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Camberley is a town in northwest Surrey, England, around 31 mi south-west of central London. It is in the Borough of Surrey Heath and is close to the county boundaries with Hampshire and Berkshire. Known originally as "Cambridge Town", it was assigned its current name by the General Post Office in 1877.

Until the start of the 19th century, the area was a sparsely populated area of infertile land, known as Bagshot or Frimley Heath. Following the construction of the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in 1812, a small settlement grew up to the south, which became known as Yorktown (also spelled York Town). A second British Army institute, the Staff College, opened to the east in 1862, and the nucleus of Cambridge Town was laid out at around the same time. The two settlements grew together over the following decades and are now contiguous. Much of the town centre dates from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including The Atrium, a retail, entertainment and residential complex, opened in 2008.

Transport links through the area began to improve with the opening of the London-Basingstoke turnpike in 1728, now the A30 London Road. The Basingstoke Canal, which runs to the south of Camberley, was completed in 1794 and the wharf at Frimley was used to supply building materials for the Royal Military College. Blackwater station, on the Reading to Guildford line, opened to the west of Yorktown in 1849 and Camberley station, on the Ascot to Aldershot line, followed in 1878. In the second half of the 20th century, improvements to the road network in the area included the construction of the M3 motorway and the Blackwater Valley relief road.

The area has a strong links to the performing arts - Camberley Theatre was opened in 1966 and Elmhurst Ballet School was based in the town until 2004. Among the former residents are the Victorian composer, Arthur Sullivan, who attended Yorktown School as a child, the musician Rick Wakeman, who lived in Camberley during the 1980s, and the actress, Simone Ashley, who was born in the town in 1995. There are several works of public art in Camberley, including The Concrete Elephant, which was installed in 1964 on the London Road, having been commissioned for the Lord Mayor's Show of the previous year. Into Our First World, a sculpture by Ken Ford, is on display outside the borough council offices on Knoll Road.

Toponymy
Camberley was assigned its current name on 15 January 1877 by the General Post Office. Previously, the settlement had been known as "Cambridge Town" and the change was made to prevent letters and parcels being misdirected to Cambridge in the East of England. The new name is a portmanteau of "Cam" (the name of a local stream), "Amber Hill" (an area of high ground identified in a survey of 1607 by the cartographer, John Norden) and "ley" (a suffix found in local toponyms, such as Frimley and Yateley, derived from the Old English lee meaning "shelter" or lea meaning "pasture" or "meadow").

As Cambridge Town, the settlement was originally named for Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, who laid the foundation stone of the Staff College in December 1859. Similarly, Yorktown (sometimes spelled York Town), to the west of Camberley, was named for Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, who authorised the construction of the Royal Military College in December 1802. The dukes were commanders-in-chief of the British Army at the times when the two colleges were founded. The inns, the Duke of York and The Cambridge Hotel, were among the first buildings to be constructed in York Town and Camberley respectively.

Several of the street names in Camberley and York Town are named for early local landowners, including Teckels Avenue (after John Teckel, builder of Teckels Castle), Stanhope Road (after the family of Griselda Stanhope, Teckel’s wife) and Sparvell Walk (after David Sparvell, a town alderman). Watchetts Drive takes its name from a former manor field (Watchetts is derived from woad scaet, meaning land where woad grows). Osnaburgh Parade is named after Osnaburgh, an estate in Fife held by Prince Frederick.

Geography
Camberley primarily lies on the Bagshot Beds, deposited in the Eocene. This sandy layer contains seams of clay and areas of pebble gravel.

Early history
Until the 19th century, the land on which Camberley was built, was largely uninhabited heathland. The sandy soils were unsuitable for farming and the local rivers were too small to drive watermills. In his book, A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, first published in 1724, Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe described the area as:
 * a vast tract of land… which is not only poor, but even quite steril, given up to barrenness, horrid and frightful to look on, not only good for little, but good for nothing; much of it is a sandy desert…

An ancient track, known as the Maultway, ran south through the area, from the Thames Valley to the Harrow Way near Farnham. Thought to be a drovers' road, it was used by farmers into the medieval period to take their sheep to market, avoiding farmland in the lower Blackwater valley. Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age artefacts have been found at Caesar's Camp around 3 mi to the north, although archaeological evidence of prehistoric activity in Camberley is scant. In the Roman period, the London to Silchester road was constructed through Crowthorne and the route runs about 2.5 mi from Camberley at its closest point.

