Although there have been finds of Neolithic tools such as flint scrapers and flint flakes in Tannery Lane, Send, and elsewhere, and a prehistoric wooden paddle was found in a meadow in 1912, there is no evidence of Stone Age settlements as such in Send.

However the area around the River Wey, which flows through the greater part of Send and Ripley and the adjoining parishes of Wisley, Old Woking and Pyrford, probably provided places for people to live as well as a means of travel from earliest times.

Send, the village, 1929
Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection

Evidence of Roman occupation is restricted to a few mostly single coins found in fields and gardens.

The Domesday Survey
Send was clearly well established by the latter part of the Anglo-Saxon period as it is referred to as 'Sendan' by 960 (Cartularium Saxonicum, Birch, Vol. 2, page 1063). It may be of Celtic origin (Surrey Place Names, Gavin Smith, pages 105 and 106. 2005.)

It was a thriving community when recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086 following the Norman Conquest. Ripley is first mentioned during the reign of Richard 1 (1189-1199) and may be assumed to be included in the entry for Send as transcribed in the Phillimore edition of Domesday Book – Surrey:

Land of Alfred of Marlborough
In Woking Hundred

• Alfred holds Sande from the King, and Reginald from him.
• Karl held it before 1066. Then and now it answered for 20 hides, land for 10 ploughs. In lordship 2 ploughs and 8 slaves.
• 14 villagers and 10 smallholders with 6 ploughs. A mill, which pays 21s. 6d. A church. 5 fisheries, which pay 54d; meadow, 100 acres less 16; woodland at 160 pigs.
• Of this land Walter holds 1 _ hides, and Herbert 9, of villagers' land. In lordship 2 ploughs, and 7 slaves; 1 villager and 16 smallholders.
• A mill which pays 2s.
• Total value before 1066 £20; now; the lordship £10, the rest 110s.

Key sites and buildings

• Newark Priory - a house of Austin Canons founded in the late 12th century
  
• St Mary Magdalen Church - the chancel of the church, built c.1160, is the main evidence of Norman activity in Ripley
• Vintage Cottage - the oldest known domestic building in the area, dating to 1400.
• Church of St Mary The Virgin, Send
  
  

Further information

Search for records related to Send with Ripley on this website

• Send and Ripley History Society http://www.sendandripleyhistorysociety.co.uk
   
• More information about the villages and the history of Send and Ripley is also available (PDF format document)
  

Have your say