Surrey
Surrey's most significant source of prosperity in the later Middle Ages was the production of woollen cloth, which emerged during that period as England's main export industry. The county was an early centre of English textile manufacturing, benefiting from the presence of deposits of fuller's earth, the rare mineral composite important in the process of finishing cloth, around Reigate and Nutfield. The industry in Surrey was focused on Guildford, which gave its name to a variety of cloth, "gilforte", which was exported widely across Europe and the Middle East and imitated by manufacturers elsewhere in Europe. However, as the English cloth industry expanded, Surrey was outstripped by other growing regions of production.
Though Surrey was not the scene of serious fighting in the various rebellions and civil wars of the period, armies from Kent heading for London via Southwark passed through what were then the extreme north-eastern fringes of Surrey during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and Cade's Rebellion in 1450, and at various stages of the Wars of the Roses in 1460, 1469 and 1471. The upheaval of 1381 also involved widespread local unrest in Surrey, as was the case all across south-eastern England, and some recruits from Surrey joined the Kentish rebel army.
South East England
The Atomic Weapons Establishment is in Aldermaston on the Hampshire boundary. The Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre and Xtrac Limited are at Thatcham. The Royal School of Military Survey is in Hermitage. East of the A34, north of the M4, at Compton since 1992 is the UK HQ of Baxter Healthcare, part of a global company which is working on a vaccine for H1N1, and next door is the Institute for Animal Health, which also researches H1N1.
Retriever Sports, on the Mill Street Ind Est near Slough railway station, is the world's largest manufacturer of darts equipment. Mars Limited has a large chocolate factory, run under the name of Effem Holdings Ltd, also in Slough on the enormous Slough Trading Estate which makes 3m Mars bars a day; nearby is Johnson Controls UK (car seats), and ICI Paints, Polyfilla, and Dulux. Horlicks is made by GSK there. Oki UK (desktop printers) are based next to Mars. Honda UK, Citroën UK, Fiat UK, Douwe Egberts UK (and its owner Sara Lee UK), BlackBerry UK, Black & Decker Europe, Amazon UK, Ingres UK, Telefónica O2 Europe UK and Reckitt Benckiser are also in Slough.