History
Although geology, soils and climate have created the bones of the landscape, the appearance of the Surrey Hills has been shaped for centuries by the changing patterns of land use and settlement. Over much of the Surrey Hills the historic settlement pattern remains largely intact: small picturesque villages of Saxon and medieval origin in the valleys, isolated farmsteads on chalk slopes, valley bottoms and in clearings won from the woodland, large country houses with extensive parklands, market towns, and remnants of seventeenth and eighteenth-century industry.
