Early history

Two bronze fibulae, some stone arrow-heads and celts were found here about 1800.^[3]

Dark and Middle Ages

The imposing tower of St Paul's Church, Woldingham, built in 1933 by Sir Herbert Baker.

The place-name 'Woldingham' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Wallingeham. It appears as Waldingham in the Close Rolls of 1232, and as Waldingeham in 1242 in the Book of Fees. The name means "the village or homestead of the people of the Weald or wood".^[4]

The village lay within the Anglo-Saxon administrative division of Tandridge hundred, and was held by John in 1086 from Richard Fitz Gilbert. Its Domesday assets were: 1 hide. It had 4½ ploughs. It rendered £1.^[5] No church is mentioned in Woldingham in the Domesday Survey. A chapel, now rebuilt as St Agatha's Church, is first mentioned in 1295 as appurtenant to Gilbert de Clare's part of Woldingham; there has always been a vicar rather than a rector.^[3]

Upper Court Manor

Upper Court Manor was owned by a series of high-profile nobles indicating its wealth: including Gilbert de Clare; Ralph, Earl of Stafford; grandson Hugh of Woldingham; Humphrey Earl of Stafford then created first Duke of Buckingham; his third son John, Earl of Wiltshire and son; Edward, Duke of Buckingham, who was attainted and beheaded in 1521 leaving it for Henry VIII to grant; John Bourchier Lord Berners, Deputy of Calais; Sir John Gresham and his family held until sale to Henry Bynes; William Bryant who purchased it for £3,600 in 1795; followed by a Mr Withers, Jones and Gifford.^[3]

Nether Court Manor

This manor started similarly with Gilbert de Clare. Less notable nobles followed generally except for: Sir Guy Ferre's wife, Sir Thomas Uvedale and great-grandson of the same name and rank (not inherited), Edward Duke of Buckingham and John Gresham of London.^[3]

Marden Park Manor

Painting of Marden Park Manor Surrey, c. 1869

It appears that the manor-houses of Marden and Lagham were centres of population until the inhabitants were nearly exterminated by the Black Death of 1349.^[6] Marden Park, formerly a manor, owned much of the area, however it was until some point after 1911 part of the parish of Godstone.^[3]

This was half of the manor of Walkhampstead held by Richard de Lucy, had also come into the possession of the St. Johns of Lagham by the middle of the 13th century. They held it of the king in chief as of the honour of Boulogne by the service of a quarter of a knight's fee. Marden followed the same descent as Lagham Manor until after the death of Thomas St. Clare, when this manor went to Eleanor, one of his daughters and co-heirs, who married John Gage; then held by William Gage, their son and heir, at his death in 1497. In 1506 John Gage sold it to Sir David Owen, who also held Lagham. His son John Owen afterwards owned Marden, which, after passing through the hands of James Altham and John Elliott successively, came to Thomas Powle in 1561. During his tenure a petition was lodged against him by Henry son of John Owen, who stated that the latter's conveyance to Altham was a mortgage and that Owen had redeemed this estate, but the appeal was apparently dismissed, as Thomas Powle continued to hold and sold the manor to George Evelyn in 1588. George settled it on his son Robert on the latter's marriage in 1590. Robert apparently conveyed Marden, as he did Walkhampstead, to his brother John, whose son George afterwards held, and died seised in 1636. Sir John Evelyn (George's son), conveyed Marden to his younger brother Arthur, and it was conveyed by Arthur to his uncle Sir John. John Evelyn, eldest son of the latter, created a baronet in 1660, married first Mary Farmer and secondly Anne Glynne. He died without issue in 1671, his brother George Evelyn (1641–1699) being his heir, but before his death he had made a conveyance of Marden, together with the manor of Flower in this parish, to one Mary Gittings, with whom he had lived for several years prior to his death. She sold the manor in 1672 to Robert Clayton (afterwards Sir Robert) and John Morris, partners in business. Morris afterwards released to Clayton, in whose family Marden remained until it was sold shortly before 1911 to Sir Walpole Greenwell.^[6]

Marden Park is about a mile and a half to the north of Godstone, and was formerly the seat of Sir Robert Clayton, Lord Mayor of London, who died in 1707. From him it passed to his nephew Sir William Clayton, 1st Baronet and thence to the latter's son Sir Kenrick Clayton, 2nd Baronet.

William Wilberforce lived here towards the close of the 18th century, several of his letters being dated from the house. It was in 1911 the residence of Sir Walpole Lloyd Greenwell. Today's mansion was re-erected to the west of the original site. It is built in the style of a French chateau and is approached by a drive a mile in length through the park. The grounds, to quote from the inscription on Clayton's monument in Bletchingley Church, are "a remarkable instance of the politeness of his Genius, and how far Nature may be improv'd by Art". The stables of the original mansion still remain.^[6]

The mill mentioned in the Domesday Book as being in the manor of Walkhampstead became appurtenant to Marden on the division; it was generally said to be worth 20s. or 30s. a year, but an inquisition taken in 1349 after the Black Death stated that the mill was out of repair and had brought in nothing that year, as all who used to come there to grind were dead. The same inquisition gives further proof of the ravages worked here by the plague; perquisites of court both here and at Lagham were this year nothing, as the tenants who owed suit were nearly all dead, the capital messuages (houses and land) of both had deteriorated in value owing to the pestilence, and the pasture was valueless because it had not been let to farm. An old cottage standing back from the high road to the station near the entrance to Bullbeggar's Lane is still known as the Pest House.^[6]

Post-Industrial Revolution

British Army at work, 1914-1918

The railway or Croydon and East Grinstead line was opened in 1884 including a station then named Marden Park (as it was in Godstone parish then),^[3] and a tunnel was built to take the line under the high wolds (or rolling uplands) that make up most of the village.

The Garden Village is a former army camp. The bungalow called "Funny Neuk" was home to the Czechoslovak military intelligence radio station from 1940 to 1942, and was used for communications concerning the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. In 1942 the radio station moved to Hockliffe, near Dunstable in Bedfordshire.

On Friday 25 May 1951, Donald Duart Maclean, Soviet spy and then resident of nearby Tatsfield, is said to have left from Woldingham station on the night of his escape to the coast and defection to Russia.

Soil and geology

Relatively wide bands of chalky soil intersperse the brick-earth topping of the downs, all of which is relatively quick draining making some agriculture challenging. A majority of this Downs-topping soil is free-draining, slightly acid, loamy soil beside this free-draining, lime-rich, loamy soil, i.e. alkaline.^[9]

Comparisons by national media

In December 2007, the Sunday Telegraph announced that Woldingham ranked second in its list of the "Top Ten Richest Suburbs in Britain".^[13]