| Cranleigh | |
|---|---|
| Village | |
 Cranleigh High Street | |
 Coat of arms of Cranleigh | |
  Cranleigh Location withinSurrey | |
| Area | 32.78 km2 (12.66 sq mi) |
| Population | 11,241 (Civil Parish 2011)[1] |
| • Density | 343/km2 (890/sq mi) |
| OS grid reference | TQ065385 |
| Civil parish |
|
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | CRANLEIGH |
| Postcode district | GU6 |
| Dialling code | 01483 |
| Police | Surrey |
| Fire | Surrey |
| Ambulance | South East Coast |
| UK Parliament | |
| 51°08′11″N0°28′42″W / 51.1363°N 0.4784°W /51.1363; -0.4784 | |
Cranleigh is avillage andcivil parish in theBorough of Waverley,Surrey, England. It lies 8 miles (13 km) southeast ofGuildford on a minor road east of the A281, which links Guildford withHorsham. It is in the north-west corner ofthe Weald, a large remnant forest, the main local remnant beingWinterfold Forest directly north-west on the northernGreensand Ridge. In 2011 it had a population of just over 11,000.[1]
Until the mid-1860s, the place was usually speltCranley. ThePost Office persuaded thevestry to use "-leigh" to avoid misdirections to nearbyCrawley inWest Sussex. The older spelling is publicly visible in theCranley Hotel. The name is recorded in thePipe Rolls asCranlea in 1166 andCranelega in 1167. A little later in theFeet of Fines of 1198 the name is written asCranele. Etymologists consider all these versions to be the fusion of theOld English words "Cran", meaning "crane",[2] and "Lēoh" that together mean 'a woodland clearing visited by cranes'.[3] The name is popularly believed to come from imputed large crane-breeding grounds at the Anglo-French named Vachery Pond, often locally known as Vachery.[4] The figure of a crane adorns the old drinking water fountain of 1874 in 'Fountain Square' in the middle of the village. A pair of cranes adorn the crest of the 21st century grantedcoat of arms of Cranleigh Parish Council.[5]
Partly on theGreensand Ridge, where it rises to 700 feet (210 m) at Winterfold Hill, but mainly on the clay and sandstone LowerWeald, Cranleigh has little ofprehistoric orRoman interest, whereas just across the east border Wykehurst and Rapley Farms have Roman buildings and Roman Tile Kilns – in the parish ofEwhurst. A spur of the Roman road betweenLondon andChichester runs north west to Guildford past nearbyFarley Heath inFarley Green, a temple site. Cranleigh was not mentioned in theDomesday Book,[6] at that time being part of the manor ofShere.
TheAnglican parish church ofSt Nicolas dates the first building on its site from around 1170, and the building was in its present form by the mid-14th century. It was extensivelyrestored in 1847. The church has a gargoyle, on a pillar inside the church, which is said to have inspiredLewis Carroll, who lived in Guildford, to create theCheshire Cat.[7] With the growth of the village, a "daughter" church,St Andrew's, opened at the west end of the village in 1900 but it closed some sixty years later. The parish is in theDiocese of Guildford.
The 16th century Boy & Donkey pub, on Knowle Road outside the village, was taken over in the mid-19th century by Hodgsons of Kingston, laterCourage, and remained in business until the early 1990s. It was sold to Morland of Abingdon who later closed it. The building was converted into a private home.[8]
Oliver Cromwell visited Knowle House in 1657, his soldiers being billeted in houses in the village.[9]
Growth came due to improvements in transport; in 1813 theWey and Arun Canal was authorised. Three years later it opened, passing a few miles to the west of the village. This route linked London (via theThames and theWey) withLittlehampton (via theArun). However, the canal traffic was completely eclipsed by theHorsham to Guildford railway which opened in 1865, and the canal fell into disuse. Aturnpike road was also built betweenGuildford andHorsham, assent for the project being given in 1818. The opening is commemorated by anobelisk at the junction of the roads to Horsham and toEwhurst. ThePrince Regent used the route when travelling betweenWindsor andBrighton, the distances to which are given on the plaque on the obelisk.
