Ranmore Common

The Church on the North Downs Way: St Barnabas', Ranmore Common

Ranmore Common is an area of wooded former common land on the North Downs, immediately northwest of Dorking in the English county of Surrey. Its civil parish is Wotton, a geographically large village with a small population west of Dorking. Ranmore Commons is within the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.^[1]

George Cubitt, owner of the Denbies estate, commissioned George Gilbert Scott to design St. Barnabas Church, which was completed in 1859.^[2][3] The church is designated with a Grade II* listing; Cubitt is buried to the east of the chancel.^[4] It has several other notable burials including Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, who died in 1965.

On its northern wooded edge are Tanners Hatch Youth Hostel and, separated from it by a wide valley, Polesden Lacey.

The North Downs Way National Trail, a long-distance path that runs from Farnham to Dover, via Canterbury, crosses the common. For fifty years the route of the Tanners Hatch Marathon, a thirty-mile challenge walk, crossed Ranmore Common. It began in 1960, and was so called because the first few marathons started and finished at Tanner's Hatch Youth Hostel. The last marathon was in 2010.^[5]

References

1. English Nature
2. Fortescue, Stephen E. D. (1993), The House on the Hill: the Story of Ranmore and Denbies, p. 85, ISBN 095209150X
3. "St Barnabus Church", Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser (213), 11 April 1891, p. 8 – via British Newspaper Archive, (subscription required (help))
4. Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1189879)". National Heritage List for England.

External links

Media related to Ranmore Common at Wikimedia Commons

• Surreycc.gov.uk

Coordinates: 51°14′20″N 0°23′13″W / 51.239°N 0.387°W