The Basingstoke Canal, which passes to the south of Camberley, was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1778 and was completed in 1794. Although primarily intended as a route for farm produce and timber from Hampshire to be shipped to London, it also provided a way of delivering manure and agricultural lime to improve the fertility of the local soils in northwest Surrey.

Early 19th century
James Lawrell purchased the Manor of Frimley from the Tichbourne family in 1789 and it was inherited by his son, James Lawrell Jr, in 1799. Two years later, an Inclosure Act was passed and Lawrell was awarded the part of Bagshot Heath on which Camberley would later be built.

At the start of the 19th century, the British Army was looking for a new site for the Royal Military College. The land at Sandhurst where it would be built, was purchased in 1799 by John Teckell, a former army officer in the 82nd Regiment of Foot. At the time, Teckell was the fiancé of Griselda Stanhope, the niece of the Prime Minister, William Pitt. Almost immediately, Teckell sold the land to Pitt and the decision to choose Sandhurst as the location of the future Royal Military College was made shortly afterwards, confirmed by the Adjutant-General, Harry Calvert, on 20 November 1800.

A contract for construction of the college was let in December 1800, although the design, by James Wyatt was not completed until 1802. In order to reduce costs, some of the building work was carried out by army soldiers, many of whom were transferred from Chelmsford Barracks. The first cadets to enter the Royal Military College arrived in 1812 and, by 1849, around 180 were enrolled.

Although John Teckell had sold his landholding in Sandhurst to Pitt, he continued to take an interest in the area. In 1806, he bought part of the Frimley Park estate from James Lawrell Jr. The area included most of the land between the Portsmouth Road (now the A325) and the Berkshire-Surrey border, but excluded the parts of the former manor west of Frimley Road. Teckell moved to Frimley Park House and, wanting to expand the formal grounds, he encouraged the local cottagers to build new houses, granting them long leases on land on the northern part of his estate. These new houses were the first to be built in the area now occupied by Camberley.

The first houses to be built in Yorktown were constructed on land owned by the Royal Military College to accommodate members of the teaching staff. College Terrace, known later as Tea Caddy Row because of its appearance, was designed by John Sanders in 1808. Very limited accommodation was available for ancillary workers and Teckell also issued small plots of land for college servants, laborers and artisans to build houses. Initially known as New Town, Blackwater this area appears as "York Town" on the 1816 Ordnance Survey map, the year that the first inn, the Duke of York, was opened. The number of houses continued to increase and the first school opened in 1818. John Teckell continued to own the majority of the land in the area until his death in 1858.

Local infrastructure improvements in the first half of the 19th century included the construction of Blackwater Bridge on the London to Basingstoke turnpike, replacing the existing ford. The first railway station to serve the Camberley area opened in 1849. The station, owned by the South Eastern Railway on the line between Reading and Guildford, was known initially as "Blackwater and York Town".

Late 19th century
Following the deaths of John and Griselda Tekell in 1858, their land that they owned was divided into lots and offered for sale. There were no significant purchases until April 1859, when the War Office purchased 665 acres to build the Staff College. The remainder of the land passed to Edward Newman in 1860 and was then acquired by two former army officers, Charles Knight and his brother-in-law, Robert Spring. The two recognised the potential for a planned new town at the location and it was probably Knight who decided on the grid pattern of roads that now form Camberley Town Centre.

By December 1861, building work was underway and the new settlement was referred to as "Cambridge Town" for the first time. The Staff College was completed in 1862 and the contractor, George Myers, sold off much of his equipment and unused building materials to local builders in May of that year. By 1867, there were about 200 houses in Cambridge Town and around 400 acres available for development. The majority of the homes were terraced and semi-detached properties for the working class, although there were also some larger mansions. Several businesses had been established including The Cambridge Hotel and the Prince of Wales pub, both opened in 1862.

Camberley railway station was opened by the London and South Western Railway on 18 March 1878 on the line between Ascot and Ash Vale. Initially, the fare to London Waterloo was 3 shillings. Initially known as “Camberley and York Town”, the current, shortened, form of the name was used from 1923. A goods yard was provided on the north side of the station. The opening of the railway line stimulated further growth in Camberley and the town, together with Yorktown, had a population of 1,882 in 1889, increasing to 8,400 by the turn of the century.

