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Reigate Town History
This page collates and summarises information from many different sources. It is intended to be dynamic and will, hopefully, expand over time - although it is intended to be more quirky than comprehensive. Many more qualified sources have put together much fuller histories of Reigate and I would urge anyone interested to visit their websites:
Reigate and Redhill
History / local photos & film Redhill
History Old Reigate - a pictorial history focusing
on the 20th century Reigate Priory
Museum For anyone who has any unusual nuggets of local history, anecdote or hearsay, I would urge them to use the contact page to let us know so we can post it up here. The links below are bookmarks to sections on this page for ease of navigation.
Today...
Reigate is a traditional market town with a population of around 23,000. It lies around 20 miles south of central London (via the A217 which provides a direct road from Snow Hill near Morden) but thanks to the North Downs, which rise to 235 metres just north of the town, Reigate remains separate in most respects (particularly look and feel!) from the great metropolis which begins not far beyond the downs and the roar of the M25.Whatever your view of today's Reigate - and most residents love it - the town is steeped in not-quite-mainstream history and tradition. If the history of England is based on Kings, Queens and battles, then the history of Reigate is based on their second cousins and their cups of tea while stopping off here!
In many ways Reigate's more interesting times started around 1820, when the tunnel road was built. This was apparently a plan by the regent to ensure that trips to see his Mistress in Brighton didn't take him more than 50 miles from London! But moving into the 20th Century, how many people realise for instance that
Winston Churchill's parrot,
Charlie, was rumoured to haved lived in a Reigate Garden centre until as late as 2007? Or
that the singer and bass player of 80s disco band Liquid Gold ("Dance yourself Dizzy") now manage Knott's
Pine in the main street? Or that Dylan Thomas twice visited a poetry circle in
the area? Or that Margot Fonteyn was born in a small house (now demolished) close to Reigate station?
However, before any of the more up-to-date excitement, here is a brief tour through the less-recent
history of Reigate.
Reigate's Origins
William I granted the land around Reigate to one of his supporters, William de Warenne, on whom he also bestowed the title Earl of Surrey in 1088. It is believed that his son, William De Warenne II, ordered that Reigate Castle be built, though the de Warennes had their base in Lewes, Sussex.
Though most of the original De Warenne castle has disappeared, it is worth visiting today's Castle Grounds and the Baron's Cave underneath. It is reported to be haunted by mystery since nobody knows why the cave was built nor for what reason. It is believed that the caves may have been used as vaults for storage space, or as an hidden passage to escape from attackers. These days, the caves have a somewhat more prosaic use being a hidey-hole for local band and shooting clubs.
But back to the past... Around 1150 the de Warennes ordered that a town be constructed below the castle. The new town, now Reigate, replaced a nearby settlement known as Churchfelle or Cherchefelle (incidentally, the name of the large house at the bottom of Chart Lane opposite St Mary's, which itself was once a stopping-off watering hole known and The Retreat, and Reigate's police station).
The town's name is a source of some debate, with different historians claiming different sources. The Historian Palgrave cited a reference to a judge in the area called John de Reygate but goes on to describe the word 'Rhiegate' meaning the 'course of a river' (suggesting the influence of water in the shape of the landscape) but finally concludes it is more likely to simply mean 'the passage of a road over a ridge' (ie the North Downs - which seems more likely!). Others claim came it from the phrase Roe-deer Gate, as it was situated near to the entrance to the de Warenne's deer park, which is now Priory Park and Reigate Park. Yet another source claims it is the combination of the names of two early residents. Whichever of all these is true, we know the name is unique. There are no other Reigates in the World.
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Reigate Priory
During the
13th century, Reigate Priory was founded for regular Canons of the Order of St
Augustine. After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1535 the estate was
granted by Henry VIII to Lord Howard of Effingham who converted the Priory into
a residence. The Howard family, including the Lord High Admiral himself (who is
credited with commanding the force that defeated the Spanish Armada), lived
there for about 140 years. The Priory was 'refashioned' during the 18th century,
with the loss of some parts and addition of others. Today it is a beautiful
Museum with a very good middle school attached, nestling strikingly within
Reigate's wonderful Priory Park. For a full history of the Priory, visit the Reigate Priory Website
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Lady Byron at the White Hart
The White Hart had a history stretching way, way back. Today in Reigate it is the perfectly pleasant Strada restaurant having given up its moniker in 2007 to the irresistible force of Italian food. Before this it was the rather rough White Hart pub, with a decent pool table but an occasional bout of trouble on Friday and Saturday nights. The White Hart Hotel however can be charted back to 1775 on the site of three old shops.
If you had visited the White Hart in Reigate before its transformation, you'd have found it hard to imagine that on April 8th, 1851, it was the venue for the last meeting between Lord Byron's wife, Annabella, and his half-sister, Augusta. Apparently, Annabella's scribbled memorandum of what she meant to discuss at the meeting still survives. And, suffice to say, the topics didn't include the beer or pool table! The two women were reportedly still obsessed with the charismatic Byron over 25 years after his death and their differences, which provided the context for this historic meeting, eventually tore the family apart. And all in a Reigate pub. Remarkable!
