Agriculture not being intensive, there are many commons and access lands, together with an extensive network of footpaths and bridleways including the North Downs Way, a scenic long-distance path.

As a result of the 1965 boundary changes, many of the Surrey boroughs on the south bank of the river were transferred to Greater London, shortening the length associated with the county.

[37] Two years later the men of Surrey marched into Kent to help their Kentish neighbours fight a raiding force at Thanet, but suffered heavy losses including their ealdorman, Huda.

[37] In 892 Surrey was the scene of another major battle when a large Danish army, variously reported at 200, 250 and 350 ship-loads, moved west from its encampment in Kent and raided in Hampshire and Berkshire.

[39][40] The renewed Danish attacks during the disastrous reign of Æthelred led to the devastation of Surrey by the army of Thorkell the Tall, which ravaged all of southeastern England in 1009–1011.

This hostility peaked in 1051, when Godwin and his sons were driven into exile; returning the following year, the men of Surrey rose to support them, along with those of Sussex, Kent, Essex and elsewhere, helping them secure their reinstatement and the banishment of the king's Norman entourage.

[n 1] Given the vast and widespread landed interests and the national and international preoccupations of the monarchy and the earldom of Wessex, the Abbot of Chertsey was therefore probably the most important figure in the local elite.

These were the hundreds of Blackheath, Brixton, Copthorne, Effingham Half-Hundred, Elmbridge, Farnham, Godalming, Godley, Kingston, Reigate, Tandridge, Wallington, Woking and Wotton.

Guildford Castle, one of many fortresses originally established by the Normans to help them subdue the country, was rebuilt in stone and developed as a royal palace in the 12th century.

Though Reigate and Bletchingley remained modest settlements, the role of their castles as local centres for the two leading aristocratic interests in Surrey had enabled them to gain borough status by the early 13th century.

Population pressure in the 12th and 13th centuries initiated the gradual clearing of the Weald, the forest spanning the borders of Surrey, Sussex and Kent, which had hitherto been left undeveloped due to the difficulty of farming on its heavy clay soil.

The county was an early centre of English textile manufacturing, benefiting from the presence of deposits of fuller's earth, the rare mineral composite important in the process of finishing cloth, around Reigate and Nutfield.

During the Cornish Rebellion of 1497, the rebels heading for London briefly occupied Guildford and fought a skirmish with a government detachment on Guildown outside the town, before marching on to defeat at Blackheath in Kent.

The production of brass goods and wire in this area was relatively short-lived, falling victim to competitors in the Midlands in the mid-17th century, but the manufacture of paper and gunpowder proved more enduring.

[65] Bankside was the scene of the golden age of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, with the work of playwrights including William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and John Webster performed in its playhouses.

[67] In the uneasy peace that followed the Royalists' defeat, a political crisis in summer 1647 saw Sir Thomas Fairfax's New Model Army pass through Surrey on their way to occupy London, and subsequent billeting of troops in the county caused considerable discontent.

In 1649 the Diggers, led by Gerrard Winstanley, established their communal settlement at St. George's Hill near Weybridge to implement egalitarian ideals of common ownership, but were eventually driven out by the local landowners through violence and litigation.

[68][69] Prior to the Reform Act 1832, Surrey returned fourteen Members of Parliament (MPs), two representing the county and two each from the six boroughs of Bletchingley, Gatton, Guildford, Haslemere, Reigate and Southwark.

[75][76] The huge numbers of incomers to the county and the transformation of rural, farming communities into a "commuter belt" contributed to a decline in the traditional local culture, including the gradual demise of the distinctive Surrey dialect.

Its traditional building forms made a significant contribution to the vernacular revival architecture associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, and would exert a lasting influence.

The prominence of Surrey peaked in the 1890s, when it was the focus for globally important developments in domestic architecture, in particular the early work of Edwin Lutyens, who grew up in the county and was greatly influenced by its traditional styles and materials.

Beginning as a maker of bicycles and then of cars, the firm soon shifted into the production of commercial and utility vehicles, becoming internationally important as a manufacturer of fire engines and buses.

During the Second World War a section of the GHQ Stop Line, a system of pillboxes, gun emplacements, anti-tank obstacles and other fortifications, was constructed along the North Downs.

German invasion plans envisaged that the main thrust of their advance inland would cross the North Downs at the gap in the ridge formed by the Wey valley, thus colliding with the defence line around Guildford.

Wholly or partially surviving houses and barns from that century, with considerable later modifications, include those at Wanborough Manor,[90] Bletchingley, Littleton, East Horsley, Ewhurst, Dockenfield, Lingfield, Limpsfield, Oxted, Crowhurst Place, Haslemere and Old Surrey Hall.

[91] Major examples of 16th-century architecture include the grand mid-century country houses of Loseley Park and Sutton Place and the old building of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, founded in 1509.

Some of the largest fast-moving consumer goods multinationals in the world have their UK and/or European headquarters here, including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Superdrug, Nestlé, SC Johnson, Kimberly-Clark and Colgate-Palmolive.

First Berkshire & The Thames Valley operates a RailAir coach service from Guildford and Woking to Heathrow Airport and there are early-until-late buses to nearby Surrey towns.

Fairoaks Airport on the edge of Chobham and Ottershaw is 2.3 miles (3.7 km) from Woking town centre and operates as a private airfield with two training schools and is home to other aviation businesses.

Brooklands College offers aerospace and automotive design, engineering and allied study courses reflecting the aviation and motor industry leading UK research and maintenance hubs nearby.