Three people played a major part in the development of the village during the 19th century: ReverendJohn Henry Sapte, Dr Albert Napper and Stephen Rowland. Sapte arrived in Cranleigh in 1846 as therector. He played a major role in setting up theNational School in 1847 andCranleigh School in 1865. He was appointedArchdeacon of Surrey and remained in the village until his death in 1906.[10]
Together with Napper, Sapte set up the firstcottage hospital in the country in 1859. It has survived many attempts to close it, through fundraising by the local community. However it lost its beds for in-patients in May 2006.[11][12][13]
Stephen Rowland was a resident who had a major role in the development of the infrastructure of the village. He formed the Cranleigh Gas Company in 1876, and arranged for a mains water supply in 1886. In 1894 he laid out an estate between the Horsham and Ewhurst Roads, building New Park Road, Avenue Road, Mead Road, Mount Road and Bridge Road. He also set up a grocery store. His name is commemorated in that of Rowland Road.[14]
The cricket field has been used for that purpose since 1843.[15] Cranleigh Lawn Tennis Tournament was held there in August from 1922 until 1998, when it moved to the grounds ofCranleigh School.[16]
David Mann's department store opened in 1887.[14] The store closed in October, 2021 and the business went into liquidation.[17]
A distinctive row of maple trees which lines the High Street between the cricket field and the Rowland Road junction was planted in 1890, and not by Canadian servicemen inWorld War I as is widely believed.[18]
Cranleigh's Village Hall opened in 1933.[14]
The Regal Cinema opened on 30 October 1936. It survived for over sixty years, finally closing on 14 March 2002. The site is now occupied by a block of flats.[19]
Winterfold House near Cranleigh was requisitioned by the British Government and used by SOESpecial Operations Executive, as a training school designated STS 4 and later STS 7 as the location of the Student Assessment Board. Its primary use during the war was to whittle out those not suited to undercover work and begin initial training for those that progressed. Amongst the many recruits that attended Winterfold includedMuriel Byck,Andrée Borrel,Denise Bloch,Noor Inyat Khan (Nora Baker) – a descendant ofIndian Muslim royalty[20] andViolette Szabo GC. A filmCarve Her Name with Pride was made in 1958 about Szabo's wartime life in the SOE. In November 2011, a Memorial to the SOE was unveiled at Winterfold House, Surrey, initiated by British military historian, writer and authorPaul McCue and others. The unveiling was attended by Tania Szabó, the daughter ofViolette Szabo, together with representatives from the US, Dutch and French embassies and the Canadian High Commission.[21]
During the later part ofWorld War II, on 27 August 1944, the infants school was hit by aV-1 flying bomb and demolished, as was the stained glass east window of the nearby St. Nicolas Church. This occurred early on a Sunday morning, and the school was empty. The only casualty was theRector, who was in his garden not far away and was injured.[22] Another flying bomb hit thegasholder on the Common, destroying both the structure and a nearby cottage, whose occupant was killed.[23]
Cranleigh railway station was closed under theBeeching axe in 1965 after almost exactly a hundred years of operation.[24]
In 1975 the 1900-built church of St Andrew was demolished.
Show village centre
Show Cranleigh village
Show Cranleigh Civil ParishCranleigh village is 7.7 miles (12.4 km) southeast of the county town ofSurrey,Guildford, and 6.2 miles (10.0 km)ESE ofGodalming, which is the administrative centre of the borough ofWaverley.[25] In the centre of the civil parish are the greatest number of buildings, fanning out in many side roads and on the high street.[26]Cranleigh Waters also known as the Cranleigh Water, drains the village, before flowing toShalford where it joins the River Wey, specifically in the small, formerly marsh-like locality of Peasmarsh, which still has water meadows lining the bank itself.[26]Winterfold Forest, a remaining higher part of the forest that occupies the northeast is on theGreensand Ridge, which can be explored using in places roads or by the long-distance path, theGreensand Way.[27]
Rowly is a neighbourhood 0.8 miles (1.3 km)NNW of the edge of the contiguous suburban part of Cranleigh that architecturally contains three Grade IIlisted buildings.[26][25]
Three surrounding farms have listed farmhouses, and one of these has a listedgranary.[26] Rowly is separated from Cranleigh by Manfield Park and Hollyhocks House.[26]
Baynards to the south is separated by agreen buffer including the lake, Vachery Pond. It consists of fewer than 20 buildings. Reached by Knowle Lane, a rural road leading off of the high street, which is dotted with houses, the settlement lies east of that lane along another lane, Baynards Road. No other neighbourhoods or localities of importance exist in the civil parish as a whole.[26][28]
Elevations range from a maximum of 240 mAOD (mean high water level) at the car park on Reynolds Hill in Winterfold Heath (a woodland in the north) to 41 m on the watercourse and the disusedWey and Arun Canal as they leave both the parish in the northwest extreme at the end of East Whipley Lane. The village centre lies at generally 50–70 m above AOD.