The modern system of local government began to evolve in the final decades of the 19th century. Surrey County Council was established in 1889 under the provisions of the Local Government Act of the previous year. The Frimley Urban District Council (UDC) was formed in 1895 and the 15 elected councillors met in a hired hall in Yorktown for the first time on 2 January. The second meeting, a month later, took place in Silverthorn Villa at the junction of Obelisk Street and the High Street, and these premises were used until 1909. New council offices were erected on London Road in 1906 and the body was renamed to “Frimley and Camberley UDC” in 1929.

Early 20th century
The first social housing in Camberley was built following the end of the First World War. The first, on Old Dean Road, were completed in 1921 and were initially intended for ex-service members. Similar developments followed at College Ride in 1922, Chobham Road in 1926, and Bristow and Frimley Roads in 1928. Private housebuilding schemes included the development of the former Watchetts estate in the 1920s.

During the Second World War, the defence of the Camberley was in the hands of the 1st Surrey Home Guard. In 1939, children were evacuated to the town from central London and Croydon and, towards the end of the war, the town also hosted evacuees from Bognor Regis. Several companies moved from the capital to Camberley and factories were built along the London Road. Linatex, which relocated from Bermondsey in 1939, produced equipment for Operation Pluto and Vivian Loyd, established in Camberley in 1940, manufactured Universal Carriers and other light-armoured, gun-carrying vehicles. Watchetts Recreation Ground was used to grow wheat and potatoes.

Following the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk, a convalescent camp for wounded soldiers was set up on Old Dean Common. It was later used as a base for the Free French forces and, as the war progressed, Nissen huts were erected to house them. The French were later joined by troops from Canada and New Zealand. Cordwalles School was used as a training base for the Auxiliary Territorial Service. One of the young women taught to drive at the centre was the future Elizabeth II.

Late 20th and early 21st centuries
Following the end of the Second World War, there was a pressing need for new homes in the local area. The Old Dean estate was intended by the UDC to provide a mix of housing types and the first house was completed in September 1953. By August 1964, the first phase of around 1800 houses were finished and further land was purchased from the MOD.

Redevelopment of the town centre began in the 1960s, with the opening of a new library in 1964 and the Camberley Civic Hall, later the Camberley Theatre, in 1966. The railway goods yard, closed in 1965 and a new road, Pembroke Broadway, was constructed across the site.

Surrey Heath Borough Council was formed from the merger of Bagshot Rural District Council and the Frimley and Camberley UDC on 1 April 1974. Initially the council was based at the former UDC offices in London Road, but work on a new headquarters in Knoll Road began in the early 1980s. Shortly before completion, the new offices were severely damaged by a fire. Surrey Heath House opened on 17 July 1987.

The M3 motorway opened between Sunbury and Lightwater in July 1974. The stretch of the M3 past Camberley, between junctions 2 and 4a, became a smart motorway in the summer of 2017. The A331 Blackwater Valley Relief Road opened between the A30 at Yorktown and the M3 in 1983. The full length of the route south to the A31 at Farnham, opened in July 1996.

The Camberley Mall was bought by the borough council for £86M in November 2016.

The Atrium, a retail, entertainment and residential complex with its main entrance on Park Street, was opened in November 2008.

Local and national government
Camberley is in the parliamentary constituency of Surrey Heath and has been represented at Westminster since May 2005 by Conservative Michael Gove.

Surrey County Council, headquartered in Reigate, is elected every four years. Camberley is represented by three councillors - one for each of the "Camberley East", "Camberley West" and "Heatherside and Parkside" divisions.

Elections to Surrey Heath take place every four years. Three councillors represent "Heatherside" ward and two councillors are elected to each of the "Old Dean", "Parkside", "St Michael's", "St Paul's", "Town" and "Watchetts" wards.

The Brough of Surrey Heath is twinned with Sucy-en-Brie, France and with Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany.

Demography and housing
The average level of accommodation in the region composed of detached houses was 28%, the average that was apartments was 22.6%. The remaining households not accounted for above were temporary/caravans and shared households.

