Dorking

proposed line from Redhill to Dorking was suggested in 1845. Parliamentary approval was given on 16 July 1846. At first it was suggested that the railway station should be built adjacent to St Martin’s Church in ‘The Lordship’ (see picture 53332A on pages 48-49), now known as Meadow Bank Recreation Ground. By 1849 the railway was running a service from east to west, and Dorking Town station was the first to be built at the edge of the town. The line was principally built for freight traffic.
An extract from from"Dorking Town and City Memories".

in boxes of straw. There would also have been hare and rabbit, shot or snared by the local gamekeepers and their labourers — rabbit was generally consumed by the working classes. Goats were also farmed and sold in great numbers. Dorking had a thriving corn market from the beginning of the 17th century, which was held on Thursdays. Much of the market trade was performed in the public houses which lined the High Street.
An extract from from"Dorking Town and City Memories".

A Wesleyan church stood in South Street but was demolished in the late 1960s. John Wesley visited Dorking in January 1764 on one of many visits that he made to the town. Meetings were first held at the Red Lion Hotel until a meeting house was established in Church Street; it still stands in the car park of the King’s Arms. The Baptist church is in regular use in Junction Road.
An extract from from"Dorking Town and City Memories".

A fine view of a house whose gardens were compared by John Aubrey with ‘the kingdom of heaven’. It was rebuilt by the art collector Thomas Hope who had inherited it in 1807, and Disraeli wrote most of ‘Coningsby’ here in 1844. The house was used by the Railways in the Second World War, but was demolished in 1968.
An extract from from"Surrey Photographic Memories".

he lost mansion of Deepdene, owned by Lord Francis Hope, once stood near the busy A24. The Howard family first owned the estate as far back as the middle of the 17th century. Henry Frederick, Earl of Arundel, Surrey and Norfolk left his estate to his fourth son, Charles Howard of Greystoke, when he died in 1652. Charles Howard landscaped the gardens in Cromwell’s time; they were laid out in the form of an amphitheatre, with a garden terrace and an open-air conservatory of flowers and rare plants, and were visited with admiration by John Evelyn, who declared that ‘the site is worthy of Cowley’s muse’. (Abraham Cowley was a distinguished poet during the Civil War era). Thomas Hope (of the Hope Diamond fame), the son of a wealthy Amsterdam merchant, took possession of the mansion in 1808. He spared no expense in improving the structure, interior and grounds. In its later years, the house became a hotel, which was bought in 1939 by the Southern Railway Co. Although a Grade III listed building, it was demolished in 1969 to make way for offices and businesses. Henry Talbot created Chart Park in 1746. (However, in 1694, the Hon Charles Howard, owner of the land at Deepdene, had originally planted seven acres of the south-facing slope of the area as a vineyard. At this time, Charles Howard had a house built at the base of the slope known as the Vineyard). Talbot was a merchant, who had become wealthy from several voyages to China with the East India Company. Talbot built a substantial house, and created a hanging garden on the side of a hill. The mansion was demolished, and the land was sold by Thomas Hope in 1814. Much of the land purchased by Talbot is now occupied by Dorking Golf Club; the golf course was built and landscaped in 1897. In the photograph of Chart Lane, the steps on the left lead to The Temple in the Deepdene estate.
An extract from from"Dorking Town and City Memories".