for London, but it was superseded after the Second World War by Heathrow, and closed in 1959. Gatwick Airport, where commercial flights began in 1933, expanded greatly in the 1950s and 1960s, but the area occupied by the airport was transferred from Surrey to West Sussex in 1974.

In June 1972, British European Airways Flight 548 crashed near Staines just after taking off from Heathrow Airport. This remains the worst air accident in the UK.

Anglo-Saxon elements survive in a number of Surrey churches, notably at Guildford (St Mary), Godalming (St Peter & St Paul), Stoke D'Abernon (St Mary), Thursley, Witley, Compton and Albury (in Old Albury).Nairn, Pevsner and Cherry, The Buildings of England: Surrey, pp. 91, 166, 255–256, 273, 465, 484–485, 529.

Numerous medieval churches exist in Surrey, but the county's parish churches are typically relatively small and simple, and experienced particularly widespread destruction and remodelling of their form in the course of Victorian restoration. Important medievalSee their highest grade I listings when searching for the places on the English Heritage Listed Buildings map church interiors survive at Chaldon, Lingfield, Stoke D'Abernon, Compton and Dunsfold. Large monastic churches fell into ruin after their institutions were dissolved, although fragments of Waverley Abbey and Newark Priory survive. Southwark Priory, no longer in Surrey has survived, though much altered, and is now Southwark Cathedral. Farnham Castle largely retains its medieval structure, while the keep and fragments of the curtain walls and palace buildings survive at Guildford Castle.Nairn, Pevsner and Cherry, The Buildings of England: Surrey, pp. 25–35, 140–141, 166–168, 200–201, 347–349, 380–381, 465–469, 502–504.

Very little non-military secular architecture survives in Surrey from earlier than the 15th century. Wholly or partially surviving houses and barns from that century, with considerable later modifications, include those at Wanborough Manor, Bletchingley, Littleton, East Horsley, Ewhurst, Dockenfield, Lingfield, Limpsfield, Oxted, Crowhurst Place, Haslemere and Old Surrey Hall.Nairn, Pevsner and Cherry, The Buildings of England: Surrey, pp. 30, 35–36, 115–116, 177, 194, 227, 307, 344–345, 349–350, 352, 396, 403–404.

Major examples of Tudor period architecture include the grand mid-century country houses of Loseley Park and Sutton Place and the old building of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, founded in 1509.Nairn, Pevsner and Cherry, The Buildings of England: Surrey, pp. 278, 353–356, 476–479. A considerable number of smaller houses and of the 16th century are also still standing. From the 17th century the number of surviving buildings proliferates further. Abbot's Hospital, founded in 1619, is a grand edifice built in the Tudor style, despite its date. More characteristic examples of major 17th-century building include West Horsley Place, Slyfield Manor, and the Guildhall in Guildford.Nairn, Pevsner and Cherry, The Buildings of England: Surrey, pp. 36–40, 42–47, 275–276, 278–280, 459–460, 512–513.

For purposes other than local government the administrative county of Surrey and county borough of Croydon continued to form a "county of Surrey" to which a Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum (chief magistrate) and a High Sheriff were appointed.

Surrey had been administered from Newington since the 1790s, and the county council was initially based in the sessions house there. As Newington was included in the County of London, it lay outside the area administered by the council, and a site for a new county hall within the administrative county was sought. By 1890 six towns were being considered: Epsom, Guildford, Kingston, Redhill, Surbiton and Wimbledon. In 1891 it was decided to build the new County Hall at Kingston, and the building opened in 1893,David Robinson, History of County Hall, Surrey County Council but this site was also overtaken by the growing London conurbation, and by the 1930s most of the north of the county had been built over, becoming Outer London, although continuing to form part of Surrey administratively. In 1960 the report of the Herbert Commission recommended that much of north Surrey (including Kingston and Croydon) be included in a new "Greater London". These recommendations were enacted in highly modified form in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. The areas that now form the London Boroughs of Croydon, Kingston, Merton, and Sutton and that part of Richmond south of the River Thames, were transferred from Surrey to Greater London. At the same time part of the county of Middlesex, which had been abolished by the legislation, was added to Surrey. This area now forms the borough of Spelthorne.

Further local government reform under the Local Government Act 1972 took place in 1974. The 1972 Act abolished administrative counties and introduced non-metropolitan counties in their place. 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. It was originally proposed that the parishes of Horley and Charlwood would become part of West Sussex; however this met fierce local opposition and it was reversed by the Charlwood and Horley Act 1974.

As of 2 May 2019, the Conservative local councillors controlled 4 out of 11 councils in Surrey, the Liberal Democrats controlled Mole Valley, the Residents Associations of Epsom and Ewell controlled Epsom and Ewell, and the remaining 5 are in No Overall Control. Of the five No Overall Control councils, Elmbridge and Waverley were both run by coalitions of Residents and Liberal Democrats, Guildford was run by a Liberal Democrats minority administration, and Tandridge and Woking were both run by Conservative minority administrations.

