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Great Bookham

Great Bookham photos (53 available)

Old photo of Great Bookham

Great Bookham maps (2 available)

Old map of Great Bookham

Great Bookham books (31 available)

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Great Bookham memories

Bookham Cottage

Great Bookham, Leatherhead Road 1904

The fence on the right is the end of the boundary of Bookham Cottage.  This was a pretty cottage-style house set well back from the road.  In the late 20s it was bought by Herbert Allen my grandfather. The gardens were to the back of the house and  (from the photos I have seen) very beautiful. Today the land, of course, has been built on.  The access road to the estate is called Allen Road after Herbert Allen.
Contributed by Paula Clements nee Absalom

The Webbs and the Martins

Great Bookham, Common 1904

I remember this house on the right and think it was called The Grange. (Not the same as the Hotel also called The Grange.) I knew it in the 50's when Mr & Mrs Webb lived there with their son John. Mrs. Webb was the person who first took me riding up at the Carter's stables on the Dorking Road.

Later in the 60's I remember the Martins lived there -  Steve and Tim.
Contributed by Paula Clements nee Absalom

2, Grove Cottages, Leatherhead Road

Great Bookham, Upper Road 1906

My brother Ray and myself lived at this address, depicted on the right of the photograph, with our parents, Alec and Doris, known as Dot and Davie. During the war a child from 1, Grove Cottages crawled through the fence and was killed on the road outside by a passing coach. Just beyond our house, which used to be a public house called The Saracen & Ring, a flint and brick wall was demolished, almost opposite The Victoria Hotel, by a Bren-Gun Carrier on the way to Normandy with a convoy of military vehicles.  The wall was never re-built.
Contributed by Tony Davie

Grove Cottages

Great Bookham, Upper Road 1906

I remember Grove Cottages and the families who lived in both No 1 & 2 in 1965.  My parents were friendly with the Davies in No 2 and as a teenager I visited No 1 on many occasions along with all our crowd.  The LeNoble family made us all very welcome and the cellar was a great meeting place for all us youngsters - happy memories.

I was born and grew up in Bookham. My family owned family grocers shops in the High Street, on Dawnay Road and on the Grove estate. My grandmother owned the sweetshop which is little changed today.  
Contributed by Paula Clements nee Absalom

Lower Road

Great Bookham, High Street c1955

My parents were married in St Nicholas Church in 1960 - Valmai Daily (my mother) grew up at 234 Lower Road with her brother, Adrian and parents Dot and Drew. My Grandfather was a local electrician who spent all his free time at Effingham Golf Club and my grandmother (having retired from midwifery) was for many years the nurse at The School of Stitchery. I spent many of my early years in Great Bookham and then every school holiday when I went 'to work' with my Grandmother at The School of Stitchery and made many friends there. Names I can remember are Ellen & Ron Young (friends of my grandparents) and children I used to play with in ...read more here
Contributed by Jane Corby

My home

Great Bookham, High Street c1955

I lived with my parents and brother, Ray, at the top of the High Street at 2, Grove Cottages, Leatherhead Road.  I lived there until I married Jean Rumming from Hersham, Surrey in 1960. This used to be a public house later closed down by Mrs Christie. The Royal Oak public house is on the right. We both belonged to St. Nicholas Church choir at the bottom of the High Street. High Court Judge Tucker lived just beyond the Oak and employed a lady gardener. I was a resident constable, PC 745. Henry Williams lived on the Lower Road, towards Fetcham, PC549 and John Carr. PC574 lived on the Lower Road towards Preston Cross.  His police house had a fully operational ...read more here
Contributed by Tony Davie

December 24

Great Bookham, St. Nicholas Parish Church c1955

My parents, Rose Marston and Roy Sopp were married in this church! I have the wedding photo of them standing in the side entrance.
Contributed by Eunice Livingstone

My Dad's shop

Great Bookham, Lower Shott c1955

My Dad ran a grocers shop in this parade in the 60's.
Contributed by Paula Clements nee Absalom

Grocers shop

Great Bookham, High Street c1960

This shop on the right, was first opened by my Dad's father, Henry Absalom, it was next door to a sweet shop his wife Ethel ran.  Ethel started a little shop from much further down the High Street during the 2nd World War when Henry came down from London to work as an armaments worker at the factory opposite the station.  She ran her shop originally from her front room from a tiny house further down on the right. Then they had a little shop which was later a fish shop and I think might now be a computer shop. Eventually they opened the sweet shop, the grocers and the chemist which was run by someone else (I cannot remember his ...read more here
Contributed by Paula Clements nee Absalom

Grange

Great Bookham, High Street c1960

My grandfather set up this shop on the right.
Contributed by Paula Clements nee Absalom

Extracts From Great Bookham & Surrey books

Great Bookham, Church Road 1904

This charming study shows part of the main street of Great Bookham, which grew up on the spring line of the North Downs. The staff of a small local butcher's shop are gathered under the ornamentally decorated entrance, which is further embellished with two great lanterns.
An extract from from"Surrey Revisited Photographic Memories".

