Spencer's Unofficial guide to - Woking

If you're a newcomer to Woking chances are you're here as a result of one of the new large offices Ernst & Young, Telewest, etc. or just taking advantage of the quick train route into Waterloo (or is that SWT who are taking advantage of you ?). First impressions of Woking are that it is modern and reasonably lively, in fact if you suggest to a Woking-lifer that the town is boring they'll soon point out how much worse it was before the development of Chertsey Road as a central night-spot and before the Peacocks centre was built. Of course these people are deluding themselves if they think Woking is in the same league as neighbour Guildford in terms of character, identity and general 'coolness'.

"Woking - Sparkling Entertainment" - sign on Station sub-way

Its hardly surprising that Woking is image-challenged considering its history as a terminus for funeral trains carrying corpses up to Brookwood cemetery from London. More recently it earned further dubious accolade as the site of the first UK crematorium (and is still legally licensed to hold open air cremations). Arguably the 'real' Woking is what is now called Old Woking although the remaining old bit is confined to such a small area in an otherwise dense residential development as to warrant challenging under the trade descriptions act.

And what has Woking to be proud of ? Well its home to what was Europe's biggest housing estate (Goldsworth Park) of course. Great. Its no wonder that so much reliance is placed on one H.G.Wells for identity even though he only lived in the borough for a year and during that time wrote a novel about its destruction by Martians.

Oh well you're here now so like the rest of us you'll just have to try and make the best of a poor deal, which is where these pages could come in handy. There must be things to do here you might suspect, after all there's a tourist information office and a large hotel ! I'll let you make your own conclusions on that one. In the meantime check out my guide to some of what Woking is at least OK at, namely...