The proportion of households in the civil parish who owned their home outright compares to the regional average of 35.1%. The proportion who owned their home with a loan compares to the regional average of 32.5%. The remaining percentage is made up of rented dwellings (plus a negligible percentage of households living rent-free).

Utilities
The York Town and Blackwater Gas Company was formed in 1859 and opened its gasworks at Yorktown in November 1862. Street lighting in Camberley was initially provided by oil lamps, but gas lamps were installed from 1900. In around 1903, the works began to supply the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. In 1904, a short branch line was laid from the South Eastern Railway south of Blackwater station, enabling the coal required to be supplied by train. The works came under the control of the Southern Gas Board in 1949 and closed in 1969.

The electricity supply to the area was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1909. Unlike most towns in Surrey, Camberley did not have its own power station and instead, electricity was purchased on the wholesale market and was distributed locally. The gas and electricity companies merged in 1927.

The Frimley and Farnborough District Water Company was formed in 1893 and began to supply Camberley four years later. Water was extracted from the chalk aquifer and was piped to a filtration plant at Frimley Green, before being pumped to a service reservoir on Frith Hill. In 1893, the Basingstoke Canal company agreed that the water company could abstract up to 200000 impgal per day from the canal, at a cost of 1 penny per 1000 impgal. In 2023, the drinking water supply for Camberley is provided by South East Water.

Initially, wastewater from Camberley was disposed of in cesspits or discharged to local streams. In the mid-1880s a drainage system was installed, leading to a sewage farm at Yorktown. Following a report in 1902, which condemned the state of the town sewers, new pipework was installed and a new wastewater treatment works opened in Yorktown in 1907. In 2023, Camberley Sewage Treatment Works is operated by Thames Water.

The postal service to Yorktown began in 1844 and the first postmaster was appointed in 1890. The telephone service to Camberley commenced in April 1897.

Emergency services
The first police station was opened in 1892 on the corner of Portesbury Road and the High Street. In 1910, the local force had a total of eight officers. In 1971, the station moved to the east, but remained on Portesbury Road. The 1971 station closed in 2011. The building was demolished in 2016 for the construction of new houses and flats. In 2023, the nearest police station to Camberley is at at Aldershot, operated by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary. The nearest counter service run by Surrey Police is at the Woking Borough Council offices.

Camberley Fire Brigade was founded in May 1889 and was initially equipped with a hand-operated Merryweather pump. In 1900, the brigade moved to The Avenue and relocated to the current station in London Road in 1967. In 2023, the local fire authority is Surrey County Council and the statutory fire service is Surrey Fire and Rescue Service.

An ambulance service is recorded in Camberley in 1898. Initially it operated with a horse-drawn vehicle, but the service was equipped with a motorised ambulance during the 1920s. Patients were charged a fee for using the service, which was affiliated to the St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross. In 2023, the nearest ambulance station to Camberley is at Farnborough.

Healthcare
In 2023, the nearest hospital is Frimley Park Hospital around 1.4 mi from Camberley. There are three GP surgeries in the town, on Upper Gordon, Park and Frimley Roads.

Transport
Camberley railway station is immediately south of the town centre and is managed by South Western Railway, which operates all services. Trains run to Ascot via Bagshot (extended to and from London Waterloo during peak periods) and to Aldershot via Frimley (a few trains continue to Guildford). A 2017 infrastructure assessment commissioned by the borough council notes that rail journey times to London from Camberley are slow (c. 72 minutes) and that many local residents choose to drive to Brookwood, Farnborough (Main) and Sunningdale for faster, direct services. Blackwater railway station is immediately to the west of Yorktown and is managed by Great Western Railway, which operates all services. Trains run to Reading via Wokingham and to Gatwick Airport via Guildford.

Camberley is linked by bus to local destinations in west Surrey, northeast Hampshire and southeast Berkshire. Companies operating routes through the town include: Thames Valley Buses to Bracknell; Arriva Guildford & West Surrey to Guildford via Woking; Stagecoach South to Aldershot and Farnborough; and White Bus to Ascot and Staines.

The M3 runs to the south of Camberley and is accessed via junction 4 at the southwestern corner of the town. The stretch of the motorway through the Borough of Surrey Heath was upgraded to a smart motorway in 2017. The other major roads in the town are the A30, which runs roughly parallel to the motorway between Hounslow and Basingstoke, and the A331 Blackwater Valley relief road. Yorktown and east Camberley are linked to Frimley by the B3411 and A325 respectively. Old Dean is linked to Deepcut via the B3015.

