It is on the left bank of the River Wey, around two miles (three kilometres) east of the town of Woking and just south of West Byfleet; the M25 motorway is northeast of the edge of the former parish.

The village sits on raised mixed heath soil, and has historical links with the abbey at Westminster, in whose possession it remained between the Norman conquest in 1066 and the Dissolution of the Monasteries nearly five hundred years later.

Pyrford is mentioned in The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells, in which it is near the landing site of the third of ten Martian invasion cylinders.

Early in World War II, due to the risk of enemy air attack, the Vickers Armstrongs aircraft factory at nearby Brooklands had a dispersed facility known as Depot No.

Post-war, one of these hangars was occupied by a factory making electrical switches and the other was used as a temporary store for historic aeroplanes by the national Science Museum until Autumn 1958; these premises were finally demolished and redeveloped for new housing in the late 1980s.

W40 and used for 'aircraft dispersal' - presumably for Vickers Wellington bombers moved there by road before completion and delivery to the Royal Air Force from Brooklands.

July 2012 saw Pyrford's inclusion in what has become the standard version of the London-Surrey cycle classic used in the Summer Olympic Games.

The school is located on Coldharbour Road and has current Ofsted rating of Outstanding[9] since last inspection in January 2013, with 480 students on roll.

Owing to an old law, and covenants on land controlled by religious sects, Pyrford had no public house, but there are a few such establishments quite close by.

Well known former PCC players include former Zimbabwe captain Tatenda Taibu, New Zealand wicketkeeper Gareth Hopkins and Sky Sports presenter Charles "Got Him" Colvile.

A public bridleway crosses the golf course linking Pyrford Road to the Wey Navigation Canal.