The story doesn't quite work when translated to Strada but we can at least imagine...
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St Mary's Church, Chart Lane and the Cranston Library
A
visit to St Mary's Church in Chart Lane is worthwhile if you want to see the
resting place of a friend of Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh - Lord Howard
of Effingham, one of that immortal group of men that gave England the 'sceptre'
of the sea. He was buried there during the night of Christmas Eve in 1624, and
lies under a stone in the chancel, with a brass inscription, but no monument.
His prayer book is kept in the church's Cranston Library.
This was Englands's first ever lending library and still contains over 2,000 books. It was founded and named after the vicar of the time over 200 years ago. The books are kept in the upper room of the Tudor vestry, along with precious manuscripts, the old locks of the doors, fragments of old glass, a shilling of Henry III that was found in the base of one of the pillars, and a complete stone coffin which was made for a child and is only 15 inches long.
One great manuscript in the library was written by Stephen Byrchington, a monk from the 14th century. It runs to around a hundred thousand words, all beautifully handwritten in exquisite copperplate. Another is bound as a small book three inches thick. and the writing looks as though it is print, almost too small for the naked eye, yet remains crystal clear even after 500 years. Lord Howard's prayer book is however the gem of gems at St Mary's. It is post-Caxton and neatly printed, despite being pressed long before the Spanish Armada. The pages have retained the beauty intended by the men who penned it, John Catwood and Richard Jugge, around 1566.
Behind the inscription to Lord Howard, in the 14th century chapel, is a beautiful lady, Katherine Elyott, who died in 1623. She is shown kneeling in a niche of the wall, a daintily chiselled figure wearing an elegant ruff. Across the chancel in the other chapel, among a jumble of sculpture her father and brother, one above the other, and beside them under a canopy lie Sir Thomas Bludder and his wife, who died with a week of each other in 1618. He is dressed in armour and his wife is wrapped in a cloak. The windowsill above them has four damaged figures and at the window looking down on Katherine Ellyott can be seen a charming stone figure of a child in 16th century costume. She is the daughter of Sir Thomas Bludder, and was moved away from her proper place at his tomb.
The chancel of St Mary's is 15th century and has a very rare original stone reredos, discovered around 70 years ago. It stands eight feet high with a cornice of Tudor flowers and a row of rich canopied niches that are filled with modern figures of Our Lord and the Twelve, and on either side two bigger niches with saints.
There is also a
tablet to a father and son who preached from the pulpit for 65 years, their
successor being vicar here for 54 years, from 1847 into the 20th century. From
the time of the French Revolution to the South African War there were only three
vicars here.
Well worth a visit if you ever come to Reigate. The
church is on Chart Lane and has a wonderful grave yard which is resting place to
many of the great and good that Reigate has been home to over the centuries.
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The Old Town Hall
In the heart of Reigate town centre, stands a very beautiful old town hall. It was built in 1708 and would have seen two hundred years of horse drawn traffic passing by. According to the wooden plaque that still hangs inside, it was purchased and returned to the 'corporation... for the benefit of the inhabitants' in 1922. Despite the traffic that now zooms past each day it remains reminiscent of the more leisurely days of Queen Anne. It is a beautiful building, recently converted into another Reigate eatery and coffee shop, Cafe Nerro. Although sympathetic one wonders why the coffee barons decided to go ahead just at a time when every other Reigate shop was becoming something similar! There were rumours that the owners of the Frith collection would have liked to use it as a photographic museum for the area which would have been so much more appropriate. Still lattes have to be served I suppose!
Interestingly, although the Old Town Hall remains one of the touchstones of Reigate past, Fanny Burney who passed this way in 1779, remembers Reigate differently as a 'very old half-ruined brough in a most neglected condition,'... my how things have changed!
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Wray Common and Reigate Hill
To the north lies Wray Common with an old brick windmill. Reigate Hill which is now National Trust property, was bought in patchwork pockets by the Trust with funds often raised by local people from 1912 onwards. Part of this patchwork was donated to the National Trust by Jeremiah Colman (of mustard fame and heritage) who was the owner of Gatton Park. He bequeathed some of the land leading up to Reigate Hill in the 1950s.Reigate Hill offers marvellous views of four counties and on a clear day you can see as far as Chanctobury Ring; Also Queen's Park and Colley Hill (750feet high), with the view that Cobbett admired so much.
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Reigate Park and The Heath Church
There is the delightful Reigate Park that is 90 acres and has the tree clad slopes of another splendid viewpoint called Park Hill, and further west are the 130 acres of Reigate Heath. Here there is the UK's only windmill church, known as The Heath Church. It is no more than seven or eight paces across and has two windows, so the simple altar and a few chairs are fairly lugubrious when the lights are out! The huge central post of the mill, a wooden beam that is around three feet thick comes down to within six feet of the floor, and there are four smaller beams going out like spokes to rest on brick piers against the wall, it has a brick base, black boards and four sails just like an ordinary windmill.***BACK TO TOP***
Acknowledgements:
Grateful thanks to the many sources who have contacted and assisted the site in the collation of the information here, most notably, Jeremy Greenwood.