Limpsfield

Image:St Peter's Church, Limpsfield, Surrey - geograph.org.uk - 1133979.jpg

The village lay within the Anglo-Saxon Tandridge hundred.

Limpsfield appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Limenesfeld. It was held by the Abbot of Battle Abbey, Sussex. Its Domesday assets were: 1 church, 1 mill worth 2s, 19 ploughs, 1 fishery, {{convert|4|acre|ha}} of meadow, woodland worth 150 hogs, 2 stone quarries, and 3 nests of hawks. It rendered £24 (of silver) per year to its feudal overlords.[http://www.gwp.enta.net/surrnames.htm Surrey Domesday Book] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070715015325/http://www.gwp.enta.net/surrnames.htm |date=15 July 2007 }}

Old Court Cottage in Titsey Road, formerly the manorial court of the Abbot of Battle, is grade I listed building and dates from {{Circa|1190}}-1200 (including aisle posts and arcade plates) with alterations in the late 14th century, and a 16th-century crosswing.{{NHLE|num=1029729|desc=Old Court Cottage|accessdate=28 April 2012}}{{cite book|last=Brodie|first=Allan|editor=E. C. Fernie|editor-link=Eric Fernie|title=Medieval Architecture and Its Intellectual Context|year=1990|publisher=Hambledon|location=London|isbn=978-1-8528-5034-0|page=101}} Reginald Mason cited this in 1964 as an outstandingly important early example of a timber-framed building in the south of England.{{cite book|last=Mason|first=Reginald Thomas|title=Buildings of the Weald|year=1969|publisher=Coach Publishing House Ltd|pages=111}}

The parish church of Saint Peter was constructed in the late 12th century and is a grade I listed building, extensively restored in the 19th century. The tower, with two-light plate-tracery windows of c.1260, is made of ironstone rubble with stone dressings and dressed stone to north aisle. In addition it has a wooden-shingled spire with a wooden cross surmounted.{{NHLE|num=1188814|desc=Church of St Peter, High Street|accessdate=28 April 2012}} St Peter's church is also home to the last stained glass windows produced by John David Hayward, who lived for many years in nearby Edenbridge; the window depicts Saint Cecilia. Hayward was a leading artist in stained glass in the 20th century.{{cite web |title=JOHN DAVID HAYWARD |url=https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2007/10-august/gazette/john-david-hayward |website=www.churchtimes.co.uk |access-date=19 June 2018}}

There are approximately twenty medieval buildings within the parish, and there are 89 listed buildings.{{Cite web|url=http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120501093448/http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/|url-status=dead|title=National Heritage List, online. |access-date= 27 April 2012|archive-date=1 May 2012}}

The village heart is in a conservation area and some of the surrounding area is National Trust land including Limpsfield Common. Staffhurst Wood is also within the parish boundaries and is notable for its bluebells in spring. Limpsfield Chart has a golf course and cricket club. Limpsfield itself has a football team and a tennis club and its current cricket club is a united team with Oxted, named Oxted & Limpsfield Cricket Club with two grounds.{{Cite web|url=http://oxtedlimpsfield.play-cricket.com/home/aboutUs.asp|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120715013054/http://oxtedlimpsfield.play-cricket.com/home/aboutUs.asp|url-status=dead|title=Local Cricket Club Website|archive-date=15 July 2012}}

The village is served by Oxted railway station.

Limpsfield Grange School is a SEND school for girls and formerly an open air school.{{Cite web |url=http://www.formerchildrenshomes.org.uk/limpsfield_grange_open_air_school.html |title=Limpsfield Grange Open Air School |access-date=23 February 2022 |archive-date=23 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220223095050/http://www.formerchildrenshomes.org.uk/limpsfield_grange_open_air_school.html |url-status=live }}

The house known as the Manor House, High Street, is thought by Gillian Tindall to have been originally a cottage of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, much expanded and altered in the following centuries, and never in fact a manor house.{{cite book | last=Tindall | first=Gillian| title=Three Houses, Many Lives | publisher=Random House | year=2012| isbn=978-1-4090-4120-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EP5BuisiwMUC&pg=PA320 | access-date=13 February 2025}} It is a listed building.{{NHLE | desc=THE MANOR HOUSE, Limpsfield | date=3 January 2025 | num=1294564 | access-date=13 February 2025}} The building was a school, Manor House School, from 1897 to 1969. Notable former pupils include Tindall herself, Diana Rowden, agent in the Special Operations Executive, and Mary Soames, writer and daughter of Churchill.{{cite book | last=Soames | first=Mary | title=Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills | publisher=Houghton Mifflin | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-618-08251-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OMP93v2i7qQC&pg=PA690 | access-date=13 February 2025 | page=358}}{{cite book | last=Walker | first=Robyn | title=The Women Who Spied for Britain: Female Secret Agents of the Second World War | publisher=Amberley Publishing | year=2014 | isbn=978-1-4456-2316-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jQvXAwAAQBAJ&pg=PP108 | access-date=13 February 2025 | page=108}} Tindall's book Three Houses, Many Lives (2012) is partly about the building.{{cite news | title=Three Houses, Many Lives by Gillian Tindall: review | work=The Telegraph |first=Jane| last= Shilling| date=5 June 2012 | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/historybookreviews/9305840/Three-Houses-Many-Lives-by-Gillian-Tindall-review.html | access-date=13 February 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120804191704/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/historybookreviews/9305840/Three-Houses-Many-Lives-by-Gillian-Tindall-review.html|archive-date=4 August 2012}}

