Wyke is a rural and suburban village in Surrey, England. Its local government district is the

Borough of Guildford The Borough of Guildford is a local government district with borough status in Surrey, England. With around half of the borough's population, Guildford is its largest settlement and only town, and is the location of the council. The distr ...

. The nearest town is

Aldershot Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Alder ...

, west although the large village/town of

Ash, Surrey Ash is a village and civil parish in the far west of the borough of Guildford, Surrey. Ash is on the eastern side of the River Blackwater, with a station on the Reading-Guildford-Gatwick line, and direct roads to Aldershot, Farnham and Guildf ...

is west and has more shops than smaller Wyke and adjacent Normandy combined.

Normandy, Surrey Normandy is a civil parishes in England, civil parish of in the borough of Guildford in Surrey, England and the name of the largest village in that parish. Almost surrounded by its hill ranges, Normandy is in the plain west of Guildford, stradd ...

is also dispersed yet is typically marked just east, near its manors. Normandy, Flexford and Christmas Pie share the

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

of Wyke, being relatively central to the four former

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

s. Wyke shares in the sports associations and community groups of Normandy.

History

Wyke, unlike the larger settlement of Flexford, appears in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086 as ''Wucha'' held by Godric from (Turald) Thorold under Roger de/of Montgomery. It was part of Burpham manor and was valued underneath its listing. As heads of household it had four villagers, three smallholders, one serf (a form of slavery abolished by the time of the Magna Carta), two ploughlands and woodland for 83 pigs, 25 acres of meadow and a mill worth 15s per year. It rendered 8

pound sterling Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and ...

per year to its

feudal system Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structu ...

overlords. One side of the roadside common of Normandy has medieval homes and farmhouses, east. Wyke has two farmhouses pre-dating 1600. Wyke as a wider

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

than its topographical definition was formed out of Ash, Worplesdon and Wanborough in 1847 when its church was built. Most of this combined land of Wyke, Normandy, Flexford and Christmas Pie was an outcrop of Worplesdon surrounded by the south-east of the parish of St Peter, Ash, which was the largest medieval parish in Woking Hundred.

Geography

The maximum elevation is 118m at Normandy/Gravel Pit hill in the north, at the south of the long ridge known as the Chobham Ranges, but between

Deepcut Deepcut is a village in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England, approximately southwest of central London. The nearest towns are Camberley, Surrey ( to the north) and Farnborough, Hampshire (3 mi to the west). Deepcut is named af ...

and

West End, Surrey West End is a village and civil parish in Surrey Heath, Surrey, England, approximately southwest of central London. It is midway between the towns of Camberley and Woking, to the west and east respectively. The River Bourne rises from it ...

. The minimum is 50m at Westwood Hall, a former manor, at the start of the Normandy locality, where the headwaters of a brook merge into one in the east. The soil is sandy and (acidic)

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler a ...

towards the escarpment shielding the Ministry of Defence training land directly north of Wyke, but otherwise is a loam/

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

mixture. Its local government district is the

. The nearest town is

, west although the large village of

is west and has many amenities. Normandy, Surrey can also be categorised as dispersed rather than polyfocal but has slightly more amenities.

Amenities

Wyke has one place of worship, that of St Mark in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

building of which completed in November 1846 as a chapel. Wyke Primary School is a county-supported school (ages 4–11) on School Lane. Its roots are Wyke National (Secular) School in 1874 which was enlarged 1896. For recreational and community hall purposes Wyke has a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

, that of

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

.Wyke
Diocese of Guildford, The Church of England

Notable residents

* James Stirling, former Governor of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

is buried in St Marks Churchyard in Wyke.

References

External links