Walter George Tarrant

Who was Walter George Tarrant?

Walter George Tarrant was a builder born in Brockhurst, near Gosport, Hampshire, England. He is best known as a Surrey master builder and developer of St George’s Hill and the Wentworth Estate in Surrey.

In 1895, aged just 20, he set up his own building company, W G Tarrant Ltd, in the village of Byfleet and in the early 1900s built extensively in Pyrford, West Byfleet and Woking. The company almost certainly constructed some of the first buildings at nearby Brooklands . By 1911 his premises in Byfleet covered over five acres and included workshops for joinery, wrought iron and leaded lights, a stonemason’s yard, and a timber mill with drying sheds. He also owned nurseries in Addlestone and Pyrford and brickfields in Chobham and Rowlands Castle.

In 1911 he bought 964 acres of Surrey scrubland from the Egertons, the family of Lord Ellesmere which he developed into the St George's Hill estate. Tarrant was subsequently responsible for constructing excellent housing in Weybridge, Byfleet, Pyrford, Woking and Virginia Water, where he launched the Wentworth Estate in 1923.

During World War One, his company manufactured large numbers of prefabricated wooden huts for military use on the Western Front and also designed and constructed the Tarrant Tabor six-engined triplane bomber, which crashed at Farnborough aerodrome when attempting its first flight on 26th May 1919.