Soil consists in small areas of "naturally wet loamy soil"; the north and south of the village centre and all surrounding areas are "slowly permeable seasonally wet slightly acid but base-rich loamy and clayey soils".[29]
Gault Clay and theUpper Greensanddeposits form the deep soil, more evident where erosion has taken place on steeper hillslopes in the civil parish. The Gault Clay contains phosphate-rich nodules in discrete bands and has a rich marine fauna with abundant ammonites, bivalves and gastropods. The Upper Greensand comprises a variety of sediments with fine silts at the base, giving way upwards into sandstones. Just before thepaleogene which included the mass-extinction event of the non-avian dinosaurs, sea levels dropped, exposing Sussex and Kent; marine Upnor Beds were deposited inSurrey. In the paleogene, Southern England slightly rose and the seas retreated and reddish and mottled clays of theReading Beds were deposited by a large river sand delta system including across much of theWeald (which covers much ofSussex andKent as well). Later, a rise in sea level around 50 million years ago caused widespread deposition, until 2 million years ago, of theLondon Clay across the county. The London Clay is a bluish-grey marine clay with isolated pockets of fossils especially where chalkier. The youngest part of the London Clay is known as theClaygate Beds and sand and soft sandstone of theBagshot Formation, though in many areas such as this generally eroded, followed in most cases by a variable thickness of organichumus.[30]
Cranleigh School, an independentboarding school, is in the village. It opened in 1865 and was originally known as "The Surrey County School".
State schools includeGlebelands School (a secondary school),Cranleigh C of E Primary School andPark Mead Primary School. There is alsoSt Cuthbert Mayne Catholic Primary School. Cranleigh C of E Primary School opened in September 2008 as an amalgamation of Cranleigh Infants School and St. Nicolas Junior School.
In 1847 the National School opened in the present Arts Centre, replacing earlierdame schools. During the twentieth century, separate infant and secondary schools were formed and moved to their own premises (leaving the C of E Junior School which moved to new buildings in 1964).
The Cranleigh Arts Centre runs a full programme of feature film screenings, live music, theatre productions, adult and children's activities, exhibitions and workshops. Regular community arts projects and work with local schools are undertaken to reach and develop new audiences. The centre is a registered charity and is run by a team of volunteers.[31]
The village has a relatively large public library.[citation needed]
A gym and leisure centre (which incorporates an indoor swimming pool) is centrally just off the High Street.[32]
Snoxhall Fields incorporates a few fields very near to the centre of Cranleigh, accessed by car via Knowle Lane. Across the road lies the Bruce McKenzie Memorial Field where Cranleigh Parkrun is organised on a weekly basis.[33] Running through Snoxhall Fields is the path of the disused railway line which is now commonly used for cycling and walking.
The football club, Cranleigh F.C. currently play in theSurrey Elite West Division and previously at times in theCombined Counties League.
Cranleigh Cricket Club play at Horseshoe Lane.[34]
Cranleigh Hockey Club is afield hockey club that play at Cranleigh School, and compete in theSouth East Hockey League.[35][36]
Every year the Cranleigh & South Eastern Agricultural Society host the Cranleigh Show, a traditionalagricultural show.
In 2023 a 60-acre country park was opened at Knowle Park to the south of the High Street. It included a lake, business kiosks, walks and children’s playground.[37]
There is aRoman Catholic church, Jesus Christ Redeemer of Mankind (in the Roman CatholicDiocese of Arundel & Brighton), and churches of the Methodist and Baptist denominations, as well as the Anglican church of St Nicolas mentioned above.
Cranleigh railway station was opened in 1865 as "Cranley" as part of theCranleigh Line, its name was changed in 1867 to "Cranleigh" at the request of thePostmaster General as badly addressed letters to "Cranley" were often mistaken for "Crawley" and vice versa. Cranleigh was the busiest station on the line with regular commuter traffic to and from London viaGuildford. Cranleigh had a substantial goods yard equipped with a largeloading gantry. Inward freight consisted mainly ofcoal which was required, in particular, by the localgasworks, whilst goods outward were mainly timber.