A £1.2M shared cycle and footpath between Blackwater station and Watchmoor was completed in 2017 and a new bike-parking facility opened in Princess Way in the town centre in 2021. In the same year, Surrey County Council consulted on a scheme to improve local cycling infrastructure, focused on a route between Camberley and Frimley.

Early schools
The first school to open in the Camberley area, a National school, was established in 1818. Originally housed in a cottage close to the Royal Military College, one of its early pupils was the composer, Arthur Sullivan. In 1871, it moved to a site adjacent to the St Michael's Church vicarage. By 1872, there was a second school in Yorktown, which may have been a school for nonconformists, although its origins are uncertain.

The first Cordwalles School was founded in Elliot Place, Greenwich, in 1805 and one of its early pupils was the future prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli. In 1875, it moved to Cordwalls Farm, Maidenhead, from which it acquired its name. The school merged with Kingswood School, Camberley, which had been established on part of the former Collinwood Estate in 1910. In 1939, the school was evacuated to Market Drayton, but did not return to Camberley at the end of the war. The site was used by Ballard School in the 1950s.

Barossa Secondary School began teaching its first pupils in September 1963, although the official opening ceremony did not take place for another two years. The secondary modern school, on the Old Dean estate, was constructed on a site adjacent to the former Ballard School.

Frimley and Camberley Grammar School opened in 1931 on Frimley Road. The school moved to the former Ballard School, adjacent to the then new Barossa Secondary School in 1967. The original site was then used as an annex for France until 1971. The buildings have since been used for Watchetts School, now South Camberley Primary and Nursery School.

Current schools
Kings International College was opened as France Hill Secondary School in 1947. For the first eleven years, it was based at Franz Hill House, which had been built c. 1840. The school moved to its current location on Watchetts Avenue in 1959 and adopted its present name in 2001.

Collingwood College was formed in 1971 from the merger of Camberley Grammar School, Barossa Secondary School and Bagshot Secondary School. It became a self-governing Technology College in September 1994 and gained Foundation status in September 1999.

The current Cordwalles School was founded in 1962 and was officially opened on 5 March 1963. Initially a primary and infants school, it became a middle school in 1971, before reverting to a junior school again in 1994.

Relocated schools
The Royal Albert Orphan Asylum was founded in Camberley in 1864 and the first 100 children were admitted in December of that year. Originally a mixed institution, girls were not admitted after 1903. It was renamed the Royal Albert School in 1942 and its management was merged with that of the Royal Alexandra School in 1948. The following year, an Act of Parliament was passed to formally amalgamate the two institutions, creating the The Royal Alexandra and Albert School. Pupils from both schools were transferred in stages from their original sites to new accommodation at Gatton Park between 1848 and 1954. The former school buildings in Camberley were damaged by fire in 1987 and were demolished in 1994. The grounds were split in two by the construction of the M3.

Elmhurst Ballet School was founded as the Mortimer School of Dancing in 1923. It adopted its current name in 1947, taken from Elmhurst House in Camberley, where it was based. During the Second World War, Sadlers Wells and Rambert Schools were evacuated to Elmhurst and the pupils of all three schools performed to entertain soldiers billeted locally and to raise money for the war effort. After the end of the war, pupil numbers began to expand (from 60 in 1933 to 240 in 1947) and a purpose-built theatre was constructed, opening in May 1960. Much of the rest of the school was rebuilt during the 1970s and the new buildings were opened by Princess Margaret in 1979. The school relocated to Birmingham in 2004, with the aim of providing professional dance training outside of the southeast of England. The former school site in Camberley was redeveloped as Elmhurst Court.

Anglican churches
St Michael's Church was designed by the architect, Henry Woodyer, and is constructed in local Frimley stone. The foundation stone was laid in September 1848 and the church was consecrated in May 1851. The tower, in Bargate stone, was added in 1891, and is topped by a broach spire, which reaches a height of 38 m above ground level.

St Paul's Church was designed by W. D. Caröe in 1902 and elements of the building are influenced by Swedish architectural trends of the period. The chancel is topped by a wood-shingled spire. One of the stained-glass windows is dedicated to Doveton Sturdee, a local resident who died in 1925.