Great Bookham, High Street c1955

This view looks south. The High Street runs from the parish church, with its white-painted weatherboarded tower, to the Guildford road in the distance. The whitewashed Royal Oak (right) has a recessed centre to provide a small forecourt for benches; beyond is No 24, a good Georgian house with a mansard roof. On the left the builder Brackenbury and Sons replaced its sheds by a 1960s building of little merit, but at least the firm is still in the village.
An extract from from"Surrey Living Memories".

Dorking, South Street and the Wesleyan Church c1955

Other local churches, claimed to be ‘old and steady’, are Shere, Leigh, Mickleham, Abinger, Wotten and Betchworth: they have stood for centuries. St Barnabas’s on Ranmore sits 700 feet above Dorking on Ranmore Common. Sir Gilbert Scott designed it in 1859 as the estate church for George Cubitt, the first Lord Ashcombe. In the churchyard lie the founder of Denbies Estate, and his three grandsons, Henry, Alick and William, who lost their lives in the First World War. St Joseph’s Catholic Church, designed by Frederick Arthur Walters, was erected in 1895 in Falkland Grove, off Coldharbour Lane.
An extract from from"Dorking Town and City Memories".

Dorking, from the Nower 1936

he downs are mostly of chalk, and otherwise of sandstone, and each has its own special flora. The sandstone hills have their highest point in Leith Hill, 965ft above sea level, about five miles south-west of Dorking. From there they fall away in a picturesque series of steps, rising again to the same level as Leith Hill at Hindhead and Black Down. Leith Hill and its tower is a beauty spot not to be missed. With a good eye and on a clear day all the surrounding counties are visible. ‘With the assistance of a telescope Windsor Castle, Frant Church, St Paul’s Cathedral, Dunstable Downs, Ditchling Beacon and the spires and towers of forty-one churches can be seen.’ (J S Bright, 1876). It has been said that a reflection of the sun on the sea has been noted. Richard Hull of Leith Hill Place built the tower in 1766 for his own delight, but also for that of his neighbours and everybody else. Richard was laid to rest beneath the tower, buried upside-down: he believed that the world would have turned on its axis before Judgement Day, and he ‘wished to stand before his Maker right way up’. This area is part of the National Trust’s holdings; the estate now boasts over 900 acres owned by the Trust, and another 300 are under protection. Box Hill has been called the most popular hill in the world, and Leith Hill most likely comes second. On each hill grow beeches, junipers, wild clematis and box, which delight the eye. The short, sweet, flower-starred turf is restful to the traveller. But there is a wilder, rugged air about Leith Hill and its approaches, which are clad in larch and fir and carpeted with scarlet and green whortleberry and purple heather. It has always been known as a rambler’s paradise, for there are innumerable paths and bridle- ways that wind through the plantations and the heath. The area covering Box Hill, the Holmwoods, Ranmore, Leith Hill and Coldharbour contain some of the finest woodland and natural habitats in Surrey. Generous donations of land and money by many public-spirited contributors over the years have helped to ensure the upkeep of this fine and beautiful area.
An extract from from"Dorking Town and City Memories".

Dorking, the Reigate Road 1927

t was said by many that ‘Dorking lime is undoubtedly one of the finest quality of limestone in the county, if not England’, and it was claimed that the chalk burnt into lime at Dorking was sought after by every mason and bricklayer in London. The West India and Wapping Docks were built with Dorking lime. In photograph 79501, right, we can see the white scar of the Brockham limeworks, worked at first by the Brockham Brick Company Ltd, and later by the Brockham Limes & Hearthstone Company Ltd. These works closed in 1925, and the land is managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust as a nature reserve. Important lime kilns survive at the Betchworth and Brockham sites, and are in the process of being Scheduled as Ancient Monuments.
An extract from from"Dorking Town and City Memories".