Ranmore Common, also known as Ranmore Commons, is an area of wooded former common land on the North Downs, immediately northwest of Dorking in the English county of Surrey. Its civil parish is Wotton, a geographically large village with a small population west of Dorking. Ranmore Common is within the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and part of it is Ranmore Common SSSI, a Site of Special Scientific Interest. [1]
George Cubitt, owner and resident of the estate abutting to the east, Denbies Vineyard Estate, commissioned George Gilbert Scott to design St. Barnabas Church, which was completed in 1859. [2] [3] The church is designated with a Grade II* listing; Cubitt is buried to the east of the chancel. [4] It has several other notable burials including Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, who died in 1965.
The north and south sides are wooded and sloped. Its central belt is a road separating a very long, natural grass and wildflower meadow. On its northern edge are Tanners Hatch Youth Hostel and further, across a wooded vale, Polesden Lacey.
The North Downs Way National Trail, a long-distance path that runs from Farnham to Dover, via Canterbury, crosses the common.
For fifty years the route of the Tanners Hatch Marathon, a thirty-mile challenge walk, crossed the common. It began in 1960, and was so-called because the first few marathons started and finished at Tanner's Hatch Youth Hostel. [5]
Dorking is a market town in Surrey in South East England, about 34 km (21 mi) south of London. It is in Mole Valley District and the council headquarters are to the east of the centre. The High Street runs roughly east–west, parallel to the Pipp Brook and along the northern face of an outcrop of Lower Greensand. The town is surrounded on three sides by the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is close to Box Hill and Leith Hill.
Thomas Cubitt was a British master builder, notable for his employment in developing many of the historic streets and squares of London, especially in Belgravia, Pimlico and Bloomsbury. His great-great-great grand daughter is Queen Camilla.
The A25 road is an east–west main road in the South-East of England. Its carries traffic east from Guildford, Surrey, eastward through Surrey and into mid-west Kent, to the town of Sevenoaks, and then on to Wrotham Heath where it connects with the A20.
George Cubitt, 1st Baron Ashcombe, of Denbies House, Dorking, Surrey, was a British politician and peer, a son of Thomas Cubitt, the leading London builder and property developer of his day.
Denbies Wine Estate, near Dorking, Surrey, has the largest vineyard in England, with 265 acres (1.07 km2) under vines, representing more than 10 per cent of the plantings in the whole of the United Kingdom. It has a visitors' centre that attracts around 300,000 visits a year.
The village of Merrow, in Surrey, England in the 21st century constitutes the north-east suburb of Guildford. It is however centred 2 miles (3.2 km) from the town centre, right 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. According to the Institute for Name-Studies, Merrow means 'fat', literally, "probably referring to the high fertility of the land".
Stane Street is the modern name of the 91 km-long (57 mi) Roman road in southern England that linked Londinium (London) to Noviomagus Reginorum (Chichester). The exact date of construction is uncertain; however, on the basis of archaeological artefacts discovered along the route, it was in use by 70 AD and may have been built in the first decade of the Roman occupation of Britain.
Westcott is a semi-rural English village and former civil parish 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of the centre of Dorking on the A25 between the North Downs and Greensand Ridge, making it one of the 'Vale of Holmesdale' villages and is in Surrey in the direction of Guildford. It is served by a local bus service and is 1 mile (1.6 km) from Dorking West railway station on the North Downs Line.
The Surrey Hills is a 422 km2 (163 sq mi) Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), which principally covers parts of the North Downs and Greensand Ridge in Surrey, England. The AONB was designated in 1958 and adjoins the Kent Downs AONB to the east and the South Downs National Park in the south west.
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.
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.
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 4.5 miles (7 km) southwest of Dorking and 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Guildford. Most of the village is in the borough of Guildford, within Shere civil parish. Much of the east side of the village street is in the district of Mole Valley, within Abinger civil parish.
Henry Edward Cubitt, 2nd Baron Ashcombe, was a British politician and peer, the son of George Cubitt, 1st Baron Ashcombe, and his wife Laura Joyce. He is also the great-grandfather of Queen Camilla.
Wotton is a well-wooded parish with one main settlement, a small village mostly south of the A25 between Guildford in the west and Dorking in the east. The nearest village with a small number of shops is Westcott. Wotton lies in a narrow valley, collecting the headwaters of the Tilling Bourne which then has its first combined flow in the Vale of Holmesdale. The parish is long north to south, reaching to the North Downs escarpment in the north to the escarpment of the Greensand Ridge at Leith Hill in the south.
Hackhurst and White Downs is a 185.1-hectare (457-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Dorking in Surrey. White Downs is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 2, and part of it is in the 200-hectare (490-acre) White Downs nature reserve, which is owned by the Wotton Estate and managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust (SWT). Hackhurst Downs is a 29.9-hectare (74-acre) Local Nature Reserve, which part of the 40-hectare (99-acre) Hackhurst Downs nature reserve, which is owned by Surrey County Council and also managed by the SWT.
The Mole Gap Trail is a 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) official walking route alongside the River Mole, linking the Surrey towns of Dorking and Leatherhead. The trail is marked on Ordnance Survey maps. The trail runs through Norbury Park, the village of Westhumble and across Denbies Wine Estate.
The Pipp Brook is a left-bank tributary of the River Mole, Surrey, England. It rises at two main springs north of Leith Hill on the Greensand Ridge, then descends steeply in a northward direction, before flowing eastwards along the Vale of Holmesdale. It runs to the north of Dorking High Street, before discharging into the Mole at Pixham.
Denbies is a large estate to the northwest of Dorking in Surrey, England. A farmhouse and surrounding land originally owned by John Denby was purchased in 1734 by Jonathan Tyers, the proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens in London, and converted into a weekend retreat. The house he built appears to have been of little architectural significance, but the Gothic garden he developed in the grounds on the theme of death achieved some notoriety, despite being short-lived. The estate was bought by Lord King of Ockham following Tyers's death in 1767, and the macabre artefacts he had installed, including two stone coffins topped by human skulls, were removed.
Ranmore Common SSSI is a 224.3-hectare (554-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Ranmore Common, north-west of Dorking in Surrey.
Betchworth Quarry and Lime Kilns is a 27-hectare (67-acre) nature reserve west of Betchworth in Surrey. It is managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust. It is part of the Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation.
Media related to Ranmore Common at Wikimedia Commons
Coordinates: 51°14′20″N0°23′13″W / 51.239°N 0.387°W