File:Tandridge Civil Parishes.png

The civil and ecclesiastical parish area is grouped to the north and south of Hurst Green, Surrey. The built up section is north of Hurst Green and both east and north-east of Oxted. The lowest elevation is 62m at Staffhurst Wood on the south-western parish boundary on the River Eden, Kent and highest is just east of the town centre at Grubstreet Copse at 163m; (Titsey being a separate civil parish{{Cite web|url=http://www.tandridge.gov.uk/YourCouncil/CouncillorsMeetings/ParishCouncil/titsey.htm|title=Titsey parish meeting |website=www.tandridge.gov.uk|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927082145/http://www.tandridge.gov.uk/YourCouncil/CouncillorsMeetings/ParishCouncil/titsey.htm |archive-date=27 September 2006 }} north of the village and higher on the North Downs).

The M25 motorway is to the north and Junction 6 for Godstone is just {{fraction|3|1|2}} miles west.

Nearby are three national rights of way: Vanguard Way, Pilgrims' Way and Greensand Way, the latter two along the hill ranges the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge.

{{Coord|51.25|0.04|type:city_region:GB-SRY|display=inline}}

Limpsfield Chart, arguably a village in its own right, begins from the south side of the A25. Chart is an Old English word for rough ground.{{cite book |last1=Mills |first1=Anthony D |title=A Dictionary of British Place-names |date=2011 |publisher=OUP |location=Oxford, England |isbn=9780199609086 |page=107}}

File:Limpsfield Chart.jpgFile:The Carpenters Arms, Limpsfield Chart.jpg

The adjacent High Chart, south-east of Limpsfield, is a large area of woodland, owned by the National Trust, which has a network of footpaths. The remains of a Roman road, the London to Lewes Way, pass through the woods east of the village, where it makes an eastward diversion from its alignment to avoid steep slopes. It passes through Crockham Hill before returning to its line near Marlpit Hill.{{cite book |last1=Margary |first1=Ivan |title=Roman Ways in the Weald |date=1948 |publisher=J. M. Dent |location=London |pages=133–135 |edition=3}}

In the village is the C of E church of St Andrew, which it is the place of worship of 'a Conventional District' in the ecclesiastical parish of Limpsfield and Titsey, built in 1895. There is a pub The Carpenters Arms in the centre.

Within it is the halfway point in the Greensand Way long distance footpath which runs for 110 miles from Haslemere in Surrey to Hamstreet in Kent along the Greensand Ridge.

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Sam Gyimah was the Member of Parliament for East Surrey, which includes Limpsfield from 2010-2019. He joined the Liberal Democrats in 2019 having left the Conservatives. He stood down at the last General Election and was replaced by Conservative Claire Coutinho.

There is one representative on Surrey County Council representing Limpsfield as part of the Oxted division. Cameron McIntosh is the local Councillor and is a member of the Conservative group.{{cite web|url=http://online.surreycc.gov.uk/members/membook.nsf/webSelectMember?openform|title=List of Surrey CC Councillors|publisher=Surrey County Council|access-date=28 April 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110317084338/http://online.surreycc.gov.uk/members/membook.nsf/webSelectMember?openform|archive-date=17 March 2011|df=dmy-all}}

There are two representatives on Tandridge District Council for Limpsfield.

There is also a parish council with ten members.{{cite web|url=http://www.surreycommunity.info/limpsfieldparishcouncil/about-us/parish-council-members/|title=Parish Council Members|publisher=Limpsfield Parish Council|access-date=28 April 2012}}

The average level of accommodation in the region composed of detached houses was 28%, the average that was apartments was 22.6%.

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).

{{Geographic location

|title = Nearest settlements

|Northwest = Woldingham

|North = Titsey

|Northeast = Tatsfield

|West = Oxted and Hurst Green, Surrey

|Centre = Limpsfield

|East = Westerham

|Southwest = Hurst Green, Surrey
Staffhurst Wood

|South = Haxted
Edenbridge

|Southeast = Limpsfield Chart

}}

The composer Frederick Delius is buried in the churchyard of the parish church of St. Peter's, as is his wife Jelka. The English orchestra conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham, is buried only a few yards from Delius, whose music he supported and promoted. A nearby grave is occupied by the cellist Beatrice Harrison, who lived locally in Oxted, and who worked with both Delius and Beecham. The ashes of Jack Brymer (1915–2003), a leading English clarinettist are interred in the churchyard near the grave of Beecham, who had recruited him to the RPO. The composer Pamela Harrison and her conductor husband Harvey Phillips lived at The Cearne from the late 1940s and into the 1950s.

