Great Bookham | |
---|---|
Village | |
St Nicolas Church | |
High Street | |
Location within Surrey | |
Population | 11,375 (2011 Census. Bookham North and South Wards, covering Great and Little Bookham) [1] |
OS grid reference | TQ1354 |
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Leatherhead |
Postcode district | KT23 |
Dialling code | 01372 |
Police | Surrey |
Fire | Surrey |
Ambulance | South East Coast |
UK Parliament | |
Great Bookham is a village in the Mole Valley district, in Surrey, England, one of six semi-urban spring line settlements between the towns of Leatherhead and Guildford. With the narrow strip parish of Little Bookham, it forms part of the Saxon settlement of Bocham ("the village by the beeches"). The Bookhams are surrounded by common land, and Bookham railway station in Church Road, Great Bookham, serves both settlements.
The villages are astride the A246, which is the and direct route between the two towns. Once two distinct villages, the Bookhams have long been interconnected with residential roads which give the impression of one large village.
On the southern edge of the village is Polesden Lacey, a country house surrounded by more than 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) of grounds. It is owned by the National Trust and open to the public.
According to a charter c.675, the original of which is lost but which exists in a later form, there were granted to the Abbey twenty dwellings at Bocham cum Effingham. This was confirmed by four Saxon kings; King Offa of Mercia and of the nations roundabout in 787; King Æthelstan who was "King and ruler of the whole island of Britain" in 933 confirmed the privileges to the monastery; King Edgar, "Emperor of all Britain" in 967 confirmed "twelve mansiones" in Bocham, and King Edward the Confessor, King of the English, in 1062 confirmed twenty mansae at Bocham cum Effingham, Driteham and Pechingeorde.
Great Bookham lay within the Anglo-Saxon administrative district of Effingham half hundred.
The Domesday Book of 1086, which was a survey for taxation purposes, makes the first known distinction between the parishes of Great and Little Bookham, if it is assumed that there was no separate parish at the time of the charter of Edward the Confessor in 1062. Driteham and Pechingeorde are both referred to in the Domesday Book and appear to have been absorbed into the manors of Effingham and Effingham East Court. Great Bookham appears in the Domesday Book in the ancient hundred of Effingham as Bocheham. [2] [3] It was held by St Peter's Abbey, Chertsey. Its Domesday Assets were: 13 hides; 1 church, 1 mill worth 10s, 20 ploughs, 6 acres (2.4 ha) of meadow, woodland and herbage worth 110 hogs. It rendered (in total): £15.
It seems probable, as the number of cottages in Bookham and Effingham remained constant, that the later charters must have been copies of earlier charters which were not revised to accord with the actual number of cottages at any one time.
In 1951 the civil parish had a population of 7885. [4] On 1 April 1974 the parish was abolished. [5]
A regency villa on the southern edge of the village, Polesden Lacey has been the site of a house since at least 1336. The current house dates from the 17th century, and was bequeathed by its last owner, the Hon. Mrs. Greville, a legendary Edwardian hostess, to the National Trust in 1942. When the Grevilles purchased the property in 1906, they extensively remodelled the house with the help of Mewes and Davis, architects of the Ritz Hotel, London. There are large walled and formal gardens, an orchard and croquet lawn, as well as extensive farmland.
The property and its 1,400-acre (5.7 km2) estate are open to the public, and is one of the National Trust's most visited properties. The house is also the National Trust's Southern Region head office.
The future King George VI and his bride spent part of their honeymoon at Polesden Lacey, as guests of Mrs. Greville.
The poet and playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan was a previous owner of the property from 1804.
To the south side of the High Street stands Bookham Grove Manor, built in the early 18th century, once owned by the Dawnay family. It is now converted into apartments, with coach houses built in its now one-acre (0.40 ha) grounds. The manor's original large estate covered the surrounding roads up to Dorking Road, and Groveside, and had grounds to the front, running down to the Guildford Road. When the land was sold for development in 1947, the shops and car park were built in the grounds to the front of the house. Another surviving part of the estate is the stables, on the corner of Dorking Road.
Eastwick Park, a beautiful manor in the village, was lost in 1958. The house stood within the area of roads now known as the 'Eastwick area', and its very large private estate included Great Bookham Commons, which were saved by the village and given to the National Trust. After ceasing to be used as a private house, the manor was used by the Canadian military in World War II, and was also a school called Southey Hall, before being demolished for redevelopment. The original gates to the house stand just west of Eastwick Park Avenue on Lower Road.
To the west of the Bookhams lies the village of Effingham; further west on the road to Guildford lie the similar villages of East and West Horsley and East and West Clandon. To the north-east lie Fetcham and Leatherhead, north of which the area becomes increasingly urban heading towards central London, which is only 23 miles (37 km) away. To the south-east, across the North Downs, are the village of Westhumble and the market town of Dorking.
The village has a short high street at its centre, which has a butcher, a family-run fishmongers, one bakery, a greengrocer and two small supermarkets. Rayleigh House, at the top of the high street, originally built as the Victoria Temperance Hotel by Mary Chrystie, now contains an estate agents.
