Peaslake, Hoe, and Colman's Hill are in the centre of the

Surrey Hills AONB The Surrey Hills is a Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), which principally covers parts of the North Downs and Greensand Ridge in Surrey, England (approximately one quarter of the land area of the county). The AONB was designated in 1958 ...

and mid-west of the

Greensand Ridge The Greensand Ridge, also known as the Wealden Greensand is an extensive, prominent, often wooded, mixed greensand/sandstone escarpment in south-east England. Forming part of the Weald, a former dense forest in Sussex, Surrey and Kent, it runs ...

about ESE of

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

. Surrounded by denser pine and other coniferous forest-clad hills, the three conjoined settlements have a small core in Peaslake itself with the amenities of a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

, but are otherwise lightly scattered settlements at a higher elevation than the centre of

Shere Shere is a village in the Guildford district of Surrey, England east south-east of Guildford and west of Dorking, centrally bypassed by the A25. It is a small still partly agricultural village chiefly set in the wooded 'Vale of Holmesdale' b ...

, the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

. The area referred to by the 2011 census covers . Friends of the Hurtwood maintains and coppices of surrounding forest, the Hurtwood which comprises: Holmbury Hill, Pitch Hill, Winterfold, Shere Heath, Farley Heath and part of

Blackheath Common Blackheath Common is an area of of heathland in Surrey, England, near the village of Albury in the borough of Waverley. It is part of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) ...

. It is in the

. On similar terrain in the far east of the parish and borough is

Holmbury St Mary Holmbury St Mary is a village in Surrey, England centered on shallow upper slopes of the Greensand Ridge. Its developed area is a clustered town southwest of Dorking and southeast of Guildford. Most of the village is in the borough of Guildfor ...

which was used in the 2011 race London-Surrey Cycle Classic – both small villages are centres for hiking and mountain biking.

History

The earliest mention of Peaslake was in 1784, when Francis Haybitle, a farm labourer "of Peaslake", left (to the

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

) a

rentcharge In English property law, a rentcharge is an annual sum paid by the owner of freehold land (terre-tenant) to the owner of the rentcharge (rentcharger), a person who need have no other legal interest in the land. They are often known as chief rents ...

of 15s. a year on a cottage in Shere to provide bread for the poor. Peaslake School was founded by George Cubitt (the 1st Lord Ashcombe), Mr. Justice Bray, the Misses Spottiswoode, and others in 1870.

John Bartholomew John Bartholomew (25 December 1831 – 29 March 1893) was a Scottish cartographer. Life Bartholomew was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, John Bartholomew Sr., started a cartographical establishment in Edinburgh, and he was educated ...

mentions the place in his gazetteer of 1887 as a village in Shere parish, Surrey "4½ miles SE. of Guildford". In the last decade of the 19th century a road from Ewhurst, practicable for wheeled vehicles, was the first one brought into Peaslake as district councils were instituted. It was formerly accessible from the north, but was on the edge of the accessible country with no real road beyond. A Working Men's Institute that no longer exists was built in 1891 by the Misses Spottiswoode of Drydown, multiple benefactors to the neighbourhood. Most of the oldest extant houses were built in the brief

Edwardian period The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...

(1901–1911). The writer, Ralph Lawrence, recalls hearing the guns on the Western Front while walking in Hurtwood in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Geography

Peaslake is set in rolling meadows and forests in terms of topography, soil type and land use. Access to the village by car can only be gained by using roads which are at some point single track, which gives visitors the feel that it is more remote than it is, and which makes it quieter than the villages closer to the A25. The position, in one of the most uniformly forested parts of the

, provides a variety of trees on varying terrain. The scattered settlement with a core at Peaslake is between and above sea level. All three adjoining small settlements are in the centre of the Surrey Hills and about from Guildford. The Law Brook, a tributary of the Tillingbourne, has a source within the parish.

Hurtwood

In total, with of surrounding forest, the Hurtwood comprises: Holmbury Hill, Pitch Hill, Winterfold, Shere Heath, Farley Heath and part of

. It is largely

common land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect Wood fuel, wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

and is maintained by the Friends of the Hurtwood. Three of the nine car parks within Hurtwood are closest to Peaslake. Almost east of Pitch Hill, wholly within Shere parish bounds and slightly closer to

, is Holmbury Hill – this is a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

multivallate

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

; its elevation is AOD. Further to the east is Wotton and Abinger Commons. Its most notable features are just over the parish bounds which tends to allocate the watershed crest to Ewhurst (in

Waverley Waverley may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Waverley'' (novel), by Sir Walter Scott ** ''Waverley'' Overture, a work by Hector Berlioz inspired by Scott's novel * Waverley Harrison, a character in the New Zealand soap opera ''Shortland Stree ...

