Holmbury St Mary ~ Guildford Borough southeast borders      6 miles southwest of Dorking on the B2126

History

'Feldemore' house, to the east of the village standing high on the hill towards Abinger, is a typical Victorian residence, once owned by the Waterhouse family of 'Price Waterhouse' fame, it is now Belmont Preparatory School.    

In Victorian times, the village was very popular as a retreat for wealthy Londoners, so in 1872 when the village was still named Felday, it was visited by the celebrated Victorian architect George Edward Street and his wife. The latter is reported to have exclaimed 'this is heaven's gate' upon entering the village and it is still easy to understand why. Situated as it is, in the valley at the foot of Holmbury Hill,  the village is one of the most beautiful in all of Surrey.   St Mary's was built at Street's own expense in 1879 just two years before his death. 

On Holmbury Hill there are the earthworks of an Iron Age fort which was excavated in the 1930s and whose artefacts may now be seen in Guildford Museum. The site of this ancient fortification was about eight acres and was a camp for the native Celts since between about 150 B.C. to 50 A.D.  This camp was one of three along this ridge of hills, the others were at Anstiebury and Hascombe.

These sandy heights to the south of the North Downs trail (from Folkestone  to Farnham and on to Winchester and Salisbury Plain) attracted groups of Celts to settle. These primitive people were led by Druid priests and practised religious rites connected with the gods of thunder, war, women's crafts and manly beauty. Holmbury Hill was not thickly wooded then and it is likely the surrounding land would have been farmed.    Throughout history the general area has been one of the remotest and wildest in the county, so many smugglers, sheep stealers and poachers took refuge in the hills near here and often the local cottages had large cellars used to hide their contraband.  

Felday was soon renamed Holmbury St. Mary, after George Street designed and erected St. Marys Church in his beloved village, where he then lived with his wife in the house they soon built called 'Holmdale' in Holmbury Hill Road. Unfortunately his wife did not live to see the completed church that was built in 1879, as she died in 1876. In fact, St. Mary's Church was to be one of George Street's last works, as he also died just two years after it was built. He did live, however, to welcome Gladstone and the cabinet of the day, when they once visited his home in the village in 1880. George Street, who designed the London Law Courts, was obviously a man of some considerable standing, he was later buried in Westminster Abbey.