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Exhibitions and Events

Wonders of West End
August 11th - January 29th 2011

From August 11th 2010 until January 29th 2011, Surrey Heath Museum will be turning the spotlight on West End. This historic village originated as a series of scattered settlements, with small farmsteads and cottages. Its name derives from the fact that it was the "west end" of Chobham; the village only gained its own Church in the early 1840s to save villagers the long walk to St Lawrence. Use of the common to the west of the village brought a regular military presence, but it was the establishment of the Gordon Boys' Home (now Gordon's School) in the late 1880s which opened the neighbourhood up to a wider world.

Besides the Church and schools, the displays will highlight aspects of local life such as shops, trades, farms, nurseries, the Institute and local celebrations such as the West End Show. Pictures of different settlements, like Donkey Town, will feature alongside a wide range of photographs gathered through a project organised by John Smith and Mick Glazier to record the village then and now. A remarkable collection of material has recently been donated in memory of Mrs Olive Wright whose family lived in West End for many generations, and other items come from equally old-established local families, such as the Lucocks and Rapleys. Some vivid reminiscences of West End in the 1940s and 50s have also kindly been supplied by local residents.

Travelling families visited the local common each year and aspects of their lives in the 1880s are recorded in the book Work Amongst the Gypsies by Stanley Alder which the Museum is re-printing this autumn.