List of places of worship in Elmbridge

Various Christian denominations operate 48 churches, chapels and meeting houses across the borough, and there are two synagogues; a further 12 buildings no longer serve a religious function but survive in alternative uses.

A congregation of Korean Presbyterians meets in the town of Weybridge, and synagogues serve Jews of both the Liberal tradition and the Movement for Reform Judaism.

[5] Elmbridge is located in the north of the county of Surrey in southeast England, adjacent to Greater London.

West Molesey, Hersham and Cobham each had a population of roughly 12,000 in the same year, while Esher and Thames Ditton each had around 8,000 residents.

Smaller settlements, in decreasing order of population, are Claygate, East Molesey, Long Ditton, Hinchley Wood, Oxshott, Stoke d'Abernon and Weston Green.

Proximity to London, the airports at Gatwick and Heathrow and the M25 motorway, low crime and good-quality schools make it an expensive place to live: it has been described as "Britain's Beverly Hills".

At Cobham, St Andrew's Church retains its Norman tower, and much of the other work dates from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.

[10] Parts of the chancel and nave at St Mary's Church in nearby Stoke d'Abernon are even older, dating from the Saxon period, and Roman brickwork has been reused in the walls.

[12] St Mary's Church at Walton-on-Thames retains some Norman-era fabric, but much of the structure dates from the 14th and 15th centuries.

Holy Trinity Church at Claygate, initially a chapel of ease to Thames Ditton but separately parished within a year, opened in 1840.

[13] Anglican services were held in a school in the village of Oxshott[note 1] in Stoke d'Abernon parish during the 19th century.

[21] Other 20th-century churches opened at Weston Green in 1939,[22] succeeding a mission chapel of 1901,[12] and Hinchley Wood and the southern part of Walton-on-Thames after World War II.

[24] The historic centre for Roman Catholic worship in the area was Woburn Park,[25] a house and country estate between Addlestone and Weybridge.

[26][note 3] This was owned by Philip Southcote and included a Catholic chapel served by priests from the Dominican Order, but it closed when the estate was sold to a non-Catholic in 1815.

In 1836 a Catholic landowner and architect, James Taylor, built a new chapel on his land; this tiny building later became the sacristy of a new, much larger church dedicated to St Charles Borromeo and opened in 1881.

[28][29] At West Molesey, a house was converted into a mission chapel and opened in September 1905;[30] it was succeeded by a tin tabernacle and then by the present St Barnabas' Church, built in 1931.

This led to services being held in the billiard-room of a house, succeeded in 1864 by the present 350-capacity Gothic Revival church[50] (described as "ferocious" by Nikolaus Pevsner).

[51] For many years there was also a Congregational church at Hersham serving both the village and nearby Walton-on-Thames: the circular yellow-brick building opened in 1844 and was altered and extended in 1858, 1864 and 1889.

[58] A tin tabernacle was erected for Baptists in East Molesey in 1885[60] and replaced with a permanent building the following year,[61] and in 1906 a chapel was registered in Walton-on-Thames.

[72] A much older cause is the Quaker meeting house in Esher, which was established in the 1790s and which has experienced minimal alteration since it was built.

Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism had a lower following in the borough than in the country overall: in 2011, 5.02% of people in England were Muslim, 1.52% were Hindu and 0.79% were Sikh.

The proportions of people in Elmbridge claiming adherence to another religion or no religious affiliation were also lower than the national figures of 0.43% and 24.74%.

[84] The churches are at Claygate,[note 7] Cobham, East Molesey, Hersham, Thames Ditton, Walton-on-Thames and Weybridge.