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Present
Day Aspect and Character
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The
Church of St Lawrence
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 he
pleasant village of Seale is located in a beautiful valley south
of the Hogs Back, similar to its close neighbour to the east
at Puttenham. The centre of the village nestles in a compact hollow surrounded by trees
and in the wider area, by excavation works. Seale has
one particular disused chalk quarry, north east of the village,
being kept by
the Surrey Naturalist’s Trust as a botanical reserve.
The best view of the village is the one that can be seen from
the ridge above with homes fanned around the churchyard.
St
Lawrence’s Church is an attractive centre-piece, rebuilt by J. Croft in 1861-73
and probably the best cottage is East End Farm.
Seale Lane stretches to the west towards nearby Farnham to
the crossroads known as Sandy Cross and the variety of homes
along this road are of quite recent years. To the north,
running parallel with Sandy Lane, is the chalk spine of the well
known Hogs Back carrying the A31. This road
affords easy, fast access for Seale residents to Farnham, Aldershot
and Guildford. On the borders with Waverley
Borough is Farnham Golf Course on the outskirts of the
village and adjacent to this course is extensive and attractive
countryside which rolls away to the south forming the area between Seale
and Elstead.
History
Out and about in Seale you may come across buildings of chalk which
is rare even though so much of Surrey is chalk. The reason is
that Surrey chalk was generally too
soft for good building material. Its low quality in Surrey restricted its use largely to humbler cottages and
farm buildings and, not surprisingly, many of these have since
vanished. The surviving cottages therefore do not pre-date 17th
century although chalk walls
were in use in medieval times and indeed go right back to
prehistoric times. The worst erosion of the chalk was down the
corners of the buildings which were better equipped to fend off the
extremes of weather by having brick or stone corners. This defeated
the object of a cheap chalk building as both were scarce and
expensive. However, it is no surprise to find chalk used at Seale as it
had its own great chalk-pit and a wide range of other materials were
also used to create the village in amore typical Surrey way.
Stable
Cottage and Manor House Farm are buildings that used traditional
chalk.
The distinctive building of the Hogs Back Hotel above Seale
is on the site of one of the chain of the Admiralty's 19th
century semaphore
stations, exposed and windswept as ever.
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Location
for a home ~ Comment:
Highly Recommended
Watch
out warnings: The
village is not served by a railway, shops or a school
