Buckland
Village and civil parish
A view in the village, c. 1920
Buckland is located in Surrey
Buckland
Buckland
Location within Surrey
Area5.51 km2 (2.13 sq mi)
Population562 (Civil Parish 2011)[1]
• Density102/km2 (260/sq mi)
OS grid referenceTQ2251
Civil parish
  • Buckland
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townBetchworth
Postcode districtRH3
Dialling code01737
PoliceSurrey
FireSurrey
AmbulanceSouth East Coast
UK Parliament

Buckland is a village and civil parish in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England, between Dorking and Reigate, its nearest towns. The civil parish is bordered by the North Downs escarpment in the north. The area contains a number of sand pits.

Geography

Buckland is in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, 2 mi (3.2 km) east of Reigate and 4 mi (6.4 km) west of Dorking. The village is at the northern edge of the Weald, at the foot of the North Downs.

The south of the civil parish, which includes the village centre, is on the strata of the Lower Greensand Group. Sand is quarried from the Folkestone Beds and silver sand occurs in seams between Buckland and Reigate.[2]: 76, 179  The Gault clay forms a 0.5 mi-wide (0.80 km) band, running from east to west, to the north of the village centre. Fossils of Serpula antiquata, Neohibolites listeri and Euhoplites species have been found in this stratum.[2]: 82  Hearthstone was quarried from the Upper Greensand at the base of the North Downs until the early 20th century.[2]: 87  This layer contains fossils of bivalve species, including several from the genus Pecten.[2]: 119 

History

The earliest surviving record of Buckland is the Domesday Book of 1086, in which it appears as Bochelant. The settlement is recorded as Boclande in 1225, Boclond in 1225, Bukelonde in 1293 and Bukkelond in 1448.[3] The name is generally agreed to mean "land held by book or charter".[4]

The front (left) and back faces of a gold, Iron Age quarter stater coin, found in Buckland in 1995 and dated to c. 60 – c. 20 BCE[5]

The earliest evidence of human activity in the village is a flint axe fragment from the Neolithic.[6] A side-looped spearhead from the Middle Bronze Age, dated to c. 1400 – c. 1200 BCE, was found by workmen in 1907.[7]

In 1086, the manor was held by John, a lesser tenant of Richard of Tonbridge. Buckland had a church, watermill and thirty-five heads of household. Of these, seventeen farmed the land owned by the feudal lord, and ten were serfs.[8][9]

Buckland Mill

The village church of St Mary the Virgin was built in 1380. It is a Grade II listed building.[10] The church was rebuilt in 1859-60, under the supervision of the architect, Henry Woodyer. A new, wider chancel arch was constructed and a new organ chamber and vestry added on the north side.[11] Some of the timbers removed during Woodyer's work, may have been reused in the construction of Buckland Windmill, also Grade II listed, and now a tourist focal point.[12]

The barn on The Green dates from the early 17th century. The timber-framed structure, which was restored in the 20th century, has a tower at the south end, topped by a weathervane.[13] The barn was used as a temporary church during the Woodyer reconstruction work and was converted to a private house in the early 1980s.[14]

The first school in Buckland, a National school, was founded in 1822. Its replacement, designed by Woodyer, opened in 1862. It closed in 1981 and the building is now a private house.[11]

Buckland War Memorial, on the village green, was erected in 1920 and was unveiled in July of that year by Percival Marling VC. Designed by Ebbutt and Sons of Croydon, it is constructed in rough Cornish granite in the form of a wheel-head cross.[15][16]

Local legend

Buckland is also the location of the source of the Shag Brook, a tributary of the River Mole. Local legend says the brook was the home of a monstrous horse (in some versions a gorilla), called the "Buckland Shag". This beast would drag travellers from the nearby coaching road and devour them on the Shag Stone, a large boulder in the brook with a blood red vein of iron ore running through it.[17] The monster was exorcised by the local parson, Willoughby Bertie, and the stone was removed from the brook c. 1757.[18]

The legend of the Buckland Shag was revived in 1986 by a local morris side, The Buckland Shag Morris Men.[19]

Amenities

Buckland has a village store and a pub, The Pheasant, on the Reigate Road.