St Martin's Church, dedicated to Martin of Tours, was consecrated in 1978. It was built with the funds raised from the sale of the site of the former St George's Church, which had closed in 1966. St Mary's Church, designed by G. G. Lofting, was consecrated in 1937. The building has a small tower and is constructed of brick concrete with a stucco finish. The congregation of Heatherside Parish Church began meeting in January 1977. Heatherside became an ecclesiastical parish in September 2000.

Other places of worship
St Tarcisius Church was built in 1923-26 as a memorial to Catholic military officers, who had died in the First World War. It was designed by Frederick Walters and is constructed of Bargate stone with Bath stone dressings. Several of the stained-glass windows were designed by Paul Woodroffe.

High Cross Church opened in Knoll Road in March 1990. It replaced the Congregational Church, which was demolished in 1990 to make way for the College Gardens shopping complex, and the Methodist Church, demolished in October of the same year.

The local Bengali Welfare Association established an Islamic centre in the former St Gregory's Roman Catholic School building in 1996. In 2010, a planning application to demolish the school and replace it with a purpose-built mosque was rejected by the borough council. The plans were rejected again the following year, following a public inquiry.

Culture
Camberley Theatre, in Knoll Road, opened as the Camberley Civic Hall on 1 October 1966. It closed in May 1995 for a £1.3M refurbishment and reopened as Camberley ArtsLink in November of the same year. In December 2001, the venue was again rebranded, adopting its current name. A second refurbishment, involving the rebuilding of the frontage, was completed in December 2021.

There are several works of public art in Camberley. The Concrete Elephant, adjacent to the London Road in Yorktown, was installed at the yard of Trollope & Colls in 1964. It had been commissioned for the Lord Mayor's Show the previous year and the artist, Barbara Jones, designed the sculpture using pipework from the company's product range. The current tenants of the site, HSS Hire, are required to maintain the artwork as part of their lease.

Into Our First World, by Ken Ford, was unveiled outside the borough council offices in March 1993. The sculpture, cast in silicon bronze, depicts a figure reclining beneath a tree. It explores the relationship between humanity and the natural world, and its form echoes the sweet chestnut tree growing behind it. The Right Way, by Rick Kirby was unveiled outside the Atrium in January 2009. It depicts three metal figures pointing in different directions along Park Street and Obelisk Way.

Venues
The London Road Recreation Ground opened in 1898 and was extended in 1931. During the early 19th century, the area had been used as a plant nursery until its purchase by the UDC in the 1890s. Watchetts Recreation Ground was part of the Watchetts House estate until 1927, when it was bought by the UDC. The ground was officially opened on 16 May 1931.

Until the 1990s, Crabtree Park was a rubbish dump. The landfill site was closed, the waste was capped and the area reopened as a recreation ground. The skate park was reopened in 2014, following a £25,000 refurbishment project.

Until the mid-1930s, Camberley residents used the Blackwater River to swim. The first purpose-built pool, the Blue Pool, was built on the London Road by a private company and opened in May 1934. The borough council took over the facility in 1973, but it closed three years later when essential repair works were found to be financially unviable. The Manor House flats were built on the site of the Blue Pool in the early 1980s.

The Arena Leisure Centre was built on the northeastern corner of the London Road Recreation Ground and opened in November 1984. The facility closed in August 2019 and was demolished. The new Arena Leisure Centre, on the same site as the previous centre, opened in July 2021. It has two swimming pools, a gym and three exercise studios. The centre is owned by the borough council and is operated by Places Leisure on a 25-year design, build, operate and maintain contract.

Organisations
Camberley Town Football Club joined the Surrey Football Association in January 1896 and is thought to have been founded the previous year. It began as part of the St Michael’s Club, the social club associated with St Michael’s Church. The team was initially referred to as St Michael’s, Camberley and played its home games on meadow land in King’s Ride. The first recorded match took place in October 1896, against a team from the Royal Military College. By late 1900, the club was under financial pressure and was refounded as Camberley and Yorktown F. C. in January the following year. After two decades of moving between temporary home grounds, the club was established at Krooner Park in 1922.

