Peaslake, Hoe, and Colman's Hill are in the centre of the

Surrey Hills National Landscape 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 ...

and mid-west of 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 ...

about ESE 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 ...

. 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 A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

, but are otherwise lightly scattered settlements at a higher elevation than the centre of Shere, the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

. The area referred to by the 2011 census covers . Friends of the Hurtwood maintains and coppices of surrounding forest, the Hurtwood, which comprises: Holmbury Hill, Pitch Hill, Winterfold, Shere Heath, Farley Heath and part of

Blackheath Common Blackheath Common is an area of of heathland in Surrey, England, near the village of Albury in the borough of Waverley. It is part of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and much of the common is a designated Site of Specia ...

. It is in the

of Shere.

History

The earliest mention of Peaslake was in 1784, when Francis Haybitle, a farm labourer "of Peaslake", left (to the

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

) a

rentcharge In English land law, a rentcharge is an annual sum paid by the owner of freehold land (terre-tenant) to the owner of the rentcharge (rentcharger), a person who need have no other legal interest in the land. They are often known as chief rents i ...

of 15s. a year on a cottage in Shere to provide bread for the poor. Peaslake School was founded by George Cubitt (the 1st Lord Ashcombe), Mr. Justice Bray, the Misses Spottiswoode, and others in 1870. John Bartholomew mentions the place in his gazetteer of 1887 as a village in Shere parish, Surrey "4½ miles SE. of Guildford". In the last decade of the 19th century a road from Ewhurst, practicable for wheeled vehicles, was the first one brought into Peaslake as district councils were instituted. It was formerly accessible from the north, but was on the edge of the accessible country with no real road beyond. A Working Men's Institute that no longer exists was built in 1891 by the Misses Spottiswoode of Drydown, multiple benefactors to the neighbourhood. Most of the oldest extant houses were built in the brief

Edwardian period In the United Kingdom, the Edwardian era was a period in the early 20th century that spanned the reign of King Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. It is commonly extended to the start of the First World War in 1914, during the early reign of King Ge ...

(1901–1911). The writer, Ralph Lawrence, recalls hearing the guns on the Western Front while walking in Hurtwood in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Geography

Peaslake is set in rolling meadows and forests in terms of topography, soil type and land use. Access to the village by car can only be gained by using roads which are at some point single track, which gives visitors the feel that it is more remote than it is, and which makes it quieter than the villages closer to the A25. The position, in one of the most uniformly forested parts of the

, provides a variety of trees on varying terrain. The scattered settlement with a core at Peaslake is between above sea level. All three adjoining small settlements are in the centre of the Surrey Hills and about from Guildford. The Law Brook, a tributary of the Tillingbourne, has a source within the parish.

Hurtwood

In total, with of surrounding forest, the Hurtwood comprises: Holmbury Hill, Pitch Hill, Winterfold, Shere Heath, Farley Heath and part of

. It is largely

common land Common land is collective land (sometimes only open to those whose nation governs the land) in which all persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

and is maintained by the Friends of the Hurtwood. Three of the nine car parks within Hurtwood are closest to Peaslake. Almost east of Pitch Hill, wholly within Shere parish bounds and slightly closer to

Holmbury St Mary Holmbury St Mary is a village in Surrey, England centered on shallow upper slopes of the Greensand Ridge. Its developed area is a nucleated village, southwest of Dorking and southeast of Guildford. Most of the village is in the borough of Gui ...

