Tale of a hill in the outskirts of Surrey (5)
I believe the answer is:
story
'tale' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'a hill in the outskirts of surrey' is the wordplay.
'a hill' becomes 'tor' (tor is a kind of hill).
'in the' indicates putting letters inside.
'outskirts of' means to remove the middle letters (only letters on the outskirts).
'surrey' with its centre taken out is 'sy'.
'tor' going into 'sy' is 'STORY'.
'of' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for story that I've seen before include "Account, tale" , "Anecdote" , "Narration" , "See 10 and 19" , "Narrative or account" .)