Transport

The A25 runs east–west through the parish. The nearest railway station is Betchworth on the North Downs Line, 1 mile (1.6 km) WNW of the village centre.

Governance

Surrey County Council, elected every four years, has one representative from Buckland for Dorking Rural. Two councillors sit on the Mole Valley District Council.

Demography and housing

2011 Census Homes
Output areaDetachedSemi-detachedTerracedFlats and apartmentsCaravans/temporary/mobile homesshared between households[1]
(Civil Parish)11876132540

The average level of accommodation in the region composed of detached houses was 28%, the average that was apartments was 22.6%.

2011 Census Key Statistics
Output areaPopulationHouseholds% Owned outright% Owned with a loanhectares[1]
(Civil Parish)56223639.8%30.5%551

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).

References

  1. 1 2 3 Key Statistics; Quick Statistics: Population Density Archived 11 February 2003 at the Wayback Machine United Kingdom Census 2011 Office for National Statistics Retrieved 21 November 2013
  2. 1 2 3 4 Dines, H.G.; Edmunds, F.H.; Chatwin, C.P.; Stubblefield, C.J. (1933). The geology of the country around Reigate and Dorking : Explanation of one-inch geological sheet 286, new series. London: British Geological Survey. Archived from the original on 2 January 2021. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  3. ↑ Gover, J.E.B; Mawer, A.; Stenton, F.M. (1969). The place-names of Surrey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 285.
  4. ↑ Smith, Gavin (2005). Surrey Place-names. Heart of Albion. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-87-288384-7.
  5. ↑ Williams, David W. (24 February 2011) [10 May 2006]. "Finds record for: SUR-1FEC04". The Portable Antiquities Scheme. Archived from the original on 24 September 2023. Retrieved 18 September 2023.
  6. ↑ Williams, David W. (1984). "Neolithic Axe from Buckland" (PDF). Surrey Archaeological Collections. 74: 209. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 September 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  7. ↑ Williams, David W. (1999). "A Middle Bronze Age side-looped spearhead from Buckland" (PDF). Surrey Archaeological Collections. 86: 201–202. doi:10.5284/1069256. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 September 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  8. ↑ Powell-Smith, A. (2011). "Buckland". Open Domesday. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  9. ↑ "Surrey Domesday Book". Archived from the original on 15 July 2007.
  10. ↑ Historic England (11 November 1966). "Church of St Mary the Virgin (Grade II) (1378123)". National Heritage List for England.
  11. 1 2 Elliott, John; Pritchard, John, eds. (2001). Henry Woodyer, Gentleman Architect. Reading: University of Reading. pp. 213–214. ISBN 978-0-70-491331-8.
  12. ↑ Historic England (12 June 1997). "Windmill (in grounds of Yewdells} (Grade II) (1271903)". National Heritage List for England.
  13. ↑ Historic England. "Street Farm Barn, The towered barn (Grade II) (1190790)". National Heritage List for England.
  14. ↑ Williams, Ian (2009). Dorking and the Mole Valley: Past and Present. Stroud: History Press Limited. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-75-094582-0.
  15. ↑ "Buckland War Memorial". Surrey Mirror and County Post. No. 2214. 9 July 1920. p. 6.
  16. ↑ Historic England. "Buckland War Memorial (Grade II) (1437406)". National Heritage List for England.
  17. ↑ Dyer, F. Thiselton (2008). Strange Pages from Family Papers. London: Echo library. p. 344. ISBN 9781406827040.
  18. ↑ Ferns, Duncan C. (1999). Buckland 1000-2000: A Village History of Buckland, Surrey. D.C. Ferns. ISBN 0-9535919-0-5.
  19. ↑ "There's nothing floral about these dancers". Dorking Advertiser. No. 5243. 14 March 1991. p. 20.
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