Farley Green is a small hamlet of

Albury Albury (; ) is a major regional city that is located in the Murray River, Murray region of New South Wales, Australia. It is part of the twin city of Albury–Wodonga, Albury-Wodonga and is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of ...

in 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 ...

where it forms the south of the

Surrey Hills AONB The Surrey Hills National Landscape is a National Landscape in Surrey, England. It comprises around one quarter of the land area of the county and principally covers parts of the North Downs and Greensand Ridge. It was designated as an Area ...

, to the south east of

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west 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 nam ...

History

On the outskirts of Farley Green, lies Farley Heath where one of Surrey's few Roman remains, a temple, can be found. The open heathland was the site of the largest

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

settlement in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. The site was excavated in 1848 by Martin Tupper, an antiquarian and poet, who lived in nearby

. Some of his finds are now housed in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. A

Romano-Celtic Temple A Romano-Celtic temple or is a sub-class of Roman temples which is found in the north-western Celtic provinces of the Roman Empire. It was the centre of worship in the Gallo-Roman religion. The architecture of Romano-Celtic temples differs from ...

was in use some time before the end of the 1st century AD and was believed to be destroyed by fire around 450 AD. A number of pottery kilns, dating to the third or fourth centuries were also found. A subsequent excavation took place in 1926 led by S.E. Winbolt. The most recent archaeological excavation was undertaken by Surrey County Archaeological Unit, funded by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

, in 1995. The full report was published in Surrey Archaeological Collections in 2007. The outline of the temple can still be seen and is marked out by stones set in concrete. The pond located on the green was used as a latrine pit by those living in the temple.

Topography

The village houses spread mostly along Shophouse Lane which then becomes steep and narrow towards

Winterfold Forest Winterfold Forest is a wooded area of the broadest plateau of the western Greensand Ridge in Surrey, England. It blends seamlessly into the Hurt Wood or Hurtwood. Geography Hurt Wood is that part of the forest in greater Shere parish and associa ...

which ascends to more than 200 metres

Above Ordnance Datum An ordnance datum (OD) is a vertical datum used by an ordnance survey as the basis for deriving altitudes on maps. A spot height may be expressed as above ordnance datum (AOD). Usually mean sea level (MSL) at a particular place is used for the ...

. The forest which climbs right to the summit of the Greensand Ridge is part of the Hurtwood and is where some of the Great Train Robbery proceeds were discovered, buried. The whole undulating area covering the south of Albury parish had been the haunt of smugglers in the distant past. The hamlet has its own

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

chapel, dedicated to

St Michael Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel and the warrior of God in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second- ...

, originally a barn built in the 19th century. The barn was given to the parish by Clara Courtenay-Wells, to be converted to a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...

as a memorial to her late husband, who had died in 1929.

Notable residents

* C. J. Allen (sculptor) * Mary Quant (British fashion designer)

References

External links

Hamlets in Surrey Borough of Guildford Ancient Roman temples Roman religious sites in England Archaeological sites in Surrey {{surrey-geo-stub