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Talks and events
Surrey Minority Ethnic Forum celebrates Surrey Day
Saturday 10 May, 12–3pm at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND
Surrey Minority Ethnic Forum will be taking part in Surrey Day 2025 with a celebration of Surrey’s wartime legacy — highlighting the powerful and often untold contributions of ethnic minority communities during World War II. Expect speakers, entertainment and a Fusion Tea Party blending flavours from across the Commonwealth!
- Tickets: free.
- Please book a place online.
We're all going on a past summer holiday! Free drop-in family activities
Tuesday 27 to Thursday 29 May during normal opening hours at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND
Learn about the holidays that people went on in the past. Draw and write a postcard, make a sailboat, make a paper ice cream and more for ages 3 - 12.
Parents/Guardians are responsible for supervising their children. Free parking onsite, via Kingsway Road. Buggy friendly and baby change facilities available. Donations welcome.
- Tickets: free, no need to book.
Exhibitions and displays
Victory in Europe (VE) Day 80
Thursday 1 to Thursday 22 May during normal opening hours at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND
Visit our foyer display to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day. Featuring photographs, records, and stories from Surrey’s VE Day celebrations in 1945, 1995, 2005, 2015, and 2020, the display highlights personal memories from those who experienced the historic day. You can also discover records to help trace family members who served in World War Two.
South Asian Heritage Month
Thursday 17 July to Thursday 14 August during normal opening hours at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND
South Asian Heritage Month runs from 18 July to 17 August and provides an opportunity to discover British South Asian history and identity through education, arts, culture and commemoration. South Asian influences can be found everywhere in Britain, from our food and clothes to our music and even our words. The streets of our towns and cities are rich with the colours, sights and sounds of proud South Asian identity. Its culture permeates all parts of British life and adds to the diversity of the nation.
This Side of the Looking Glass: Archives from the Real Life of Lewis Carroll
Wednesday 1 to Thursday 30 October during normal opening hours at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND
Surrey History Centre’s Lewis Carroll collections have grown over the last 75 years. 160 years after the first publication of ‘Alice’, we’re celebrating the archives of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) and his fascinating writing persona, Lewis Carroll, with a free foyer display and cabinet exhibition in our searchroom. On public view for the first time are items from important collections received over the past two years, including from the Dodgson family.
We regularly showcase free exhibitions and displays inspired by our collection in our foyer. We also host external displays by groups and organisations and would welcome any displays with a Surrey history connection. If you would like to exhibit at Surrey History Centre please contact us.
Recorded talks to purchase
If you missed one of our online talks, why not purchase the talk recording to view in your own time?
The talks available are:
- A Burden on the Parish: sources for the history of Poor Relief in Surrey
- A 'Great' amongst Victorian Architects? Royal Holloway's W H Crossland
- A Snark Celebration: celebrating the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's poem 'The Hunting of the Snark'
- Aladdin's Cave: Some Major Family and Estate Archives in Surrey History Centre
- Artists, Antiquaries and Collectors: illustrations of Georgian Surrey collected by Robert Barclay of Bury Hill, Dorking, circa.1800 to 1825
- Bananas: How a Surrey Garden Played a Pivotal Role in the History of the World's Favourite Fruit
- Behind the Scenes in Conservation - Arsenic and Old Lace
- Behind the Scenes in Conservation - repairing posters, maps and plans
- Behind the Scenes in Conservation - Tithe Maps
- Bombs, Aircraft, Doodlebugs and More; They All Fell on Surrey
- Corsets and Cameras
- Fashion and Folly
- From Patient to Professor
- From Punishment to Pride: LGBTQ+ archives at Surrey History Centre
- Gertrude Jekyll, Gardener and Craftswoman
- In the Shadow of the Great War: Surrey 1914 to 1918
- James Henry Pullen (1835 to 1916) and the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, Redhill
- John Evelyn in Surrey
- Land of my Father's Fathers: Tracing your Welsh ancestors
- Let the Road Rise to Meet You: Tracing Your Irish Ancestors
- Life and Labour in a County Village - or learn to love your Ag Labs!
- Magna Carta, Runnymede and all that
- Maps for Family Historians
- 'Michael Field' in Reigate: Queer Women Writers and Surrey in the 1890s
- Netherne circa 1955: A Surrey Psychiatric Hospital in Focus
- Oliver House: The story of a 16th century cottage
- Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Sources for the History of Surrey's Mental Hospitals, 1700 to circa.1990
- Planting Ideas: Sources for the History of Gardening in Surrey.
- Portrait of a Surrey Town between the Wars: the photographic archive of Sidney Francis
- Reflections on the Lewis Carroll archives, on the 150th anniversary of 'Alice through the Looking Glass'
- Researching in Archives
- Richard III: A Drama in Three Acts
- Sir William More of Loseley
- Surrey Writers
- Terror from the sky: mapping air raids on Surrey in World War Two
- The afterlives of executed bodies from Kennington Common
- The Book That Changed My Life
- The Changing Face of Nursing: Black Nurses in Surrey Hospitals
- The Gentleman's Magazine: A Panorama of Georgian Surrey for Family and Local Historians
- The Most Wretched Man in the World: The Life and Loves of the 5th Viscount Midleton
- The Princess Mary Village Homes in the Twentieth Century
- The Portable Antiquities Scheme in Surrey
- To the Manor Born: An Introduction to Manorial Records for Family Historians
- What did you do after the war, Grandad? – 1918 to 1925: de-mob, jobs, pensions, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the British Legion
- Where There's a Will
- Who Do You Think They Were? Discovering the lives and experiences of our ancestors
Most talk descriptions can be found on our Talks and Tours page. Each talk consists of a 45 minute to an hour illustrated presentation followed by questions asked during the live talk. You can also email us with any questions you may have after the talk and we will pass them on to the speaker to answer. Price £6. To purchase a recording please visit the Surrey Heritage Shop. Please note talks may contain references to historical legal terminology, sexual practices and crimes, used in the historical context but which some viewers may find offensive.
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