WOKING'S HISTORY DISTRICT BY DISTRICT
Knaphill, St. Johns and Brookwood
The western extreme of the ancient parish of Woking included the hamlet of ‘la Cnappe’ in 1225, with the vast and ancient wood at ‘Brocwude’ - first recorded in 1225. In later years the ‘Hermitage’ of Brookwood was recorded (1352), but it was not until the 1840s, when a Chapel of Ease was opened in the ‘Kiln Bridge’ area, that the village of ‘St Johns’ got its name. All have changed greatly since they were first recorded, but each still retains something of its former character - the old 16th century houses at the foot of Anchor Hill, Knaphill; the open heaths and wood of Sheets Heath and Brookwood Common; and the large Victorian and Edwardian properties of St Johns Hill.
Postcard of Connaught Road, BrookwoodBut in Victorian times the three villages had another, less inviting, reputation as the home of ‘the mad, the bad and the sad’! The first part came from the Surrey County Asylum - Brookwood Hospital - which was built at Knaphill in the 1860s. The second part comes from the Woking Invalid Convict Prison - later converted into Inkerman Barracks - which was built between Knaphill and St Johns in the late 1850s. And as for the ‘sad’ - they obviously refer to the mourners at both the Crematorium in St Johns (the oldest in the country) and Brookwood Cemetery (the largest in Western Europe). The cemetery and ‘crem’ are still here, but the prison and hospital have both been swept away by modern developments, although at both sites some of the old Victorian buildings have been preserved and turned into much sought-after properties.
It was the development of the area by the Necropolis Company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which led to the growth of the three villages.
Postcard of Hermitage Road, St JohnsKnaphill, the ancient squatter settlement on the edge of Woking Common, grew to serve the various local institutions and eventually became the main shopping centre for villages beyond the borough bounds, such as Bisley and the outlying parts of Chobham. Today, despite outside pressures, Knaphill continues to retain a remarkable variety of retail units and there can hardly be any type of cuisine that is not catered for in one of the area’s many eateries and public houses.
St Johns, although benefiting from some limited growth due to the canal, the brick-fields and the nurseries, also developed to serve the prison and later the barracks in Victorian and Edwardian times. Here the retention of St Johns Lye, part of the former Woking Common, has provided the area with a wonderful natural ‘lung’, which is complemented by the Basingstoke Canal and St Johns Conservation areas.
The Crematorium in SpringEven at Brookwood, which did not even exist as a village until after the main line station was opened in 1864, some of the development seems to have been influenced by institutions beyond our bounds - the National Rifle Association’s ranges at Bisley Camp and the Barracks at Pirbright. Development at Brookwood has, however, always been restricted, sandwiched between the railway and the canal - with the vast expanse of the cemetery to the south of the railway and the equally vast expanse of Sheets Heath to the north of the canal!
The pages on The Basingstoke Canal, The Railway, Brookwood Cemetery & The Necropolis, Victorian and Edwardian Institutions, and Famous People deal with more information about those subjects.
Booklets.
The Woking Community Play Association’s book ‘Changing Woking - 1900-1929’ contains a wealth of information on the Knaphill, St Johns and Brookwood areas.
Booklets on ‘The Prehistory of the Borough of Woking’, ‘The Place Names of Woking’, ‘The Institutions of West Woking’ and ‘Famous People from Woking’s Past’, as well as ‘Heritage Notes’ on Brookwood, Knaphill and St Johns, are available - please see the list of publication on the HERITAGE WALKS page.
