On a local farm - South Tadworth Farm - is an Iron Age ’Banjo’ enclosure, dating from 400–100 BC.
Tadworth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as ’Tadeorde and Tadorne’. Its assets were: 2 hides, 5 ploughs and woodland worth 4 hogs.
For centuries after that, a manorial system was in place: namely North Tadworth Manor, South Tadworth Manor and the Rectory Manors of Banstead.
In 1874 a school board was formed for Banstead, Tadworth, and Kingswood, and in 1875 Tadworth and Kingswood School was opened by the board - now Kingswood Primary School.
In 1911 topographer and historian H. E. Malden describes Tadworth as "a hamlet on the Reigate road, included now in the ecclesiastical district of Kingswood".
On 1 July 1900, the railway station opened as ’Tadworth & Walton-on-the Hill’. It is the penultimate station on the Tattenham Corner Line.
The British Transport Police’s training headquarters was located at a site between Tadworth and Walton-on-the-Hill until it was closed in 2010.