The first cycling club to be founded in the area is recorded in a local directory of 1889. By 1904, the Camberley Wheelers had been formed and was organising meetings at the London Road Recreation Ground. In 1969, the club merged with Farnborough Cycling Club to form the Farnborough & Camberley Cycling Club.

Camberley Rugby Football Club (R.F.C.) was founded in 1931 and played its first game at Watchetts Recreation Ground in October of that year. The club affiliated to the Surrey Rugby Union in 1933 and, like most other local teams, disbanded in September 1939. The recreation ground was used to grow potatoes and it was not until the autumn of 1947 that club was able to resume. Initially Camberley R.F.C. had use of the cricket pavilion, as tenants of the cricket club, but constructed their own clubhouse in 1970. In March 1973, the first team won the Surrey Cup.

Camberley Heath Golf Club was designed by Harry Colt and was formally opened by Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein on 1 January 1914. A project to regenerate the course, reinstating some of the original bunker designs, was undertaken in the mid-2010s. In 2020, the course was used as a location for third series of the BBC television drama, Killing Eve.

By the mid-1860s, there were two cricket teams in the area, one for Yorktown and one for Cambridge Town, and a match is recorded between the two in June 1865. They had merged by 1882, the name “Camberley Cricket Club” was adopted. The club shut down at the start of the First World War, but was refounded in 1929 and began playing its home games at the Watchetts Recreation Ground the following year. Local cricket again ceased at the start of the Second World War, but a new club was founded in 1944 and the first match was played the following year. A new ground was leased from the Watchetts estate and the first home games were played there in 1951. The ground was officially opened in 1952 and was bought by the club the following year. Over the next three decades, the club sold off part of the land surround the ground to fund improvements to the pitch and pavilion. The first girls' team was launched in 2013.

The first hockey club in Camberley was formed in 1898 and, by 1907, there were two clubs in the town. The present Camberley and Farnborough Hockey Club was founded in the 1950s and plays its home games at Kings International College. There are two tennis clubs in the area. Camberley Lawn Tennis Club is based at Southcote Park, which has five all-weather courts. Frimley Tennis Club is based at Watchetts Recreation Ground and has four outdoor courts.

Notable buildings and landmarks
The Camberley Obelisk is a square brick tower in the grounds of St Tarcissius School. Local legend states that it was built by John Norris c. 1750, although Historic England gives a construction date of c. 1841. Originally the tower is thought to have been 30 m tall, but only the lower third remains standing. It may have been built as a folly or as a signalling tower.

The Staff College, to the north of Camberley town centre, is part of the Joint Services Command and Staff College, which provides training and education for established officers in the British Armed Forces and civil servants in the Ministry of Defence. The institution has its origins in the Royal Military College, High Wycombe, which was founded in 1799. It moved to Farnham in 1813, relocating seven years later to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. The Staff College building was designed by James Pennethorne and constructed in 1862. It was primarily built using London stock bricks, although the front elevation is partially faced with stone. The uppermost storey was added in 1913.

Camberley War Memorial was erected in 1922 at the southern entrance to the Royal Military Academy. It takes the form of a Latin cross, carved from granite. The names of 233 people who died in the First World War are recorded on two columns at the base of the cross and 140 who died in the Second World War are listed on four piers at the corners of the plinth. A stone, set into the pavement at the foot of the memorial, commemorates Garth Walford, who was born in Yorktown in 1882 and who died at Gallipoli in 1915.

Notable people

 * John Pennycuick (18411911) engineer died in Camberley
 * Arthur Sullivan (18421900) composer lived in Camberley between the ages of three and fifteen, and attended York Town School until the age of eight. He wrote The Golden Legend at Camberley in 1886
 * Hosea Ballou Morse (18551934) historian of China lived in Camberley from 1914 until his death
 * Doveton Sturdee (18591925) lived in Camberley and is commemorated in a stained glass window in St Pauls Church
 * Vaughan Cornish (18621948) geographer lived and died in Camberley
 * Charles Wellington Furse (18681904) artist lived in Camberley from 1900 until his death
 * Frederick Twort (18771950) microbiologist born, lived and died in Camberley
 * Rick Wakeman (b. 1949) musician lived in Camberley in the 1980s and was vice-president of Camberley Town F. C.
 * George Saville (b. 1993) footballer born in Camberley
 * Simone Ashley (b. 1995) actress born in Camberley