Maybe I only think it’s worth visiting because I’ve lived there, but it really is a beautiful place. I lived in Egham, home to the Royal Holloway, University of London. If you want to see a spectacular building, I suggest a visit. The main building on campus is very Hogwarts-esque, and it is HUGE. It houses part of the library, a dining hall, a picture gallery (with some great art), a chapel, about five million admin offices (bureaucracy … it’s England, after all), tons of dorm rooms, the Health Centre, and a pub. It has two quads in it’s centre and it’s based off of a seventeenth-century Norwegian (I think) model. Very ornate. The campus is also beautiful, very big and woodsy.
Right next to Egham and the university is Runnymede Green where the Magna Carta was signed. It’s the local claim-to-fame, which, of course, results in all kinds of festivals and fairs and statues and special days. You can even see the exact spot where King John signed it …
Also in Surrey are Guildford (the county seat), Woking (which has a huge, American-style shopping mall that is somehow completely hidden from the outside and you don’t realize it’s there until you walk into it) and Staines (terrible name, decent place – it’s a typical English town and they have a street fair every Saturday, which is fun).
You can also get easily to London, Windsor, Reading, Bristol and most of the West Country by train from most places in Surrey.
over 7 years ago