Permanent Exhibition

The Museum tells the story of Dorking and the surrounding villages. From the Cretaceous period of 100 million years ago right up to the scientists working in Brockham Park on semi synthetic penicillins in the 1960’s.

We have designed the Museum so visitors follow a rough time-line or theme. Please click on each link for further information in each section.

Pre-Historic and Early Man in Dorking

• Why is Dorking where it is? 
• Cretaceous Dorking
• Archaeological Discoveries

Medieval Life in Dorking

• Dorchinges at Domesday
• 1649 Map of the Manor of Dorking
• Life in Medieval Dorking
• Agriculture and the ‘wastes’

 Isolation and Religion in Dorking

• Isolation and Religion
• Dorking’s Pilgrim Mother

The Turnpike Road in Dorking

•  Buried in the country
• The Turnpike Road
• A Market Town

The Country Estates In Dorking

• The Country Estates

Poverty in Dorking

• ‘Bread or Blood’
• Poverty and the Workhouse

Art and writing in Dorking

• Art and Inspiration
• George Meredith
• E. M. Forster

Suffrage in Dorking

• The Holmwood and Dorking Campaign

Sport in Dorking

• Shrove Tuesday Football
• Howzat
• Early Cycling in Dorking

Work in Dorking

• Clay, Bricks, Chalk and Lime
• The Dorking Foundry

Tourism in Dorking

• The Nicest Place
• Day Trippers

Wartime in Dorking

• The Battle of Dorking
• Introduction to the First World War
• Anstie Grange Military Hospital
• Introduction to the Second World War
• Wartime at Dorking’s mansions
• Evacuees and Refugees
• Dorking War Stories
• Wartime Incidents
• Dorking’s VCs

 Life in Dorking

• Town Life

Transport in Dorking

• Rise of the Motor Car
• The Coming of the Railway

Music in Dorking

• Leith Hill Place
• Ralph Vaughan Williams
• Leith Hill Music Festival

Made in Dorking

• The Dorking Cockerel
• Dorking’s Caves
• Brockham Park and semi synthetic penicillins
• Johnston’s Sweepers