Woking Palace

About
Gallery
Parking
Poo bins?
Self-guided walk

About

Woking Palace is a former manor house of the Royal Manor of Woking that has Scheduled Ancient Monument classification. As a royal manor, it was held by Edward the Confessor before the Norman Conquest and in 1086 by William I. Richard I granted the manor to a chap named Alan Basset in 1189 and it remained out of royal hands for a few centuries.

The manor was lived in by various people that you have probably never heard of until 1466, when Lady Margaret Beaufort and her third husband, Sir Henry Stafford, moved in. To be honest, you probably haven’t heard of them either but Lady Beaufort was the mother of King Henry VII – and, to be fair, most people only know who he is because he was Henry VIII’s dad. Apparently, the big man himself visited Woking Manor often as a boy and during his reign – as did Queen Elizabeth I after him. Henry VIII actually remodelled the place, enlarging it to add a swanky new wharf and two bowling alleys. Of course he did. He also honeymooned there with Catherine Parr in 1543. Surely that’s a punishment? Still, I guess she had it better than some of his other wives and a holiday in Woking is better than getting your head lopped off.

King James VI of Scotland and I of England and Ireland (not at all confusing, just trips off the tongue) was apparently staying at Woking Palace in March 1606 when a false rumour spread in London that he had been assassinated. He shot back to the capital quick sharp to put paid to the whispering, and the church bells were rung at St Margaret’s in Westminster, which must mean something, else why would Wikipedia include it? I guess it meant “calm down everyone, the king is just fine.” Perhaps the bells were rung to the tune of some really old code? (Obviously not Morse Code as that wasn’t invented until around 1844.)

All that remains of the palace are a barrel vault and some adjoining Tudor brick walls. The heathen in me thinks it just looks a bit like a barn, to be honest, but history buffs that know far, far more than I have critiqued it among royal sites of the pre-16th century as an “excellent survival” that is highly diverse with large archaeological potential. You can read all about it on the Friends of Woking Palace website and the Wey Valley website.

Gallery: What’s it like here?

Parking

There’s a free car park in Old Woking off the little white hump roundabout by St Peter’s Church. It’s called the Manor Way car park on Googlemaps, despite it being at the end of Manor Mews rather than Manor Way (which is the next road along and goes into the industrial estate).

WHAT3WORDS: https://w3w.co/fund.skill.stiff

GOOGLEMAPS LINK: https://maps.app.goo.gl/g2ZZ3vzJrfPjS2Tb6

NEAREST POSTCODE: GU22 9JN

Poo bins?

At the car park, one just inside the graveyard by the gate, one at the corner of Carter’s Lane after the palace.

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Self-guided walk

Here is a Footpath app route from the free car park in Old Woking. Also on AllTrails. This walk takes you along Old Woking High Street (sorry, there’s no other way) and through the Old Woking Burial Ground at St Peter’s Church, then out into the water meadows to Woking Palace.

Length: approximately 2.3 miles/3.7km
Terrain: This is an off-the-beaten track kinda walk – it’s very scrubby and the paths are teeny tiny. Some parts are narrow and through bushes so you don’t really want to do this one with uncovered arms and legs. It gets EXTREMELY wet and muddy and is miserable during the winter (you’re best to just do an out and back along Carter’s Lane if you really want to visit then). The optimum time is in the spring when there are lovely little spring flowers in the woodland where the ponds are – end of April/early May.
Stiles/kissing gates? One stile with a dog passing gap that can fit a greyhound, no kissing gates.

Park up and head out of the car park back towards the roundabout. A few paces after exiting the car park, turn left onto a small footpath with a signpost next to it. At the end, turn right onto St Peter’s Road, then at the main road, turn left and walk along the High Street.

Cross over the High Street when it’s safe to do so, cross over Church Street and continue walking to the corner where you bear right off the main road and down a gravel track that runs down the right-hand-side of a large cream building. Follow this track ahead, passing the building and then its car park behind it.

When you get to the Old Woking burial ground, turn right and go through the gate and into the graveyard. Walk straight ahead on the little path that goes through the graves.

This path ends at a small T junction, where you turn right and walk between two graves.

Follow this little path out of the graveyard via a little dip, which gets really, really wet and muddy in the winter.

You’ll emerge out into an area of scrubby grass and brush. Follow the little path ahead. There’s not really much to say other than you’ll go through some grassy bits and through some narrow bits where the path has been cut through bushes. You just need to keep to the “main” path – by which I mean what you can make out of a tiny path.

There’s one bit where you can walk to the water’s edge and there’s enough of a shelf that dogs can have a drink – but be careful as the River Wey is deep and fast.

There’s a spot with a rope swing off a tree by the river too. Needless to say, I am not that brave – and Mike hates swings, he gets really upset if anyone is on one and tries to attack them, which isn’t ideal.

Anyway, just keep going and trust that the little path will get you there eventually. When you reach the stile, you know you’re nearly there. The passing gap to the right is big enough for greyhounds – we got WGW kennel hound Shane and our friend Mel’s Kara through with no problems. In fact, it was more of a bother getting humans over the stile.

A few paces further on and the ruins of Woking Palace will come into view. You can just walk straight ahead through the meadow to it – but you’d miss out on a lovely little woodland that boasts loads of pretty spring flowers and some ponds. So instead, bear left on a small (yes, another small) path that heads off and between two wooden posts.

When I last visited here (spring 2025), wood chips had been put down on some parts of this path that winds between ponds.

When you emerge from the woods, Woking Palace is again in front of you.

The path takes you right through the middle of what remains of it, which is not much, but it’s a piece of history all the same and, a bit like Hosey Common Tower, I’m surprised the public are allowed to actually walk in it.

When you’re done exploring the palace, which I doubt will take you long as there’s bugger all to see, continue straight ahead through the field to the gate. Go through the gate and continue straight ahead with the fence on your right towards a vehicle gate.

Pass through the gap to the side of the vehicle gate and pass the white gates on your right to continue straight ahead up Carter’s Lane.

Follow the lane around the sharp left corner (where there are a couple of bins) and keep going straight. There’s a field on your left and you can see a row of houses ahead.

Just before you reach the houses, you should be able to see a teeny path off to the left that goes along the edge of the field to a gap in the hedgerow. Turn left onto this path and follow it through the gap, following the path around to the right. It then runs along the back of the row of houses.

This scrubby field is pretty much always wet. Walk straight along it, minding the tufty grass. There is a tiny path, but at times you won’t be able to make it out. Just trust that it’s there and follow your nose. Keep an eye out to your right because eventually you want to head over into the field that runs alongside this one. There are a few gaps to go through, doesn’t matter which you choose.

When you get into the field, which you’ll find is much easier underfoot, turn left and walk along its left-hand edge. Go all the way to the end of the field, where there’s a gap to the left that leads you back down towards the path. The burial ground will be immediately ahead.

Turn right and walk along with the burial ground on your left. You should recognise where you are now as you pass the gate into the graveyard that you went through at the start of the walk.

Follow the gravel track back past the cream building to the main road and turn left. Retrace your footsteps along the High Street to the car park.