Farnham

Town in Surrey, southeast England, on the River Wey; population (2001) 36,300. It is a retailing and business centre, and has an institute of art and design. Industries include biochemical research, software manufacture, and television and video production. Waverley Abbey (1128), the first Cistercian house in England, lies nearby to the southeast; Walter Scott is said to have named his first novel after the foundation.

Farnham Castle, dating from the 12th century, was the palace of the bishops of Winchester until 1925, and then the seat of the bishop of Guildford until 1956. Farnham was formerly the centre of a large hop-growing district and it has many fine Georgian buildings, reflecting its importance as a market centre in the 18th century. The area remains extremely prosperous. Willmer House Museum includes a local history collection and many relics of the radical politician and essayist William Cobbett, who was born here in 1763.

The writer Jonathan Swift lived intermittently at Moor Park, near Farnham, from about 1688 to 1699, as secretary to the diplomat William Temple (1628-1699), a distant relative. Here he met Esther Johnson, later his close friend ‘Stella’, the daughter of Temple's widowed housekeeper. Swift's Journal to Stella is a series of letters, written from 1710 to 1713, in which he describes his life in London.