Diggers on St George’s Hill

Surrey’s secret history of anarchism and agrarian socialism.

Although I am from Yorkshire, I have lived in Surrey for 17 years. For those of you outside the UK, Surrey looks like what you imagine when you imagine England (in parts at least.) Every Surrey MP is a Conservative. It has 141 golf courses and the highest UK cost of living outside London. I work in Waverley, in among the Surrey Hills to the south of the county. Waverley is one of the wealthiest areas in the country, although in my work I regularly encounter pockets of extreme poverty. To the north of my home in Woking (less picturesque than other parts of the county) is Runnymede, famous for being where the Magna Carta was signed. You would be forgiven for thinking the (short lived, overrated) Magna Carter was the most radical thing to have happened in this leafy county. But you would be wrong, for just to the east of Runnymede, in Elmbridge lies St George’s Hill.

Surrey in 1842. Weybridge is in the centre to the north, Cobham slightly to its south.

Now a part of the town of Weybridge, St George’s hill has the distinction of being the lowest hill in Surrey. It now houses a private estate, with a golf course and houses that you probably can’t afford. If you search for properties for sale in St George’s Hill you will have to…