Peaslake

Peaslake
Part of the village centre
St Mark's Church, Peaslake, detail.
Peaslake  Peaslake shown within Surrey
Population	878
OS grid reference	TQ085447
Civil parish	Shere
District	Guildford
Shire county	Surrey
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Guildford
Postcode district	GU5
Dialling code	01306
Police	Surrey
Fire	Surrey
Ambulance	South East Coast
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Mole Valley
List of places UK England Surrey

Peaslake, Hoe and Colmar's Hill are in the centre of the Surrey Hills AONB and mid-west of the Greensand Ridge about 5 miles (8.0 km) ESE of the county town of Guildford, England point-to-point. Surrounded by denser pine and other coniferous forest-clad hills, the three conjoined settlements have a small core in Peaslake itself (also known as Peas-pottage-lake) with the amenities of a village but are otherwise lightly scattered settlements at a higher elevation than the centre of Shere, the civil parish.

The area referred to by the 2011 census covers 302 hectares (750 acres). Hurtwood Control maintains and coppices 3,000 acres (12 km²) of surrounding forest, the Hurtwood which comprises: Holmbury Hill, Pitch Hill, Winterfold, Shere Heath, Farley Heath and part of Blackheath Common.

On similar terrain in the far east of the parish and borough is Holmbury St Mary which was used in the 2011 race London-Surrey Cycle Classic — both small villages are centres for hiking and mountain biking.

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

See also: List of places of worship in Guildford (borough)

The centre also has St Mark's church, built in 1889.

There are two churches in the parish, the Sunday morning Services alternate between them.

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.

History

Main article: Shere § History

No references to the hamlet were found by the research for the Victoria County History (Surrey: 1911) in Assize Rolls, Patent Rolls. Feet of Fines nor the ecclesiastical records of Westminster and Lambeth Palaces. The earliest mention is that in 1784 Francis Haybitle, a farm labourer "of Peaslake", left (to the vestry) a rentcharge 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 wheels, 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 (1901-1911).

Tourism and on screen

Peaslake is set in rolling meadows and forests in terms of topography, soil type and land use. Its architecture and amenities have been the backdrop to filming. 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 Greensand Ridge, provides a variety of trees on varying terrain.

Sports

Peaslake is a focal point for mountain biking in the surrounding hills. The nearest railway station is Gomshall, a mile to the north.

On similar terrain in the far east of the parish and borough is Holmbury St Mary which featured in the route of the 2011 cycle race London-Surrey Cycle Classic — both small villages are centres for hiking and mountain biking.

Geography

The scattered settlement with a core at Peaslake is at 110m to 210m above sea level; parts of the Shere parish to which belongs and which is nearest to these ascend a further 50 metres. All three adjoining small settlements are in the centre of the Surrey Hills and mid-west of the Greensand Ridge about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the county town of Guildford. Surrounded by square kilometres of forest and downland, this is a guidebook tourist destination for walking and cycling.

A typical path through the managed woodland, Hurtwood, narrower than the Greensand Way path through it

Hurtwood

In total 3,000 acres (12 km²) of surrounding forest, the Hurtwood SSSI, is maintained by the Friends of the Hurtwood which comprises: Holmbury Hill, Pitch Hill, Winterfold, Shere Heath, Farley Heath and part of Blackheath Common. Three of the nine car parks within Hurtwood are closest to Peaslake.

Almost 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Pitch Hill, wholly within Shere parish bounds and slightly closer to Holmbury St Mary, is Holmbury Hill - this is a Bronze Age multivallate hill fort; its elevation is 261m AOD.

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 top-right map of this article). These are Pitch Hill (sometimes called "Coneyhurst Hill") which at 843 feet (257 m) is the fifth-highest point in Surrey, an adjoining knoll 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 to Hindhead, Surrey, on the border of Hampshire. It stays along its crest and therefore it is accessed from Peaslake by a nearly straight road at a similar elevation, using a natural ravine formed by the brook which rises on the opposite side of the Duke of Kent School, close but within Ewhurst parish.

Demography

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

The United Kingdom Census 2011 considered the village as three relevant output layers, approximately a quarter of the ward Shere, the latter being used for elections to Guildford Borough Council. All parts featured their single largest proportion of housing as single family homes 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 Colmar'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 Colmar'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 relative to the Surrey and national averages; in Colmar's Hill only 5% of housing was rented, or living rent-free from another.

2011 Census Key Statistics

Output area	Population	Households	% Owned outright	% Owned with a loan	hectares
E00155532 (Peaslake centre)	278	111	53.2	32.4.	131
E00155530 (Hoe)	283	115	47.0	36.5	46
E00155531 (Colmar's Hill)	317	120	50.0	45.0	125

Notable residents

Billie Thomas - Winner of 'Best In Show' at Crufts (dog show) 1972.

Richard Willson - Political cartoonist

Notes and references

Notes

References

External links

Media related to at Wikimedia Commons