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The ridge of chalk hills stretching from Farnham in
Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent are known as
the North Downs:
down
from
dun
, the old English word
for hill. The North Downs span two Areas of Outstanding
Natural Beauty: the Kent Downs and then in Surrey from
Oxted to Guildford, the Surrey Hills. These are some of
the finest landscapes in England. The forests that once
covered the hills were cut down very many moons ago
save for where the land was just too steep for the plough.
Narrow lanes linking networks of small farms give the
area a strong resemblance to the
Bocage
of Normandy
or that intoxicating mix of meandering woodland, pasture
and hedgerows that steals so many hearts in Devon. The
chalky soil on the sunny southern slopes of the Surrey
Hills is not unlike the grape-friendly conditions of the
Champagne region – a similarity that hasn’t escaped
British viticulturalists – there are several vineyards here
today including the Denbies Wine Estate just outside of
the market town of Dorking, a staging post on the Roman
Stane Street from London to Chichester.
This is without doubt a wealthy area graced by some
glorious estates and beautiful houses but a forthcoming
reality television show to be shot in and around
Elmbridge, Weybridge, Cobham and Esher called
Surrey
Hills
and based on the format of
The Only Way is Essex
and
Made in Chelsea
has worked the Board of the Surrey
Hills AONB into quite a tizz:
“Far from the images of fast cars, gated developments
and jacuzzis, which the programme producers aim to
depict, the AONB instead offers picture postcard villages,
flower rich grasslands, bustling market towns and
breathtaking views that have inspired writers, designers,
composers and artists such as Jane Austen, Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, Gertrude Jekyll, Vaughan Williams and
George Watts.”
Oh how we Brits loathe new money! I wonder if the old
county families were thrilled to welcome the Victorian new
money men, the Cubitts and the Drummonds? On the
show's website, the producers say that they are looking for
"young, ambitious, glamorous & popular"
stars, who live
"an exciting and fast paced lifestyle"
and who enjoy
"a life
punctuated with parties, champagne and sports cars".
So good, so ghastly and so not you Probus chaps and
Nadfas ladies but if you have glamorous grandchildren that
you despair of it’s not too late for them to apply to be on the
show at www.surreyhills.tv. God forbid! Or Zut Alors as
they might say on the Bocage.
The uplands of the Surrey Hills are cut through by three
rivers, the Wey, the Mole, and the Tillingbourne. The River
Wey is the only navigable river of the three and is a major
tributary of the River Thames, which it joins at Thames
Lock near Weybridge. (For a day out with a cruise on the
River Wey see Navigating the Wey in Surrey in our 2013
brochure or by clicking here). The River Mole, which rises
near Gatwick Airport, is also a tributary of the River
Thames into which it empties just opposite Hampton Court
Palace. An old Tithe map from 1839 was used to re-instate
lost meanders of the Mole at Gatwick in the 1990s. It’s a
sleepy sort of river that in particularly hot summers runs
dry. There have been a number of abandoned plans to make
the River Mole navigable: a scheme in the 17
th
century
promised to make the river navigable between Reigate and
the Thames, 200 years later the canals engineer John Rennie
proposed using the Mole as the mid section of a canal that
The Beautiful Surrey Hills