Churt History
Churt is a village in the Surrey Hills which straddles the A287 about halfway between Farnham and Haslemere.
A casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that there’s not much history in Churt since the village centre mostly consists of a collection of fairly undistinguished early twentieth century buildings with only the school, the church and a handful of stone cottages being any earlier – and these are only Victorian.
But Churt is an ancient village or, more accurately, an ancient district. A narrow band of fertile soil in this area of predominantly bleak heathland, enabled man to exist here from pre-historic times.
When the population of England was around 2 millions, Churt was significant enough to have its own name, Cert. In the 7th century Caedwalla, the pagan King of Wessex, converted to Christianity and ensured the safety of his soul by donating land to the church, including land at Churt. This land became part of the Bishop of Winchester's Great Manor of Farnham, so for a thousand years he was Churt's Lord of the Manor. The Winchester Pipe Rolls reveal several centuries of village history. The medieval period in Churt remains visible in its timber houses, mostly of farming origin.
Historically there was no nuclear village of Churt. Before the end of the 1920s the name Churt was applied to a district which was, before 1868, a tithing of the ancient parish of Frensham. In 1868 St John’s Church was erected and consecrated and Churt became a separate ecclesiastical parish.
Churt’s history is also chronicled in a number of books:
Philip Brooks - A Medieval Landscape
Olivia Cotton
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Churt, an Oasis through Time
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Churt Remembered
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Further Reflections on Churt
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The First Ten Years (of the village school)
These books can be purchased from www.johnowensmith.co.uk/books/chr.htm
Gillian Devine
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A Time of Change - a short history of Churt, the period between 1840 and 1880.
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Churt and the War to end all Wars
These books can be obtained from the author devinegillian@btinternet.com or from Amazon
Link to the Churt Heritage website for lots of historical information on Churt and its residents, and for online access to the archives which contain historic documents, scrap books, recordings, photographs, maps, etc. and the catalogue of information which are filed in hard copy