Rear Admiral Robert Gambier Middleton (1774–1837){{Cite web|url=https://morethannelson.com/officer/robert-gambier-middleton/|title=Robert Gambier Middleton}}{{Cite RNB1823 |wstitle=Middleton, Robert Gambier |volume=2 |part=1 |pages=85–89}} who was active in the Napoleonic Wars and was Storekeeper-General of the Navy from 1829 to 1832 is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard. The German naval officer, maritime and naval writer, and committed Nazi Fritz-Otto Busch is buried in a corner of Limpsfield Churchyard. Commander Robert Radcliffe Cooke, R.N., Retired {{Cite web|url=http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php?title=Robert_Radcliffe_Cooke|title=Robert Radcliff Cooke}} (7 March, 1883 – 22 August, 1924) who served in the Royal Navy is buried in the churchyard. Despite suffering from tuberulosis, he became an expert in wireless telegraphy. Leonard Montague Greenwood MC (bar),DSO {{Cite web|url=http://www.durhamatwar.org.uk/story/14193|title=Leonard Montague Greenwood (1893-1918)|website=www.durhamatwar.org.uk}}(1893-1918) who is buried in Rouen is commemorated on his parents' gravestone in Limpsfield Churchyard. Margaret Mathilda Cather, mother of Geoffrey St. George Shillington Cather VC is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard. Glyn Ashfield DFC who fought in the Battle of Britain and died in 1942 when his Mosquito aircraft crashed on a low flying exercise

{{Cite web|url=https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=70765|title=Accident de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito NF Mk II W4099, 12 Dec 1942|first=Harro|last=Ranter|website=aviation-safety.net}} is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard. Sergeant Pilot John Ferguson RAFVR who died in 1942 when his Wellington Bomber crashed while on a night cross-country training flight

{{Cite web|url=http://yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/yorkshire/york42/bk257.html|title=Aircraft accidents in Yorkshire.|website=yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk}} is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard. Brigadier Cecil Haigh, who was a Deputy Director of Ordnance Services in various roles during the Second World War is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard. Admiral Sir William Rudolph Slayter KCB, DSO, DSC is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard.

Arthur Rackham, the book illustrator, lived and died in Pains Hill (a small hamlet to the south of Limpsfield village)

David Garnett, the novelist and Bloomsbury figure, spent his childhood in a house called The Cearne on the outskirts of the village. His mother Constance Garnett was a translator of Russian literature. The Scottish statesman and historian, Mountstuart Elphinstone, associated with the government of British India, is buried in Limpsfield churchyard.{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf}} Florence L. Barclay, the romance novelist and short story writer, was the daughter of the local Anglican rector. Sir George Paish the economist, is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard. Cyril Jackson (educationist) is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard. Sir John Arthur Thomson FRSE LLD the Scottish naturalist who was an expert on soft corals is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard. The sculptor Frances Darlington spent the later part of her life at Dutton Cottage in Limpsfield.{{Refn|The location of Dutton Cottage is listed as Oxted in some sources, whereas it was actually in Limpsfield|group=nb}}{{cite web |title=Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture: Miss Frances (Fanny) Taplin Darlington |url=https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/mapping/public/view/person.php?id=msib5_1208903195&search=Frances%20Darlington |website=sculpture.gla.ac.uk |publisher=University of Glasgow |access-date=16 March 2024 |date=2024}}{{cite web |title=Frances Darlington|url=https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/creator/frances-darlington |publisher=University of Rochester: The Camelot Project |access-date=17 June 2024}}

Maurice Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey of the Chart, is buried in Limpsfield Churchyard. Marmaduke Hilton, who is buried in Limpsfield Church, was "a West India merchant" and mortgagee of two slave-owning estates in Jamaica.{{Cite web|url= https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146660483|title=Marmaduke Hilton}} Colin Cowdrey, former England cricket captain, lived in the village for many years. Davina McCall, the television host, spent much of her childhood in Limpsfield. Jeremy Thorpe, politician, lived in Limpsfield for part of his childhood, and attended Hazelwood School. Beatrice Cutler pioneering matron and Secretary to the National Council of Nurses of the United Kingdom lived here for many years.

• List of places of worship in Tandridge (district)

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{{Commons category-inline|Limpsfield}}

• [http://www.limpsfield.org/ Limpsfield parish council]
• [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43068 Limpsfield] from Victoria County History

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Category:Villages in Surrey

Category:Civil parishes in Surrey

Category:Oxted