The Conservatives held all 11 Parliamentary constituencies within the county borders.

Surrey has more organisation and company headquarters than any other county in the UK. Electronics manufacturers Canon, Toshiba, Samsung and Philips are housed here, as are distributors Burlodge, Future Electronics, Kia Motors and Toyota UK, the medico-pharma companies Pfizer and Sanofi-Aventis and oil giant Esso. Some of the largest fast-moving consumer goods multinationals in the world have their UK and/or European headquarters here, including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Superdrug, Nestlé, SC Johnson, Kimberly-Clark and Colgate-Palmolive. NGOs including WWF UK & Compassion in World Farming are also based here.

• M25 (London Orbital) runs through the county, including a long cutting into the Reigate scarp of the North Downs and has 8 junctions in the county.
  It connects among others to the M1, M11, M20, M26, M4 and M40. The motorway runs close to Heathrow Airport and the motorway network can be used to access Gatwick, Stansted and Luton Airport Airports and the Channel Tunnel motor vehicle service.
• M3 crosses the north-west of the county. It connects London to Southampton and the South West of England having in Surrey the Sunbury-on-Thames, M25 interchange and the Lightwater and Bagshot junctions.
• M23 (north–south) in effect connects Croydon to Brighton as the dualled A23 trunk road to the north and beyond Crawley. It has junction to a spur to Gatwick Airport on the Surrey/Sussex border. It has a Surrey junction, the M25 Merstham interchange, close to the Reigate M25 junction.

Other major roads include:

• The A3 trunk road from Portsmouth to London. The road now bypasses and historically assisted in the growth of Haslemere, Godalming, Guildford, Esher and Kingston upon Thames. The Hindhead Tunnel bypasses a former bottleneck at Hindhead and the Devil's Punchbowl.
• The A24 from London to Littlehampton and Worthing. In Surrey, it passes through or around Ewell, Epsom, Ashtead, Leatherhead and Dorking. It passes Box Hill, near Dorking. Unlike the A3, which is almost completely dual carriageway, the A24 is, apart from a central Surrey stretch, single carriageway; it bypasses Leatherhead, Dorking and Horsham.
• The A31 trunk road heads west from Guildford to Bere Regis via Farnham and is connected to the M3 near Winchester and via the A331 near Aldershot. It is dual carriageway along the Hog's Back from the A3 to Farnham. It is one of the ancient routes from London to Winchester, see Pilgrims' Way.
• The short A331 connects the A31 to the M3. It runs along the Surrey-Hampshire border, bypassing Aldershot, Frimley and Farnborough.

There are many railway lines in the county, those of note include the Waterloo to Reading Line, South West Main Line, Portsmouth Direct Line, Sutton and Mole Valley Lines (from Horsham, West Sussex itself on the Arun Valley Line from Littlehampton) and the Brighton Main Line.

The Waterloo to Reading Line calls at , , and in Surrey. The South West Main Line calls at and up to six other Surrey stops including . The Portsmouth Direct Line is significant in linking , and to the South West Main Line at Woking. The Sutton and Mole Valley Lines link , , , to Waterloo via or London Victoria via . The Brighton Main Line calls at and before reaching either London Bridge or London Victoria. is on the east–west North Downs Line.

Consequently, the towns Staines, Woking, Guildford, Walton-on-Thames, Epsom and Ewell and Reigate and Redhill, statistically the largest examples, are established rapid-transit commuter towns for Central London. The above routes have had a stimulative effect. The relative development of Surrey at the time of the Beeching cuts led to today's retention of numerous other commuter routes except the Cranleigh Line, all with direct services to London, including:

1. Chertsey Line linking the first two of the above national routes via and
2. New Guildford Line via and from
3. Hampton Court Branch Line to via from Surbiton
4. Branch Line via Sunbury
5. Ascot to Guildford Line via , , into Hampshire via Aldershot and back into Surrey to serve , and .
6. Alton Line calls at the far southwest Surrey town, .
7. Epsom Downs Branch from Sutton and then Belmont in Greater London to and .
8. Tattenham Corner Branch Line calls at , and .
9. Oxted Line calls at and .
10. Redhill to Tonbridge Line serves and .

The only diesel route is the east–west North Downs Line, which runs from Reading via Guildford, , and Redhill.

The major stations in the county are Guildford (8.0 million passengers), Woking (7.4 million passengers), Epsom (3.6 million passengers), Redhill (3.6 million passengers) and Staines (2.9 million passengers).

Fairoaks Airport on the edge of Chobham and Ottershaw is from Woking town centre and operates as a private airfield with two training schools and is home to other aviation businesses.

Redhill Aerodrome is also in Surrey.