as visible by a dark line in the top-right map of this article). These are Pitch Hill (sometimes called "Coneyhurst Hill") which, at , is the fifth-highest point in Surrey, an adjoining

knoll In geography, knoll is another term for a knowe or hillock, a small, low, round natural hill or mound. Knoll may also refer to: Places * Knoll Camp, site of an Iron Age hill fort Hampshire, England, United Kingdom * Knoll Lake, Leonard Canyon, A ...

along the same crest has the Ewhurst windmill, which is a somewhat rustic, inhabited

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

example – its only other comparator in the South East is at Capel. The

Greensand Way The Greensand Way is a long-distance path of in southeast England, from Haslemere in Surrey to Hamstreet in Kent. It follows the Greensand Ridge along the Surrey Hills and Chart Hills. The route is mostly rural, passing through woods, and a ...

runs from mid

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Hindhead Hindhead is a village in Surrey, England. It is the highest village in Surrey, with buildings at between 185 and 253 metres above sea level. It is best known as the location of the Devil's Punch Bowl, a beauty spot and site of special scienti ...

, Surrey, on the border of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

. It stays along the crest of the Downs and is accessed from Peaslake by a nearly straight road at a similar elevation, using a natural ravine formed by Cobbler's Brook which rises on the opposite side of the Duke of Kent School, close but within Ewhurst parish.

Amenities

Amenities are a village hall, pub, a bike shop and a multi-purpose village shop that serves teas and hot snacks, and incorporates a post office.

Place of worship

St Mark's church, built in 1889, is in the centre of the village, opposite the village hall. It is in the same parish as St James in

and the Sunday morning services alternate between them.St Mark, Peaslake, Parish of Shere
The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

School

The village school is unusual in that it is owned and run by residents and parents, who bought it after it was closed by the local education council in 1994. It is free to pupils (except those in the nursery classes) and raises all its own running costs (over £100,000 a year) without council or government support (aside from "early years" funding). It offers education for fifty children from age 3 to 7. The school was made a Free school in September 2013 It has a roll of 29 pupils.

Hotel

The Hurtwood Inn hotel was an early part of what became the

Trust House Forte Forte Group plc was a British hotel and restaurant company. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Granada in 1996. Its head office was in the London Borough of Camden. ...

hotel group.

Demography

In all 111 houses make up the main centre of the village of 346 in total. The

United Kingdom Census 2011 A Census in the United Kingdom, census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Inter ...

considered the village as three relevant output layers, approximately a quarter of the

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

''Shere'', the latter being used for elections to

Guildford Borough Council Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildfo ...

. All parts featured their single largest proportion of housing as

single family home A stand-alone house (also called a single-detached dwelling, detached residence or detached house) is a free-standing residential building. It is sometimes referred to as a single-family home, as opposed to a multi-family residential dwellin ...

s with gardens. The proportion of households in the three divisions of Peaslake who owned their home outright was at least 13.3% above the borough average and 19.4% above the national average (in Colman's Hill, greater still in the other two). The proportion who owned their home with a loan was within 2% of the borough average except in Colman's Hill where it was 9.9% greater than the national average. This provides in each area for a lower proportion than average of rented residential property and of

social housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

relative to the

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

and national averages; in Colman's Hill only 5% of housing was rented, or living rent-free from another.

Public transport

The village is served, weekdays only, by Compass Bus route 25 from Guildford to Cranleigh, taking about 40 minutes from the bus station. The nearest railway station is on the

North Downs Line The North Downs Line is a passenger-train line connecting Reading, on the Great Western Main Line, to Redhill and , along the Brighton Main Line, linking many centres of population in that part of the North Downs which it traverses en route. ...

, about north.

Notable residents

* Dorothy Frances Buxton – co-founder of the

Save the Children Fund The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

. * Vanessa Jackson – painter

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

. *

Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence, PC (né Lawrence; 28 December 1871 – 10 September 1961) was a British Labour politician who, among other things, campaigned for women's suffrage. Background and education B ...

of Peaslake, former Labour minister, who was Secretary of State for India and Burma in the post-war Attlee government. Built a house in Peaslake called Fourways. * Edna Mosley, architect who, with her husband, designed their house, Little Acre in Franksfield, Peaslake, in 1932.

In literature

Peaslake is referenced in Colin Forbes' thriller "The Leader and the Damned", in an episode where a pair of lovers, trapped in the carnage of WWII Europe, dream of a happy future in post-war England: - "I know a little village in Surrey, near Guildford. All huddled down in the folds of the hills..." - "Peaslake?" - "Oh, you know it, too!" Colin Forbes, ''The Leader and the Damned'', London, 1983, Ch. 41

Notes and references

;References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Surrey Borough of Guildford