Domesday Book

Buckland is mentioned in the Domesday Book. It was owned by John of Tonbridge – who also owned about one-third of Surrey at the time. Buckland had a church, water-mill and 35 heads of household, of which 17 farmed the land owned by the feudal lord, and 10 were servants of the Estate.

Estate History

Since the thirteenth century, Buckland’s ‘Lord of the Manor’ has owned most of the land in the Parish, and they have bought and sold additional land in Reigate and Sidlow. The Estate was last sold in 1653 for £5000, to George Browne, who had made his money mining ironstone ore in Kent. The current Estate owner – Adrian Sanders (Dungates Estates Ltd) – has a family trace from George Browne to the present day, almost 350 years of inherited family line residence. The Estate still owns over half the land of the Parish, manages crop production, leases the mineral rights for sand extraction to Hanson, and leases a number of estate-owned houses.

The Three Greens

For such a small village, we have the unusual distinction of having had 3 village greens. The oldest, on Lawrence Lane, is now farmed, but it used to be the site of the Workhouse (now Orchard Farm) and a pub (now The Harvesters). The second is ‘Rectory Green – the grassy area at the bottom of Rectory Lane - opposite Glebe House (the old Vicarage) and Oak House. The Green that we now know is one of the most picturesque in Surrey, with the pond, Towered Barn and Church opposite.

Houses and buildings

There are about 250 homes in the village, of which 26 are listed buildings, including the church, windmill, two barns, the gate-keepers cottage by the level crossing, and many old timber-framed farms and cottages. The oldest surviving cottages in the village date from the 16^th century, are on The Green by the pond. Buckland Court, behind the church, was the Manor House until it was divided into separate houses in the 1940s. Buckland has two pubs, the Red Lion (just in Buckland’s boundary) and the Jolly Farmers.