| Country: | England |
| Official Name: | South Holmwood |
| Static Image Name: | South Holmwood View Redlands.JPG |
| Static Image Caption: | South Holmwood from Redlands Wood within the parish, a foothill of Leith Hill. St Mary Magdalene is visible to the far right and Holmwood Common contains all of the wood on the far side. |
| Static Image 2 Name: | South_Holmwood_from_Playground.jpg |
| Static Image 2 Caption: | View of central South Holmwood looking towards the Surrey Hills AONB. |
| Map Type: | Surrey |
| Coordinates: | 51.202°N -0.323°W |
| Population: | 895 |
| Population Ref: | (Civil Parish)[1] |
| Area Total Km2: | 7.73 |
| Os Grid Reference: | TQ1745 |
| Civil Parish: | Holmwood |
| Shire District: | Mole Valley |
| Shire County: | Surrey |
| Region: | South East England |
| Constituency Westminster: | Dorking and Horley |
| Post Town: | Dorking |
| Postcode District: | RH5 |
| Postcode Area: | RH |
| Dial Code: | 01306 |
South Holmwood is a semi-rural village in Surrey, England. It can be considered cognate with its wider civil parish, which stretches to the east to embrace Holmwood Common, but does not include Mid Holmwood, or North Holmwood, the latter being contiguous with Dorking. Betchett's Brook is the southern boundary and runs through a locality known as Holmwood Corner. However, Holmwood railway station is within the parish of Capel, although connected to the South Holmwood by a curved path passing through Holmwood Corner Common. Centred 3miles south of Dorking, South Holmwood is on the A24 London to Worthing road, a dual carriageway through the village.
Holmwood forms part of the area under Mole Valley Borough Council; the main settlement is a small, clustered area bypassed by the A24 road. The smaller settlement of Holmwood Corner is half within the district, but the part beyond Betchett's Brook is considered to be in Beare Green, which is also convenient to the railway station, see Transport.
A country path, with a footbridge across the brook runs between the houses in Holmwood Corner, to the station at the end of Bregsell's Lane (running underneath the A24 and railway line). This forms a gentle curve through Holmwood Corner Common. A pavement on the opposite side of the dual carriageway feeds into a footpath that runs by the Anglican parish church[2] so similarly connecting South Holmwood's main cluster of residential streets.
The only settlement with a manor within the parish of Dorking and mentioned in the Domesday Book is Anstie, a smallholding rendering only twelve shillings per year to its overlords, who were Baldwin son of Herlewin, with William, son of Ansculf, holding has tenant-in-chief.[3]
Holmwood Borough was an ancient division of Dorking, to the south of the town. The ancient spelling in the Court Rolls is invariably Homewood. As far back as 1329 the reeves' accounts include carriage of firewood from 'Dorkynge [h]Ywode vel Homewode' to Kingston. The distinction between the "High Wood", the skirts of the big forest of the Weald, and the "Home Wood" sufficiently explains the name. In 1562 Kingston still depended upon this neighbourhood for firewood. Manning and Bray state that by the early 19th century Dorking was "supplied lately" with coal from Kingston.[4]
Dispersed farmsteads that replaced those of medieval origin work the near western and far eastern fields beyond the common. Cottages have generally been replaced here, except for Betchets Green Cottage and Stoneheal, a 17th-century timber-framed building.[5]
South Holmwood (as it is known today) only became a significant settlement in the 19th century, when the turnpike road was built from Epsom to Brighton via Worthing. The district of St Mary, Holmwood, was detached from Dorking and Capel parishes as a separate parish in 1838. The school of the parish of St Mary Magdalen, Holmwood, was built in 1844 and enlarged in 1870 and 1884. The village prospered from the increased traffic and from the presence of large country houses such as Anstie Grange and Holmwood Park. The former led to the founding of such places as the cottages and travellers' inn in Mid Holmwood, and relatively well-to-do villas such as The Dutch House in South Holmwood.[6] The village saw a bisection from its cricket ground on Holmwood Common, with the extension of the turnpike road, now the A24, in 1971. The main residential area of the village is overlooked by the Grade II-listed parish church of St Mary Magdalene, built in 1838 and designed by John Burges Watson. It stands five or ten metres higher than the Victorian network of streets, and 100 metres to the south of them.[7] A disused section of the Roman road Stane Street passes to the west of the village, where there is one of the few changes in its alignment.
Until at least the 1940s, the area around Holmwood railway station was called Holmwood; postcards sold for example from the 1930s of the (former) White Hart Inn and of the Musicians' Union Convalescent Home (now Merebank House), both south of Holmwood station, have them described in the text on the face of the postcard as Holmwood. Newspaper articles in the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser, about the musicians' home in the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser throughout the 1930s, referred to it, and the White Hart 50 yards away, as being in Holmwood. The term Beare Green was certainly then used only to describe the area around the large green that is on the other side of the A24 dual carriageway that came later, where the Duke's Head pub is.
Nowadays, with the exception of Holmwood Station, the plain term Holmwood is normally used only to refer to three settlements, North, Mid, and South Holmwood, that are all close to Dorking; the area with 600 homes around Holmwood Station has been commonly known since at least as far back as the early 1960s as Beare Green, although the smaller area of the original Beare Green, with 100 homes, also bears that name. Until the A24 dual carriageway was built, the distinction between the original Beare Green and the area around Holmwood Station that is now also known as Beare Green was not distinct, as the turnpike road ran through both.
The area is approximately 600acres. The Victoria County History of 1911 gives its social geography and history:
| + 2011 Census Homes | |||||||
| Output area | Detached | Semi-detached | Terraced | Flats and apartments | Caravans/temporary/mobile homes | shared between households | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Civil Parish) | 107 | 160 | 60 | 43 | 0 | 0 |
| + 2011 Census Key Statistics | ||||||
| Output area | Population | Households | % Owned outright | % Owned with a loan | hectares | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Civil Parish) | 895 | 370 | 38.9% | 35.7% | 773 |