• The University of Surrey is based in Guildford
• The University for the Creative Arts (UCA) has campuses in Farnham and Epsom
• Royal Holloway, University of London is based in Egham
• The University of Law has a campus in Guildford
• The Guildford School of Acting is located on the Surrey University campus

• Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex
• Surrey Police
• British Transport Police
• South East Coast Ambulance Service
• Surrey Fire & Rescue Service
• SURSAR

More manicured landscapes can be seen at Claremont Landscape Garden, south of Esher (dating from 1715). There is also Winkworth Arboretum southeast of Godalming and Windlesham Arboretum near Lightwater created in the 20th century. Wisley is home to the Royal Horticultural Society gardens. Kew, historically part of Surrey but now in Greater London, features the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, as well as The National Archives for England & Wales.

There are 80 Surrey Wildlife Trust reserves with at least one in all 11 non-metropolitan districts.[2] Surrey Wildlife Trust reserves

Surrey's important country houses include the Tudor period mansion of Loseley Park, built in the 1560s and Clandon House, an 18th-century Palladian mansion in West Clandon to the east of Guildford. Nearby Hatchlands Park in East Clandon, was built in 1758 with Robert Adam interiors and a collection of keyboard instruments. Polesden Lacey south of Great Bookham is a regency villa with extensive grounds. On a smaller scale, Oakhurst Cottage in Hambledon near Godalming is a restored 16th-century worker's home. Shalford Mill on the River Tillingbourne, is an 18th-century water-mill.

A canal system, the Wey and Godalming Navigations is administered at Dapdune Wharf in Guildford, where an exhibition commemorates the work of the canal system and is home to a restored Wey barge, the Reliance. The Wey and Arun Canal is being restored by volunteers with hopes of a future full reopening.

Runnymede at Egham is the site of the sealing of Magna Carta in 1215.

Guildford Cathedral is a 20th-century cathedral built from bricks made from the clay of the hill on which it stands.

Brooklands Museum recognises the motoring and aeronautical past of Surrey. The county is also home to the Thorpe Park theme park.

• Cricket makes its first appearance in history in Surrey, in a reference to the game being played at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford in the 16th century (see History of English cricket to 1696). Mitcham Cricket Club, formed in 1685 and the oldest documented club in the game's history, was within Surrey's borders until 1965. The Surrey County Cricket Club has been based at The Oval in Kennington, now part of Greater London, since its foundation in 1845. The club also uses Whitgift School in South Croydon and Woodbridge Road in Guildford for some games. It was one of the original participants in the County Championship and has won the competition 19 times outright and once jointly, more than any other county except Yorkshire.
• Epsom Downs Racecourse is the venue for the most prestigious event in British flat horse-racing, the Epsom Derby, which has been held there most years since 1780. Surrey is also home to Lingfield, Kempton and Sandown Park Racecourses, presenting an unusually high concentration in one county.See List of horse racing venues
• Brooklands between Woking and Weybridge was the world's first purpose-built motorsport race circuit, opened in 1907. The headquarters of the McLaren Formula One team are at Woking. James Hunt, the 1976 Formula 1 World Driver's Champion was born in Belmont, Sutton, then part of Surrey, in 1947.
• The All England Lawn Tennis Club, venue for the Wimbledon Championships, and the headquarters of the Lawn Tennis Association were within Surrey until 1965.
• Surrey's leading Rugby union club, Esher RFC, currently compete in the National League 1, the third tier of English rugby. Harlequins F.C. and Harlequins Women train at the Surrey Sports Park in Guildford.
• Surrey is one of a handful of English counties with no teams in the top 92 football teams, the Football League. Its leading team is Woking, currently playing in the fifth-tier National League.
• Surrey is home to the ice hockey team the Guildford Flames, who compete in the top-tier Elite Ice Hockey League.
• The basketball team Surrey Scorchers, based in Guildford, play in the top tier of British basketball, the British Basketball League.
• The netball team Surrey Storm, based in Guildford play in the Netball Superleague. They are the franchise for the Greater London area and the South East.
• Golf has been played in the county since before 1900 most notably as international venue Wentworth Club; by 2013 a 142nd co-existing Surrey golf course was in planning consultation; 141 were recorded by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
• Rowing clubs include Molesey (with an elite development programme hosting several leading British Rowing crews), Walton, (one of the UK's top clubs in the junior category), Weybridge, Weybridge Ladies, Weybridge Mariners, Burway, Staines and Guildford whose top female quad boat won Henley Women's in 2012.
• Volleyball teams include British Airways, Friends Provident and Guildford International Volleyball Club (whose elite men's team has won the 1st of the 4 National Divisions), while twelve clubs in Surrey and three in south-west Greater London compete in the Surrey Volleyball League.

Chelsea F.C. practice at the Cobham Training Centre located in the village of Stoke d'Abernon near Cobham, Surrey. The training ground was built in 2004 and officially opened in 2007.

The county is the setting of the fictional town of Little Whinging, where Harry Potter was raised in the books by JK Rowling.