Gomshall | |
---|---|
Village | |
![]() Gomshall Post Office and Mill | |
Location within Surrey | |
Population | <1,000 |
OS grid reference | TQ084480 |
Civil parish | |
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Guildford |
Postcode district | GU5 |
Dialling code | 01483 |
Police | Surrey |
Fire | Surrey |
Ambulance | South East Coast |
UK Parliament | |
Gomshall is a village in the borough of Guildford in Surrey, England. [1]
It is on the A25, roughly halfway between Guildford and Dorking, and in Shere civil parish, [2] which, reaching to Peaslake and Colmar's Hill, in 2001 recorded a human population of 3,359. [3] Nearest places are Shere, Albury and Abinger Hammer.
The River Tillingbourne flows through Gomshall, while the North Downs Way passes just to the north. The village also has a railway station on the North Downs Line, served by Great Western Railway trains running between Reading and Redhill.
The Manor of Gumesele was a Saxon feudal landholding that originally included the present day Gomshall. [4]
Gomshall appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Gomeselle. It was held by William the Conqueror. Its domesday assets were: 1 mill worth 3s 4d, 20 ploughs, 3 acres (12,000 m2) of meadow, woodland worth 30 hogs. It rendered £30. [5]
In 1154, Henry II of England divided the Manor of Gumesele into three: West Gomshall, East Gomshall and Somersbury. In 1240, West Gomshall was granted to the Cistercian Abbey of Netley in Hampshire [6] and became known as Gomshall Netley. In 1376 East Gomshall was granted to the Abbey of St Mary Graces, Tower Hill, London, and became known as Gomshall Towerhill.
For the 1380 poll tax, Gomshall had 267 names registered. The occupations written beside the names show land-holders and the usual country crafts but also a high proportion of skills relating to the wool trade; there were spinners and weavers, fullers and pelterers and many tailors.
Local industries developed based on the plentiful and constant water supply of the River Tillingbourne. Those that survived into the 20th century, but are now gone, were corn milling, watercress growing, and leather tanning. Gomshall Mill, now a public house, was the corn mill. Netley Mill pumped water for the Hurtwood Water Company for part of its existence.
This section needs additional citations for verification .(March 2023) |
Gomshall has two pubs, a petrol station and a number of homeware shops. Although the petrol station has a very small shop the nearest everyday shops are either in Shere or Abinger Hammer.
Gomshall Mill pub reopened in December 2022 following the completion of the first phase of a major refurbishment project. [7] The building, which dates from the 17th century, was a watermill until 1953 and the waterwheel can still be seen inside. [8] The Compasses Inn nearby, has a garden by the Tillingbourne stream. [9]
The Vintage Frog and Coachhouse sell homeware and the latter has a garden that backs onto the Tillingbourne stream.
The old Black Horse pub operated as a cafe and homewares shop in recent years, most recently as the Lavender Goose. Originally a malt house in the late 17th century, it did not become a pub until the early 19th century. John Reffell's brewery used to be situated at the back of the inn, and brewed mild, bitter and a Farmer's Brew here. William Gladstone is said to have had a meeting here. Young's of Wandsworth bought the pub in 1926 and closed the brewery three years later. The pub was known as a smart country hotel up until its sale to Whitbread in 1989, who then ran it as a Mulligans fish restaurant. It returned to being a pub, and featured both Thai and Indian restaurants. However the pub closed again in 2008 and following a long period of uncertainty opened as a tea room in October 2011. The site ceased trading over the pandemic and was sold in 2021 and purchased by a developer for housing. The proposed scheme will see the building demolished and replaced with a block of flats and townhouses. The old pub garden will be built over. A decision on planning is awaited.
Fetcham is a suburban village in the Mole Valley district, in Surrey, England west of the town of Leatherhead, on the other side of the River Mole and has a mill pond, springs and an associated nature reserve. The housing, as with adjacent Great Bookham, sits on the lower slopes of the North Downs north of Polesden Lacey (NT). Fetcham Grove has Leatherhead and the village's main leisure centre and football club, between the two settlements. Fetcham has two short parades of shops and services, several sports teams and parks and a small number of large pubs and food premises.
East Horsley is a village and civil parish in Surrey, England, 21 miles southwest of London, on the A246 between Leatherhead and Guildford. Horsley and Effingham Junction railway stations are on the New Guildford line to London Waterloo. The two-halves of ancient Horsley are similar in having substantial woodland and some chalky lower slopes, in the south, of the North Downs.
Bramley is a village and civil parish about three miles (5 km) south of Guildford in the Borough of Waverley in Surrey, south east England. Most of the parish lies in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Abinger Hammer is a village in the Vale of Holmesdale, located on the A25 in Surrey, England. The village is located within the Surrey Hills AONB, approximately midway between the market towns of Dorking and Guildford. The village is named after its water-powered iron forge.
