a formal avenue, lined with mature red-leaved Acer trees, towards the shopping centre. The part of the common referred to as Cranleigh Common, or just 'The Common' is where cricket matches are still regularly held. The Green itself claiming to be the finest in England after the Oval.

Now much larger than a village, expansion was ironically caused by the closure of its railway in 1964. On the site of the railway station is Stockland Square, an attractive array of shops and formal planters, together with a fountain. Other shops, restaurants, offices and private houses sit behind a strip of green along one side of the avenue - a mixture of architecture ranging from the 16th century half-timbered buildings to those built 500 years later. Few of the latter ones look out of place and there is a pleasant 'feel' to the area.

Towards the south end of the High Street is St. Nicholas Church, built in the early 14th century, and dwarfed by a cedar of Lebanon planted in 1863. The warm brown heavily buttressed West tower exhibits put-log holes, left by the scaffolding used in its construction, and is capped by shingled roof. The Parish Church was restored in 1864, extending the transepts and adding the south porch. The interior has high, wide arcades and tower and chancel arches. There is a 14th century font with an octagonal stem, a late 16^th century lecturn and a dripstone or corbel in the form of a grinning cat's head, which is said to have inspired Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat..

Near the Church is the cottage hospital. It is claimed to have been the first village hospital in England opened in the 1859. It occupies a sixteenth century building part half-timbered. Cranleigh school, a public school, was originally founded as the Surrey County School for farmers’ sons and opened in the 1865. The school still has its own farm.

To South East of Cranleigh, off the Rudgwick Road is Baynards Park, the Mansion having burnt down in the early eighties. Built by Sir George Moore of Loseley at the end of the 16th century, it was later altered, inside and out, early in the 19th century. The exterior was in a Tudor style and the house was attractively set in the  parkland of Baynards Park.

Cranleigh has one cinema called The Regal, which is family-owned and built by the local unemployed in 1936.

, meaning ‘Yew wood’ lies 2 miles east of Cranleigh and is
bound to the north by Pitch Hill and Ewhurst Green to the south. The Church
of St. Peter and St. Paul is to be found at the centre, set back from the road.
It is built of sandstone in Norman style with a massive early 12^thC. south doorway. Partially restored in 1838 in boasts a Jacobean pulpit and a
17^th century wooden alter rails from
Baynards Park, Cranleigh.
There is a giant yew tree in the churchyard.

 

William Cobbett, who visited in 1823, found    Ewhurst to be ‘a very pretty village’.

There are various half-timbered houses in the village and Victorian ones on the wooden slopes to the North, including Long Copse (1897) which G.F. Watts (1817 – 1904), the artist from Compton, thought to be ‘the most beautiful in the Country’.

If you live in or around this area and need a babysitter, try the services of KiddiKare.

Return to Home