There are two public houses in Great Bookham: The Anchor, The Royal Oak and one in Little Bookham, Ye Olde Windsor Castle. Currently the Crown pub is closed. A loose association with the latter is that the Ranger of Windsor Great Park was often appointed from the area by King Henry VIII. The Old Barn Hall is the main community centre, regularly used for staging amateur dramatics productions and hosting parties and receptions.
There are two primary schools in the village: Eastwick Junior School in Eastwick Drive and Great Bookham School (formerly The Dawnay School) in Griffin Way. There are three infant schools in Great Bookham: Polesden Lacey Infant School in Oakfield Close, Eastwick Infant School in Eastwick Drive, and Great Bookham Infant School in Griffin Way.
Great Bookham has a Non-League football club Bookham F.C. who play at the Chrystie Recreation Ground in the Surrey Elite Intermediate Football League. The club was founded before the First World War. [6]
Bookham Commons includes the two commons in Great Bookham and Little Bookham. Great Bookham Common was bought by local residents in 1923 to save the oak woodlands, then given to the National Trust. Little Bookham Common was given to the Trust in 1924 by Mr H. Willock-Pollen, then Banks Common in 1925 by Mr R. Calburn.
The London Natural History Society has been surveying Bookham Commons for more than fifty years, making it one of the best recorded sites for wildlife in southeast England.
The common land consist of grassland (wet, low-lying meadows), woodland, scrub and twelve ponds. The ponds are home to all three British species of newt, including the rare Great Crested Newt. The five largest ponds are man-made, formed for fish production in the 17th century.
Great Bookham is served by these emergency services:
Effingham is a village in the Borough of Guildford in Surrey, reaching from the gently sloping northern plain to the crest of the North Downs and with a medieval parish church. The village was the home of notable figures, such as Barnes Wallis who is buried here and Toni Mascolo. The M25 motorway is 4 miles (6.4 km) north-west of the middle of the village, which consists of new build homes and green space in the Metropolitan Green Belt.
Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England, about 17 mi (27 km) south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leatherhead was a royal vill and is first mentioned in the will of Alfred the Great in 880 AD. The first bridge across the Mole may have been constructed in around 1200 and this may have coincided with the expansion of the town and the enlargement of the parish church.
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.
Little Bookham is a village in the Mole Valley district, in Surrey, England between Great Bookham and Effingham. It is home to several listed historical buildings, included in a large conservation area, along with Ye Olde Windsor Castle public house, Manor House School, and All Saints' Church. The village is centred immediately north of the North Downs and is contiguous with Great Bookham, the two divisions of Bookham having been made in the early medieval period.
Mole Valley is a local government district in Surrey, England. Its council is based in Dorking, and the district's other town is Leatherhead. The largest villages are Ashtead, Fetcham and Great Bookham, in the northern third of the district.
Merrow is a suburb in the north-east of Guildford, in Surrey, England. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) from the town's centre, on the edge of the ridge of hills that forms the North Downs. Although now a relatively obscure suburb, the village can trace its origins back many hundreds of years. Merrow is separated from Burpham by the New Guildford Line, the second railway line between Guildford and London.
Mole Valley is a former constituency in Surrey represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by Sir Paul Beresford, a Conservative, until it was abolished in 2024, primarily replaced by Dorking and Horley.
Polesden Lacey is an Edwardian house and estate, located on the North Downs at Great Bookham, near Dorking, Surrey, England. It is owned and run by the National Trust and is one of the Trust's most popular properties.
Westhumble is a village in south east England, approximately 2 km (1.2 mi) north of Dorking, Surrey. The village is not part of a civil parish, however the majority of the settlement is in the ecclesiastical Parish of Mickleham.
Headley is a village and civil parish in the North Downs in Surrey, England. The nearest settlements are, to the west, Mickleham and Leatherhead; to the north, Ashtead and Langley Vale; to the east, Walton-on-the-Hill; and to the south, Box Hill. It is just outside the M25 motorway encircling London.
Leatherhead railway station is in Leatherhead, Surrey, England. It is managed by Southern, with services provided by them and South Western Railway. It is 18 miles 2 chains (29 km) from London Waterloo.
Copthorne was a hundred of Surrey, England, an area above the level of the parishes and manors, where the local wise, wealthy and powerful met periodically in Anglo-Saxon England for strategic purposes. After the Norman Conquest the lords of the manor took to annual hundred meetings and their status became eroded by royal-approved transactions of land, as meanwhile the manorial courts and moreover royal courts seized jurisdiction over the Hundred Courts.
The Howard of Effingham School is a co-educational secondary school and sixth form with academy status. It is located in the village of Effingham, Surrey, to the west of Little Bookham. The school is part of the Howard Partnership Trust, a Multi-Academy Trust which includes four secondary and five primary schools.
William McEwan was a Scottish politician and brewer. He founded the Fountain Brewery in 1856, served as a member of parliament (MP) from 1886 to 1900, and funded the construction of the McEwan Hall at the University of Edinburgh.
Dorking and Horley is a new constituency of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament. Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, it was first contested in the 2024 general election.