Woldingham is tucked away inconspicuously in the English county of Surrey. An ancient parish¹, it has a long but unremarkable history. In the last 200 years, the population has grown tenfold, to almost 2,500 residents, but back in the 1800s, the population was made up of a couple of landowning families, alongside the servants, labourers and craftsmen employed in and around the farms.

In 1870 - 1872, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales pinpointed Woldingham in the district of Godstone, near Caterham, and credited it with a population of 67, in eight houses. Eight large houses, we presume:

WOLDINGHAM, a parish in God stone district, Surrey; 2¼ miles E of Caterham r. station. Post town, Croydon. Acres, 1,570. Real property, £283. Pop., 67. Houses, 8. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Winchester. Value, £120. Patron, Capt. Howard. The church is modern.

Woldingham today is a small village nestling in perfect English countryside, 620 feet above sea level in a nook off the A22 motorway. Being close to London, it is in the so-called 'stockbrokers' belt' and is home to many wealthy financiers. Woldingham has the dubious honour of being a quintessential English village minus the village pub, but boasting one of the best golf clubs in Surrey. It also has a 'members only' social club, a tennis club, a Woldingham Wives Club, a horticultural society, a badminton club and a cricket club. This makes marginally more sense when coupled with the information that this village ranks first in the nation for 'penetration of millionaires' in a 2001 study by a credit rating company.

Marden Park

With Sir Robert Clayton to Marden... an estate he had bought lately of my kinsman... which from a despicable farmhouse Sir Robert had created into a seate with extraordinary expanse... It is in such solitude among hills, as being not above 16 miles from London, seems almost incredible... The gardens are large and well walled... Innumerable are the plantations of trees, especially walnuts... The solitude much pleased me.
—Sir John Evelyn, diarist; 12 October, 1677

Sir Robert Clayton was a wealthy banker and Lord Mayor of London from 1679 - 1680. He turned this barren place into a luxury country estate and played host to many visitors, some of whom recorded their experiences for posterity. These included Evelyn himself, Lord Macaulay and William Wilberforce, the campaigner for the abolition of slavery. Clayton's house went up in smoke in 1879 and was replaced with a red-brick mansion complete with refectory, dramatically-sweeping staircase, libraries, vestibule, clock tower, quandrangle housing the stables and cloisters in the garden.

Site of Special Scientific Interest

In the 1980s, the Woodland Trust, with an invitation and a lot of help from the residents of Woldingham, acquired the grounds around Marden Park, along with another ancient woodland site, Great Church Wood, which was owned by the conductor Sir Adrian Boult in the 1950s.

The Woodland Trust said of Church Wood that 'Bluebells and wood anemones are found there in abundance in the spring, while fallen trees provide a habitat for deadwood beetles and fungi which break the wood down into soil matter and plant nutrients, and which are themselves food for birds and mammals, including tawny owls, roe deer and three types of woodpecker.' In addition, 'The Trust grazes a small part of Marden Park with sheep and, as a result, the chalkland plants thrive: common, bee and greater butterfly orchids, salad burnet and quaking grass are just some. There are 25 species of butterfly, rare Roman snails and stripe-winged grasshoppers.'

These two sites are managed as a single unit which is now the largest Trust property in Surrey. The North Downs Way runs straight through the woods, which are also part of the 'Woldingham Countryside Walk'. There is a network of bridleways which give horseriders a scenic route. Most of this has been done with the help of local people.

The Mystery Sculptor

In an interview in 2001, the woodland officer G Pfetscher revealed a strange series of events to the public: 'Last October someone took it upon themselves to start carving the trunk of a windblown oak from the 1987 Great Storm. Every time I went back, there were more and more of these intricate Native Indian-type sculptings: it would have been a totem pole but the tree is horizontal at the moment. In the end the artist turned out to be someone from Argentina but he vanished before I was able to find out more. Who he was or why he did it remains an enigma.'

Woldingham's Pedagogical Secret

Woldingham has a secret and this secret is a school. The Roman Catholic nuns of the Society of the Sacred Heart came to what was once a country estate, Marden Park, just after World War II. The nuns moved their school from London to this serene and secluded valley setting and re-established it as the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a public school².

In 1985, the school was handed over to lay³ pedagogical management and continues to evolve under its new and uninspiring name of 'The Woldingham School'. Described in the Good Schools Guide as a 'hugely impressive school really going places under a dynamic head', Woldingham is now one of the leading girls' schools in the country. There is, conveniently, a facility for landing a helicopter, for parents wishing to transport their precious daughters more efficiently.

'Old Girls' of some note include the BBC news reporter Caroline Wyatt, Carey Mulligan, who plays Kitty Bennett alongside Keira Knightley in the film Pride and Prejudice, the author Antonia White, and Clarissa Dickson Wright, self-proclaimed 'Fat Lady' and TV chef.