Surrey is a very special place and its beauty has long been recognised. This comment by 19th Century journalist and politician Louis Jennings captures what makes Surrey special to so many of us in the South East.

 

In 1893 another writer, novelist & science writer Grant Allen, wrote from his house overlooking the Devil's Punch Bowl: “I am writing in my study on a heather clad hilltop. My window looks out upon unsullied nature. Everything around is fresh and clean and wholesome.”

 

But this interest in, and care for, Surrey goes a long way back. Sir John Evelyn is sometimes credited with the start of the English landscape movement. His family home was Wotton House, near Dorking, and he was born in 1620 into a substantial Surrey landowning family whose fortunes were founded in gunpowder manufacture. He went on to be a landscape gardener on a grand scale, as well as being a notable intellectual and diarist of the period.

 

Then, some 100 years ago, Sir Robert Hunter, co-founder of the National Trust, organised a public subscription to buy much of Hindhead Commons, one of the Trust’s earliest purchases. This was followed by many other acquisitions, such as Box Hill.

 

Planning and development pressures in the early part of the 20th Century lie at the heart of the next stage. Being close to London, and well served by trains and roads, Surrey came under huge pressure between the Wars for new housing. Since planning legislation was then very limited, ribbon development along roads was fast spreading outwards into the countryside.

 

The prospective sale of Norbury Park for speculative development in 1930 brought matters to a head. Planning powers would be unable to prevent it, so Surrey County Council’s Alderman Willcocks decided to buy it and then offered it to the county council at the price he paid.

 

However, uncertainty over the powers of the county council to buy land like this meant that clauses were added to a Bill going through Parliament, leading to the Surrey County Council Act of 1931. This allowed the county to buy land to protect it from development. Over 3,000 acres in Surrey now owned by the county council, district councils and by the National Trust have been bought to protect it.

 

The next milestone was the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. This enabled the National Parks Commission, led by a long serving Government politician Sir Arthur Hobhouse, to create National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. A list of 52 proposed conservation areas were identified in England and Wales, including the North Downs and Hindhead conservation areas, (of 273 and 154 square miles respectively). These were high quality landscapes, of scientific interest and recreational value deserving designation, but not meeting the criteria for National Parks.

 

By 1953, the two ‘Hobhouse’ areas, North Downs and Hindhead, were being described as Areas of High Landscape Value (AHLVs), later to be known as Areas of Great Landscape Value. Local amenity societies argued that other areas should be added to the Surrey ‘Hobhouse’ areas, including the Hascombe and Hambledon Hills, the southern fringes of the Hog’s Back around Compton and Loseley, parts of Cobham-Ottershaw, Painshill-Oxshott, Tandridge-Limpsfield and the Fold Country.

 

So, early in 1955, the National Parks Commission started informal discussions on designating the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) with Surrey County Council. By November 1955 the proposed AONB was ready for the formal consultation stage and it was described as being ‘the finest scenery along the North Downs, between the Hog’s Back and Titsey, in the Leith Hill and Holmbury Hill areas and around Hindhead and Crooksbury.’

 

Interestingly, there were already discussions regarding the proposed South Orbital Road (later to be the Surrey section of the M25). Running from Fetcham through Westerham, the National Parks Commission’s problem was whether the Government could declare an AONB and the track of a trunk road straight through the middle of it simultaneously. Eventually the Commission concluded that: ‘the balance of advantage lay with designating the proposed area, bearing in mind that the road was a long term proposal, that it was desirable in the meantime to recognise and protect the existing natural beauty of the area by designating, and that designation should ensure particularly careful landscaping of the new road.’

 

Thus, in May 1958, the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty became one of the first AONBs to be designated and the first in the south east (the first nationally was for the Gower and Lleyn peninsulas in Wales in 1956). Designation is to conserve and enhance the AONB's natural beauty and this has been particularly important because of its proximity to London. AONBs are also designated to meet the need for quiet enjoyment of the countryside and to have regard for the interests of those who live and work there.

 

Land purchases by the County Council for landscape conservation continued through the early years of the AONB and many sites were bought during the late 1960s, including Hackhurst Downs and Rodborough Common. The National Trust also continued to acquire land.

 

Then, in 1971 and again in 1984, Surrey County Council undertook two major reviews of areas being identified as Areas of Great Landscape Value. Each extension created buffer zones, helping to protect a greater area of the landscape.

 

Management of the AONB became more practical during the 1970s and 80s. For instance, the Downlands Countryside Management Project was set up in 1988 to enhance the environment for people and wildlife. It covers greenbelt countryside in north-east Surrey and adjoining parts of south London where the rolling chalk hills and associated valleys give rise to stunning scenery. Sheep and goats now graze the chalk downland as a long-term management regime. And, since 1998, the team caring for the Surrey Hills AONB has been gradually strengthened.