Hooley is a village in the borough of
Reigate and Banstead in
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. ...
, England. Within its small grid of streets is the 13th-century church of
Chipstead which has been, since
time immemorial, its
ecclesiastical parish. Hooley is connected via paths and the
A23 road to the larger community of
Coulsdon, to the north, in the
London Borough of Croydon.
History
Hooley until the early 20th century was a sparsely inhabited
hamlet of Chipstead, both a largely permeable chalk upland area with little housing or industry. Both the
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and the
South Eastern Railway recognised the construction of short
tunnels here as the best route out of
London to
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
for their
rival railway lines. The two very deep railway cuttings here have been the locations of many land slips over the years. Before these the 1805 extension of the
Surrey Iron Railway, a horse-drawn
plateway came through this pass. A bridge from this early plateway survives at the junction of Brighton Road with Dean Lane.
In 1965, upon the formation of Greater London, Hooley, along with Purley and Coulsdon, became part of the London Borough of Croydon. Some communities on the very edge of Greater London were allowed the option of returning to their former counties. Hooley voted to return to Surrey and was added to Banstead.
[See Hansard 17Dec1968 Vol 775] In the same way, Farleigh, which was also then in Croydon, voted to leave and was added to Godstone.
References
External links
{{authority control
Villages in Surrey
Reigate and Banstead
