Surrey was lightly populated for much of its history as it was heavily wooded with poor agricultural land and no major settlements yet it still contains a number of ancient and fascinating churches, both in the towns and in the countryside, including St Mary’s West Horsley which is the burial place of Sir Walter Raleigh’s head, the Evelyn family chapel in St John’s Wotton and the Lumley Chapel in Sutton. As transport links to Surrey improved, particularly with the arrival of the railways in the nineteenth century, the population grew as many families adopted the commuter lifestyle of working in London and living in Surrey. A large programme of Victorian church building or rebuilding was needed to cater for the new inhabitants of the towns and villages and London itself spread, its suburbs merging into Surrey. From being an architectural backwater, Surrey became a leading inspiration for new vernacular styles of architecture at the end of the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century the county town Guildford became the home of England’s most recently consecrated cathedral.This fascinating picture of an important part of the history of Surrey over the centuries will be of interest to all those who live in or are visiting this attractive county in England.
