Buckland, Surrey

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.

Buckland
Village
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

History
Buckland Mill

Buckland appears in Domesday Book of 1086, as Bochelant. It was owned by John 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.[2]

The village church of St Mary the Virgin was built in 1380. It is a Grade II listed building.[3] The church was rebuilt in 1850 and some of the timbers may have been reused in the construction of Buckland Windmill, also Grade II listed, and now a tourist focal point.[4]

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.[5] The local parson, Willoughby Bertie, had the Shag Stone removed from the brook in 1757 and thrown from a cliff in Devon. The Buckland Shag then disappeared from local folklore. The legend of the Buckland Shag has recently been revived by a local morris side, The Buckland Shag Morris Men.

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 borough 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. Key Statistics; Quick Statistics: Population Density United Kingdom Census 2011 Office for National Statistics Retrieved 21 November 2013
  2. Surrey Domesday Book Archived July 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  3. Historic England (11 November 1966). "Church of St Mary the Virgin (Grade II) (1378123)". National Heritage List for England.
  4. Historic England (12 June 1997). "Windmill (in grounds of Yewdells} (Grade II) (1271903)". National Heritage List for England.
  5. Dyer, F. Thiselton (2008). Strange Pages from Family Papers. London: Echo library. p. 344. ISBN 9781406827040. page 63
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