East Horsley - History

History

East Horsley appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Horslei. It was held by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. Its domesday assets were: 3 hides and 1½ virgates; 8½ ploughs, woodland worth 50 hogs. It rendered £5.

There is a well-equipped amateur theatre called the Nomad Theatre which is behind the smaller of East Horsley's two rows of shops, Bishopsmead Parade. The theatre, the construction of which was largely financed by lottery grants from Arts Council England, opened in October 1998 with a production of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood. A larger row of shops is situated near the railway station.

The village has a large gothic mansion which was designed by Sir Charles Barry (later the architect of the Houses of Parliament) for William Currie in place of an earlier building. William Currie, a distiller and banker, had bought the property in 1784 and over the next 44 years made extensive changes to the village including rebuilding most of the houses in the village, establishing the school and restoring the church. After William Currie's death in 1829 the property was acquired by the 1st Earl of Lovelace. It was the home of Ada, Lady Lovelace (the poet Lord Byron's daughter) and later Sir Thomas Sopwith, the aviation pioneer.