Abinger is a large, well-wooded and mostly rural civil parish that lies between the settlements of Dorking, Shere and Ewhurst in the district of Mole Valley, Surrey, England.
Shere is a village in the Guildford district of Surrey, England 4.8 miles (7.7 km) east south-east of Guildford and 5.4 miles (8.7 km) west of Dorking, centrally bypassed by the A25. Located on the River Tillingbourne it is a small still partly agricultural village chiefly set in the wooded Vale of Holmesdale between the North Downs and Greensand Ridge. As of 2011 the village had a population of 1,032.
Albury is a village and civil parish in central Surrey, England, around 3.5 miles (5.6 km) east of Guildford. It is in the Surrey Hills National Landscape and the Borough of Guildford.
Guildford Borough Council in Surrey, England is elected every four years.
Artington is a village and civil parish in the borough of Guildford, Surrey, England. It covers the area from the southern edge of the built-up centre of Guildford and steep Guildown, the start of the Hog's Back and part of the North Downs AONB, to New Pond Farm by Godalming and the edge of Peasmarsh. It contains Loseley Park, a country estate with dairy, and the hamlet of Littleton.
Chilworth is a village in the Guildford borough of Surrey, England. It is located in the Tillingbourne valley, southeast of Guildford.
Ewhurst is a rural village and civil parish in the borough of Waverley in Surrey, England. It is located 8.3 miles (13.4 km) south-east of Guildford, 2 miles (3.2 km) east of Cranleigh, and 4.5 miles (7.2 km) south of Shere.
Peaslake, Hoe, and Colman's Hill are in the centre of the Surrey Hills AONB and mid-west of the Greensand Ridge about 5 miles (8.0 km) ESE of Guildford. 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, but are otherwise lightly scattered settlements at a higher elevation than the centre of Shere, the civil parish.
Normandy is a civil parish of 16.37 square kilometres in the borough of Guildford in Surrey, England and the name of the largest village in that parish. Almost surrounded by its hill ranges, Normandy is in the plain west of Guildford, straddles the A323 'Aldershot Road' and is north of the narrowest part the North Downs known as the Hog's Back which carries a dual carriageway. The parish in 2011 had a population of 2,981 living in 1,310 households, has woods, a public common and four government-operated commons to the north that are an SSSI heath. Normandy has been home to a number of notable residents, including William Cobbett.
The River Tillingbourne runs along the south side of the North Downs and joins the River Wey at Guildford. Its source is a mile south of Tilling Springs to the north of Leith Hill at grid reference TQ143437 and it runs through Friday Street, Abinger Hammer, Gomshall, Shere, Albury, Chilworth and Shalford. The source is a semi-natural uninhabited area. The catchment is situated on sandstone which has a low rate of weathering. The Tillingbourne is 24 km (15 mi) in length.
St Martha is a hillside, largely wooded, small civil parish in the Guildford borough of Surrey towards the narrower part of the west half of the North Downs. It includes three homes north of St Martha's Hill, a southern knoll of the range of hills but almost all its population is south of this, in much of the village: Chilworth which is divided between it and Shalford parish. This results in an overlapping of areas where it is wished to consider the village of Chilworth. Chilworth gunpowder works mark the southern border of the entity, and are a well-preserved, publicly accessible area of bourne-side former industry, which helped to provide much of Surrey's contribution toward the gunpowder for many years of the British Empire.
Netley Heath is an area of woods and heathland in the parish of Shere close to Gomshall in Surrey, England. It is part of a larger geological stratum across parts of the South East, the "Netley Heath Beds". From 1795 to 1815 Netley Heath was the site of an Admiralty shutter telegraph station on the line from London to Portsmouth.
Tillingbourne Bus Company was a bus company based in Cranleigh, Surrey. The company operated bus and coach services in Surrey, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire from 1924 until 2001.
The second Guildford Borough Council full-council elections were held on 6 May 1976. The Conservatives retained control of the council with an increased majority, winning 35 of the 45 seats.
Many watermills lined the banks of the River Wey, England, from the 17th century, due to the river's ability to provide a reliable, year-round flow of water. These mills chiefly ground wheat, often referred to as corn, for flour and oats for animal feed though many were used in the production of other goods such as paper, cloth, leather, wire and gunpowder. The river was home to more mills per mile than anywhere else in Great Britain. The mill situated at Coxes Lock near Addlestone, Surrey, is the largest. There are many mills on the river's principal tributaries, such as the Tillingbourne, the Ock and some mills on the Whitmore Vale stream, Cranleigh Waters and Hodge Brook. The last commercial mill on the Tillingbourne, Botting's Mill at Albury, closed in 1991. Headley Water Mill, on the Wey South branch is still in business. Town Mill, Guildford still has a water turbine driven generator producing electricity for the town.