The site of Surgères was occupied in Neolithic times, but the earliest recorded history comes from the Middle Ages.

The Duke of Aquitaine wanted to guard his lands in Aunis against Norman invasion, so he built a stone and wood defence on the marshes, a bridgehead against the invaders which was known as Latin: Castrum Surgeriacum.

At the end of the 10th century, the Counts of Poitiers started to acquire power in Aunis and appointed Guillaume Maingot to take charge of the fortress and part of the lands around it.

In 1152 Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry II of England, thus putting her lands including Surgères into English hands.

Coming back under French rule with Saint Louis IX of France, the English took the town in a surprise raid in 1332 during the Hundred Years' War.

Queen Catherine de' Medici encouraged the affair between the fifty-year-old Ronsard and the beautiful Hélène, so that she could be part of the royal court as one of the ladies-in-waiting.

A coveted stronghold, it was occupied by Calvinists and then by Catholic troops after the fall of La Rochelle in 1628, when Cardinal Richelieu knocked down its ramparts.

After the French Revolution of 1789, life in this little village became feudal with the domination of a rural bourgeoisie who took, as in all of France, a good deal of the lands of the Dukes of Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville, later Lords of Surgères.

To the north lies the town of Saint-Georges-du-Bois, to the northwest Puyravault and Vouhé, to the west Péré, to the southwest Saint-Germain-de-Marencennes, to the south Vandré, to the southeast Breuil-la-Réorte, to the east Saint-Mard, and to the northeast Saint-Saturnin-du-Bois.

Surgères is in the north of the department of Charente-Maritime, equidistant from the towns of Niort, La Rochelle, Rochefort and Saint-Jean-d'Angély.

[15] Surgères has a temperate climate but in December 1999, like all of the department, was hit by the second European windstorm of the season, codenamed Martin.

It is part of the program of Gares en mouvement, which aims to modernise the largest stations of the SNCF (French National Railway Company).

The "Glac" (French: Groupement des Laiteries Coopératives, "Group of Dairy Co-operatives") distribute many brands of butter, milk and cheese such as Bougon, Saint-Loup, Lescure, Surgères, Le Petit Vendéen and Mottin charentais.

With its brand Saint-Loup, the Glac is the shirt sponsor of the Chamois Niortais when they play at home, and has been a partner in the club for many years.

[22] The dairy industry was started by Eugène Biraud after the Phylloxera crisis, with the first co-operative created in 1888 in an old distillery at Chaillé, to the northwest of Surgères.

This band won a Palme d'Or in the 2008 festival at Condom, Gers and have long accompanied the town's rugby team.