Portal:Surrey

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Surrey (/ˈsʌri/) is a ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the west. The largest settlement is Woking.

The county has an area of 1,663 km2 (642 sq mi) and a population of 1,196,236. Much of the north of the county forms part of the Greater London Built-up Area, which includes the suburbs within the M25 motorway as well as Woking (103,900), Guildford (77,057), and Leatherhead (32,522). The west includes part of the Farnborough/Aldershot built-up area, which extends into Hampshire and Berkshire and has a total population of 252,397. The south of the county is rural, and its largest settlements are Horley (22,693) and Godalming (22,689). The county contains eleven local government districts, which are part of a two-tier non-metropolitan county also called Surrey. The county historically included much of south-west Greater London and excluded Staines-upon-Thames, which was part of Middlesex.

The defining geographical feature of the county is the North Downs, a chalk escarpment which runs from the south-west to north-east and divides the densely populated north from the more rural south; it is pierced by the rivers Wey and Mole, both tributaries of the Thames. The north of the county is a lowland, part of the Thames basin. The south-east is part of the Weald, and the south-west contains the Surrey Hills and Thursley, Hankley and Frensham Commons, an extensive area of heath. The county has the densest woodland cover in England, at 22.4 per cent. (Full article...)

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Old Town Hall, High Street

Reigate (/ˈrɡt/ RY-gate) is a town in Surrey, England, around 19 miles (30 km) south of central London. The settlement is recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as Cherchefelle and first appears with its modern name in the 1190s. The earliest archaeological evidence for human activity is from the Paleolithic and Neolithic, and during the Roman period, tile-making took place to the north east of the modern centre.

A motte-and-bailey castle was erected in Reigate in the late 11th or early 12th century. It was originally constructed of timber, but the curtain walls were rebuilt in stone about a century later. An Augustinian priory was founded to the south of the modern town centre in the first half of the 13th century. The priory was closed during the Reformation and was rebuilt as a private residence for William Howard, the 1st Baron Howard of Effingham. The castle was abandoned around the same time and fell into disrepair.

During the medieval and early modern periods, Reigate was primarily an agricultural settlement. A weekly market began no later than 1279 and continued until 1895. Key crops included oats, hops and flax, but there is no record of rye being grown in the local area. The economy initially declined in the 18th century, as new turnpike roads allowed cheaper goods made outside the town to become available, undercutting local producers. Following the arrival of the railways in the mid-19th century, Reigate began to expand and the sale of much of the priory estate in 1921 released further land for housebuilding.

Reigate is part of the London commuter belt, and since 1974 it has been one of four towns in the borough of Reigate and Banstead. The borough council is based at the town hall in Castlefield Road, and Surrey County Council has its headquarters at Woodhatch Place. Much of the North Downs, to the north of Reigate, is owned by the National Trust, including Colley Hill, 722 feet (220 m) above ordnance datum (OD) and Reigate Hill 771 feet (235 m) above OD. (Full article...)

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Branson in 2015

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British business magnate. In the 1970s, he co-founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields.

Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age. His first business venture, at the age of 16, was a magazine called Student. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business. He opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records—later known as Virgin Megastores—in 1972. Branson's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he started the Virgin Atlantic airline and expanded the Virgin Records music label. In 1997, Branson founded the Virgin Rail Group to bid for passenger rail franchises during the privatisation of British Rail. The Virgin Trains brand operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from 1997 to 2019, the InterCity CrossCountry franchise from 1997 to 2007, and the InterCity East Coast franchise from 2015 to 2018. In 2004, he founded spaceflight corporation Virgin Galactic, based at Mojave Air and Space Port in California, noted for the SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane designed for space tourism.

In March 2000, Branson was knighted at Buckingham Palace for "services to entrepreneurship". Due to his work in retail, music, and transport, his taste for adventure, and for his humanitarian work, he has become a prominent global figure. In 2007, he was placed in the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World list. In June 2023, Forbes listed Branson's estimated net worth at US$3 billion.

On 11 July 2021, Branson travelled as a passenger onboard Virgin Galactic Unity 22 at the edge of space, a suborbital test flight for his spaceflight company Virgin Galactic. The mission lasted approximately one hour, reaching a peak altitude of 53.5 miles (86.1 km). At 70, Branson became the third oldest person to fly to space. (Full article...)

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Did you know

  • ... that the first road tunnel in England, opened in 1823 in Reigate, Surrey, runs under the site of a medieval castle?
  • ... that a 10-foot-tall (3 m) chicken stands on a roundabout in Dorking, Surrey?
  • ... that the old town hall in Godalming, Surrey, is nicknamed "The Pepperpot" after its distinctive cupola?

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