, is Holmbury Hill – this is a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

multivallate

hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

; its elevation is AOD. Further to the east is Wotton and Abinger Commons. Its most notable features are just over the parish bounds which tends to allocate the watershed crest to Ewhurst (in Waverley as visible by a dark line in the topright map of this article). These are Pitch Hill (sometimes called "Coneyhurst Hill") which, at , is the fifthhighest point in Surrey, an adjoining

knoll In geography, knoll is another term for a knowe or hillock, a small, low, round natural hill or mound. Knoll may also refer to: Places * Knoll Camp, site of an Iron Age hill fort Hampshire, England, United Kingdom * Knoll Lake, Leonard Canyon, ...

along the same crest has the Ewhurst windmill, which is a somewhat rustic, inhabited listed example – its only other comparator in the South East is at Capel. The Greensand Way runs from mid

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

to Hindhead, Surrey, on the border of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

. It stays along the crest of the Downs and is accessed from Peaslake by a nearly straight road at a similar elevation, using a natural ravine formed by Cobbler's Brook which rises on the opposite side of the Duke of Kent School, close but within Ewhurst parish.

Amenities

Amenities are a village hall, pub, a bike shop and a multi-purpose village shop that serves teas and hot snacks, and incorporates a post office.

Place of worship

St Mark's church, built in 1889, is in the centre of the village, opposite the village hall. It is in the same parish as St James in Shere and the Sunday morning services alternate between them.St Mark, Peaslake, Parish of Shere
The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

School

The village school is unusual in that it is owned and run by residents and parents, who bought it after it was closed by the local education council in 1994. It is free to pupils (except those in the nursery classes) and raises all its own running costs (over £100,000 a year) without council or government support (aside from "early years" funding). It offers education for fifty children from age 3 to 7. The school was made a Free school in September 2013 It has a roll of 29 pupils.

Hotel

The Hurtwood Inn hotel was constructed in 1920 and was an early part of what became the Trust House Forte hotel group.

Demography

In all 111 houses make up the main centre of the village of 346 in total. The

United Kingdom Census 2011 A Census in the United Kingdom, census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Inter ...

considered the village as three relevant output layers, approximately a quarter of the

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

''Shere'', the latter being used for elections to Guildford Borough Council. All parts featured their single largest proportion of housing as

single family home A single-family detached home, also called a single-detached dwelling, single-family residence (SFR) or separate house is a free-standing residential building. It is defined in opposition to a multi-family residential dwelling. Definitions ...

s with gardens. The proportion of households in the three divisions of Peaslake who owned their home outright was at least 13.3% above the borough average and 19.4% above the national average (in Colman's Hill, greater still in the other two). The proportion who owned their home with a loan was within 2% of the borough average except in Colman's Hill where it was 9.9% greater than the national average. This provides in each area for a lower proportion than average of rented residential property and of

social housing Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

relative to the

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 ...

and national averages; in Colman's Hill only 5% of housing was rented, or living rent-free from another.

Public transport

The village is served, weekdays only, by Compass Bus route 25 from Guildford to Cranleigh, taking about 40 minutes from the bus station. The nearest railway station is on the

North Downs Line The North Downs Line is a railway line in South East England. It runs for from in Berkshire to in Surrey. It is named after the North Downs, a range of Chalk Group, chalk hills that runs parallel to the eastern part of the route. The name wa ...

, about north.

Notable residents

* Dorothy Frances Buxton – co-founder of the Save the Children Fund. * Vanessa Jackson – painter

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

. *

Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence, PC (né Lawrence; 28 December 1871 – 10 September 1961) was a British Labour politician who, among other things, campaigned for women's suffrage. Background and education B ...

of Peaslake, former Labour minister, who was Secretary of State for India and Burma in the post-war Attlee government. Built a house in Peaslake called Fourways. * Edna Mosley, architect who, with her husband, designed their house, Little Acre in Franksfield, Peaslake, in 1932.

In literature

Peaslake is referenced in Colin Forbes' thriller "The Leader and the Damned", in an episode where a pair of lovers, trapped in the carnage of WWII Europe, dream of a happy future in post-war England: - "I know a little village in Surrey, near Guildford. All huddled down in the folds of the hills..." - "Peaslake?" - "Oh, you know it, too!" Colin Forbes, ''The Leader and the Damned'', London, 1983, Ch. 41

Notes and references

;References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Surrey Borough of Guildford