THIS COUNTY APPEARS IN POIROT'S CASE:
Surrey is divided into 11 boroughs and districts: Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Guildford, Mole Valley, Reigate and Banstead, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Tandridge, Waverley, Woking. The largest town in Surrey is Guildford, Woking, Ewell north of the county, Camberleyin the west of the county.
Surrey has a population of approximately 1.1 million people. The historic county town is Guildford, although the county administration was moved to Newington in 1791 and to Kingston upon Thames in 1893. The county council's headquarters have been outside the county's boundaries since 1 April 1965 when Kingston and other areas were included within Greater London by the London Government Act 1963. Due to its proximity to London there are many commuter towns and villages in Surrey, the population density is high and the area is more affluent than other parts of the UK. Surrey is the most densely populated county after Greater London, the metropolitan counties and Bristol. Much of the north east of the county is an urban area contiguous to Greater London. In the west, there is a conurbation straddling the Hampshire/Surrey border, including in Surrey Camberley and Farnham.
Most English counties have nicknames for people from that county, such as a Tyke from Yorkshire and a Yellowbelly from Lincolnshire; the traditional nickname for people from Surrey is 'Surrey Capon', as it was well known in the later Middle Ages as the county where chickens were fattened up for the London meat markets.
Surrey has been mentioned in literature: in the Harry Potter series, Harry's only living relatives, the Dursleys, live in Little Whinging, a fictional town located in Surrey. Much of H. G. Wells's 1898 novella The War of the Worlds is set in Surrey with many specific towns and villages identified. The Martians first land on Horsell Common on the north side of Woking, outside the Bleak House pub, now called Sands. In the story the narrator flees in the direction of London, first passing Byfleet and then Weybridge before travelling east along the north bank of the Thames.
The county has also been used as a film location. Part of the movie The Holiday was filmed in Surrey: Kate Winslet's character Iris lived there and Cameron Diaz's character Amanda switched houses with her as part of a home exchange. The final scene of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason uses the village church in Shere, as does the movie The Wedding Date. In the 1976 film The Omen, the scenes at the cathedral were filmed at Guildford Cathedral. Surrey woodland represented Germany in the opening scene of Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe; it was filmed at The Bourne Woods near Farnham in Surrey.
Surrey is the location for Lara Croft's mansion in the Tomb Raider game series.
