Holmbury St Mary
Holmbury St Mary photos (38 available)
Holmbury St Mary maps (2 available)
Map of Surrey
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
Personalised maps
Create an historic map centred directly on any postcode!
Holmbury St Mary books (24 available)
- 4 photos on Holmbury St Mary appear in 3 Frith books - View photos of Holmbury St Mary
- Read extracts and see photos from these books on Holmbury St Mary and Surrey
Holmbury St Mary memories
Read and share memories of Holmbury St Mary and Surrey inspired by Frith photos
My childhood
I was born to Victor Owen Colman Emmerson and Jean Florence Emmerson at the family home of Garden Cottage, Holmbury St Mary in September 1957. I have an older brother, John and a younger sister Diane who were also born there. My grandmother Catherine or 'Kit' was for many years housekeeper to Dorothea Flower who lived next door in Hurtwood Cottage. I have many memories of growing up in the village, attending Holmbury St Mary primary school, belonging first to the brownies and then the girl guides. Although I no longer have any family connections in the village there are still a number of family friends that still reside there. Some of my fondest memories are that of the special bonfire ...read more here
Contributed by Barbara Parkes
Surrey memories
My childhood
I was born to Victor Owen Colman Emmerson and Jean Florence Emmerson at the family home of Garden Cottage, Holmbury St Mary in September 1957. I have an older brother, John and a younger sister Diane who were also born there. My grandmother Catherine or 'Kit' was for many years housekeeper to Dorothea Flower who lived next door in Hurtwood Cottage. I have many memories of growing up in the village, attending Holmbury St Mary primary school, belonging first to the brownies and then the girl guides. Although I no longer have any family connections in the village there are still a number of family friends that still reside there. Some of my fondest memories are that of the special bonfire ...read more here
A memory of Holmbury St Mary contributed by Barbara Parkes
childhood
i was born in guildford in 1986 and my parents had just taken over abinger post office and stores this is the house in the middle of the photo with all the ivy (that wasnt there in my time) the window above the shop was my parents room the spare room and the lounge are the rooms to the left. i loved living here and have many great memories of going to abinger village school, fishing in the stream, playing on the green and in the ruffs going to the abinger arms(probably the 1st pub i ever went to) and the tea rooms at the clock house now apparently i have heard that these tea rooms have moved to my old ...read more here
A memory of Abinger Hammer contributed by paul jeacock
Family Recollections.
My grandfather Edward Chase kept the Windmill Inn on Pitch hill and my father worked for him. My maternal grandfather John Allen kept the Bull Head in the village of Ewhurst and had two daughters, Mona and Lilian.
My father Robert Chase ( Ted ) joined the Surrey Yeomanry during the first World War and served in France with this cavalry regiment. He returned to Ewhurst after the war not in the best of health having been wounded and gassed and married my mother Mona the daughter of the landlord of the Bulls head in the village.
After a while my grandfather and his wife retired and my father and his new wife took over the licence at the Windmill ...read more here
A memory of Ewhurst contributed by Michael Chase
Extracts From Holmbury St Mary & Surrey books
At one time sheep from
Romney Marsh in Kent
were wintered here on
the relatively dry sandy
Surrey Hills. However, the
area also attracted its fair
share of sheep-stealers,
smugglers and poachers,
who knew the area well
and could disappear into
the forest at the slightest
chance of being caught.
An extract from from"Villages of Surrey Photographic Memories".
A postman on his round chats to two local residents opposite the King's Head pub (right), where empty barrels and several crates of bottles await collection by the brewer's dray. This old community, and the one at Felday, were joined together into the village of Holmbury St Mary in 1879,when wealthy Victorians popularised them and built large houses in the surrounding pine forests. But both hamlets had been prominent in the smuggling trade earlier in the century.
An extract from from"Surrey Revisited Photographic Memories".
After the railway came to
the nearby town of Dorking,
and also Gomshall, in the
19th century, Holmbury
became a desirable place to
live. Woodland was cleared
to make way for a number
of homes beside the few
cottages that were already
here. A church, shops and a
village club all followed.
An extract from from"Villages of Surrey Photographic Memories".
The Frith photographer’s desire to
take views of post offices has led him
to ignore the beautifully-situated
village centre around its green and
also the good 1879 church, designed,
built and paid for by the architect
George Edmund Street and
surrounded by a backdrop of woods.
Instead, he took his camera down
Pitland Street to the south. This pair of
19th-century cottages with their
bracket door hoods survive: the one
on the right was the post office with a
shop in the garden, which has now
been demolished. The cottage is now
named The Old Post Office.
An extract from from"Surrey Living Memories".
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".