Ripley grew up as a staging post on the old Portsmouth Road, the main route from London to the naval base at Portsmouth. The village provided rest and refreshment for travellers, coaches, and horses, and several of its pubs date from the coaching era. The Half Moon and the Anchor were both well-known stops. The village green, with its cricket pavilion, has been the centre of community life for centuries.
Newark Priory, whose atmospheric ruins stand beside the River Wey about a mile south of the village, was founded around 1190 as an Augustinian priory. The canons farmed the surrounding water meadows and maintained fishponds along the river. Henry VIII dissolved the priory in 1538, and the ruins have been gradually crumbling ever since. They stand on private land but are visible from the Wey Navigation towpath, reflected in the water on still mornings.
Ripley's most distinctive chapter came in the 1880s, when cycling exploded as a popular recreation. The flat roads from London to Ripley, about thirty miles, made it a natural destination for weekend riders. The Dibble sisters at the Anchor pub became famous for their hospitality to cyclists and kept a visitors' book that eventually contained over seven thousand signatures. Lord Bury called Ripley "the Mecca of good cyclists" in 1887, and the phrase stuck. The cycling heritage was so strong that a blue plaque was erected at the Anchor. RHS Garden Wisley, just down the road, began in 1878 as George Fergusson Wilson's experimental garden, where he tested whether difficult plants could be made to grow in the wild Surrey soil. The Royal Horticultural Society acquired the site in 1903 with a bequest from Wilson's estate, and it has since grown into one of the world's most visited gardens.
