Nostalgic memories of West Byfleet's local history

Share your own memories of West Byfleet and read what others have said

For many years now, we've been inviting visitors to our web site to add their own memories to share their experiences of life as it was when the photographs in our archive were taken. From brief one-liners explaining a little bit more about the image depicted, to great, in-depth accounts of a childhood when things were rather different than today (and everything inbetween!). We've had many contributors recognising themselves or loved ones in our photographs.

Why not add your memory today and become part of our Memories Community to help others in the future delve back into their past.

A couple at a laptop

Add a Memory!

It's easy to add your own memories and reconnect with your shared local history. Search for your favourite places and look for the 'Add Your Memory' buttons to begin

Tips & Ideas

Not sure what to write? It's easy - just think of a place that brings back a memory for you and write about:

  • How the location features in your personal history?
  • The memories this place inspires for you?
  • Stories about the community, its history and people?
  • People who were particularly kind or influenced your time in the community.
  • Has it changed over the years?
  • How does it feel, seeing these places again, as they used to look?

This week's Places

Here are some of the places people are talking about in our Share Your Memories community this week:

...and hundreds more!

Enjoy browsing more recent contributions now.

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I remember the Portman. Very polite helpful staff. Used to pop over from Heathrow to open up bonds with very good interest. It all seems like a dream now!
My Mum and Dad used to take my sister and I to ‘The Green Room’ tea shop too, usually on a Saturday morning. We used to enjoy a large homemade shortbread biscuit! I remember the animal charity box at the door too, it was of 3 kittens!! Also the sisters who ran the shop. There were always postcards in the window for kittens for sale, and being a lover of cats I eventually persuaded my mum and dad to let us ...see more
There tea room had a slot charity animal in the door way outside, our grandmother used to give us small change to post in it. The coins made a satisfactory clunk as they reached the bottom, or so it seemed when I was young. For special treat inside Nan would order a cake stand with a selection of cakes, sandwiches and flapjacks ( my absolute favourite, being chewy and hard) One was only sposed to eat what one ...see more
This hospital played a big part in my childhood. My sister spent several weeks there after suffering a severe cut to her knee in the 1960s, her godmother worked there as a physiotherapist, and not long before it closed, my mum was there as a patient after breaking her hip in 1989. I went there for an X-ray and treatment after breaking my finger about 1964, and I also worked there while a student as a ...see more
If you look closely, just behind the R.A.C. sign, you can see a sign for The Green Room, which was a delightful little tea room run by two sisters I think. It was very elegant and seemed to belong to another time altogether. I have a very distant and cherished memory of having a morning coffee there with my mother around 1967 when I was six years old, but no one I have ever spoken to can remember the place. This ...see more
I LIVED IN Scotland Bridge Road, New Haw, just down the road from West Byfleet. I attended WB primary school and then briefly the secondary school before I went to Woking Grammar. These were very happy days. I worked from the age of 11 at Dix and Normans butchers in Station approach where I earned a shilling for wrapping the meat and then graduated to gutting chickens! Those were the days when you took ...see more
Not exactly a memory, but I can advise you that I was born at Highfield Maternity Hospital in Highfield Rd on Saturday, 28 September 1946. As the local hospital at Rotherhithe, in London's docklands, had been war-damaged, parts of it were not in use, and there were, of course, many expectant mothers in 1946. My mother was 33, expecting her first [and only] child, so she was evacuated to Dorin Court, ...see more
My first "job" in England in July 1966 was at The Rowley Bristow Hospital! I remember very well when Mr. Graham Apley came to the station to pick me up in his Jaguar. I worked there for the next 18 months or so also doing work at the Woking Victoria and Chertsey Accident Center. I have been a surgeon for over 40 years now (since then) and I still have vivid memories of Rowley Bristow. One of my ...see more
I am currently collecting records of memories of members and relative memorabilia of those people who attended the youth club at West Byfleet. If there are any members out there who would like to contribute to the exhibition that will be held sometime in April onwards, please contact me at arfairlie@ntlworld.com or phone me on 01932 343618. Thank you. Alan Fairlie
I don't know the exact year the library was built in West Byfleet, only that it opened the flood-gates for me & I would be the first to campaign against closing libraries, thanks to this inclusion to 1960s West Byfleet. The fact that it was circular encompassed that feeling of 'modernism': I was able to wallow in so many stories, fact & fiction, all for free!! It even lent LPs to play on my little Dansette ...see more