A victim of theBeeching Axe, the line closed in 1965 and Cranleigh station was demolished shortly afterwards, replaced by the "Stocklund Square" housing and shopping development. In 2004 part of this development was itself demolished and aSainsbury'ssupermarket was constructed on the site. Today the trackbed is in part used by theDowns Link, and the station's old platform levels are still visible at the rear of the shops.
Two studies have been carried out to review the possibility of reviving train services. The first, in the 1990s, was to determine whether re-opening a portion of the line for passenger traffic from Bramley to Guildford would be economically viable. Although the study was inconclusive, Waverley Borough Council protected the line from further development in itsLocal Plan. In 2009, theAssociation of Train Operating Companies applied for funding for a new line to Cranleigh.[38]
Cranleigh centres around the junction of twoB roads to the east of theA281Guildford toHorsham road.
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The village is on a number of bus routes serving, among others,Guildford,Horsham,Godalming andEwhurst. The main operators areArriva Southern Counties andStagecoach South.
Tillingbourne Bus Company was based in the village prior to its collapse in 2001.[39]
TheWey and Arun Canal is gradually being restored.
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A square near the centre of the village on the High Street, which is the main road running through Cranleigh. It was constructed following the closing of the railway line in 1965, and the removal of the railway station.
A newSainsbury's supermarket was built in late 2004. Other shops in the square areOxfam,Pizza Express andCosta Coffee. The square used to have greenery and a fountain, but this was replaced with a more open layout catering for attractions and events such as a town-style public Easter Service and a French Market.
In 2006, the pedestrian area surrounding the large stone drinking fountain (1874) at the centre of the village was re-modelled, and given the name 'Fountain Square'. New granite paving, brick planters and trees were introduced in a design which created a haven from traffic and a place for small community events. As part of this a bus shelter sometime nicknamed the Threepenny Bit Shelter was remodelled at Snoxhall behind the leisure centre. Within a few weeks it was vandalised and pulled to the ground. The bulk of funding was from Surrey County Council (SCC) and the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), to designs by SCC.
Winterfold House, north-east of the village along Barhatch Lane, was built in 1886 for Richard Webster QC, afterwardsViscount Alverstone. He becameLord Chief Justice in 1900 and died in 1915. A bench in the woodland above the house is known as 'Lord Justice Seat'.
The house was then bought byCharles Armytage-Moore, founder partner in the stockbrokers Buckmaster & Moore. He reconstructed the main facade in Queen Anne style, and enhanced the gardens with rare rhododendrons, camellias, azaleas and magnolias. One particular red-flowered species (Rhododendron barbatum Wallich ex G. Don 1834) won an Award of Merit when exhibited by Winterfold House in 1934. DuringWorld War II Winterfold was requisitioned by the Government and used by theSpecial Operations Executive (SOE) as a training school designated STS 4. Amongst the many recruits that attended Winterfold wereViolette Szabo GC.
Armytage-Moore died in 1960. The house was sold toHRH Prince Carol of Romania. It achieved notoriety by being searched for evidence after theGreat Train Robbery of 1963, but nothing was found. The house and estate of 212 acres (0.86 km2) was sold in 18 lots at auction in 1978.
Cranleigh appears in the bookThe Meaning of Liff byDouglas Adams andJohn Lloyd, in which experiences which do not have words yet are given words which currently only exist as names of places. "Cranleigh" is defined as: "A mood of irrational irritation with everyone and everything."[40]
| Output area | Detached | Semi-detached | Terraced | Flats and apartments | Caravans/temporary/mobile homes | shared between households[1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Civil Parish) | 2,089 | 1,137 | 667 | 881 | 5 | 0 |
The average level of accommodation in the region composed of detached houses was 28%, the average that was apartments was 22.6%.
| Output area | Population | Households | % Owned outright | % Owned with a loan | hectares[1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Civil Parish) | 11,492 | 4,779 | 43.3% | 32.2% | 3,278 |
The proportion of households in the civil parish who owned their home outright compares to the regional average of 35.1%. The proportion who owned their home with a loan compares to the regional average of 32.5%. The remaining % is made up of rented dwellings (plus a negligible % of households living rent-free).
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