The town of Reigate has a history that goes back to before the time of William the Conqueror. Its development has been shaped by its strategic location on medieval trade routes connecting London with the south coast.
There is evidence of prehistoric and Roman activity in the area of Reigate. A substantial Roman tile-making operation was discovered on the east side of Wray Common Road and there were once large pits and depressions in the area of Wray Common Road and Doods Road which may have been clay extraction sites.
The first written evidence of settlement is Ealdorman Alfred’s will (AD 871-889) which mentions land in Linkfield, on the borders of Reigate. By the time of the Domesday Book in 1088 there was a significant settlement that was probably centred on the parish church of St Mary’s half a kilometre from the present town centre. A fragment of Saxon sculpture has been discovered there and Saxo-Norman pottery on the site of the Old Vicarage in Church Street.
Its place name in 1086 was Cherchefelle, meaning ‘open space by the hill or barrow.’ The land had been held by Edward the Confessor’s widow, Edith until her death in 1075. Most Anglo-Saxon landowners lost everything after the conquest, but she had wisely pledged William her immediate allegiance in 1066, giving him political legitimacy.
Cherchefelle was a substantial settlement of 78 households, with 67 villagers, 11 smallholders and two watermills. Applying the standard historical multiplier of five people per household it suggests that the total population may have been up to 390 people, putting Churchefelle in the top 20% of recorded settlements.
As can be seen in the Domesday entry above, Churchefelle was a manor that was part of the ‘Hundred’ of Cherchefelle. The hundred was a Saxon regional administrative unit comprising a large strip of east Surrey encompassing Reigate (Cherchefelle), Nutfield (Notfelle), Merstham (Merstan), Buckland (Bochelant), Chipstead, (Tepestede), Gatton (Gatone), and Worth (Orde).
Churchefelle emerged
as a significant settlement during the Norman period when the Crown
granted ownership of the manor (not the hundred) to William de Warenne
following Edith’s death in 1075. He was one of William’s most trusted
supporters, who had fought for him in 1066. William was created the Earl
of Surrey and the family’s chequered shield became Reigate’s gold and
blue chequered arms.
William’s great grandson, also called William de Warenne, was a cousin and supporter of King John and is believed to have founded Reigate Priory in about 1235. The manor subsequently passed through a number of powerful families, the Fitzalans, the Howards of Effingham, the Mowbrays, the Monsons, the Thurlands and the Somers. Many of them are remembered in local street names.
The main settlement moved west to the market area in the vicinity of West Street and Upper West Street as part of the development of the town when Reigate Castle was built by the de Warennes in the late eleventh century overlooking the surrounding countryside and routes through the Weald. The place name, Cherchefelle, dropped out of use in the late 12th century when the name Reigate appeared. Shortly afterwards the crown renamed the entire Cherchefelle Hundred as the Reigate Hundred and the new castle town became the administrative capital of the district.
The origin of the name Reigate is unclear and various options have been suggested. The most likely is that the Rei/Rey in Reigate is derived from the Wray stream. It stems from a cluster of Old English/Middle English words for water features, including ea, ei, ey, rei, rie, or rith. In the Reeve’s Account of 1447 Wray Common is referred to as ‘le Rie’. The gate in Reigate probably comes from Anglo-Saxon roots (ġeat), meaning a physical barrier or valley opening.
A village grew up under the protection of the castle in the twelfth century and gradually developed into a town. The Wray Stream flowed through Reigate town into Priory Lake and there was a ford where it crossed Bell Street.
Unlike many Norman examples, Reigate Castle did not have a large stone keep but it had earthworks and a network of underground tunnels excavated into the local sandstone.
It surrendered to Louis the
Dauphin of France in 1216 when he came to the aid of the barons
rebelling against King John. William de Warenne was one of the few
powerful magnates who had remained strictly loyal to King John during
the peak of the First Barons' War but he surrendered to Louis to protect
his estates.
The castle, which was also known as Holmes Castle after the Vale of Holmesdale within which it stood, was already in disrepair by Tudor times. While much of the original structure has disappeared, the surviving grounds and caves can still be visited today.
As Reigate grew, it needed a
larger church and in the 13th century the church of St Mary
Magdalene (St Mary’s) was rebuilt and expanded as the population
grew.
Reigate also had a small Augustinian Priory, south of the present High Street, then largely composed of inns and alehouses. Closed by Henry VIII in 1536 at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, the building became a private home for the Howard family and was extensively remodelled in the eighteenth century. Reigate Park to its south was a popular hunting ground for the local gentry.
The developing town benefited from its position on key trade routes connecting London with the south coast. Reigate had been granted a market charter in the thirteenth century and its prosperity increased as farmers, craftsmen and merchants gathered there to trade. During the Tudor and Stuart eras, Reigate continued to grow steadily and by 1610, it was reported to be one of the four chief market towns in Surrey.
By the late seventeenth century there were monthly markets as well as some cattle and horse fairs, corn markets and pleasure fairs. In addition to the two existing watermills at Flanchford and Salfords, new windmills were constructed in the eighteenth century on higher ground including one at Blackborough Mill (1736), Isbells on Cockshot Hill(1748) after the medieval post-mill collapsed in 1639, and Reigate Heath Mill (1765). The mill on Wray Common followed in 1824.
Hops were grown extensively in Reigate and along the Holmesdale
valley, and hemp was grown in the area in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Oatmeal was another major trade in the seventeenth century,
for which London was the main market as oatmeal was used for ships’
biscuits. George Charlwood had a mill in West Street, whilst Francis
Hatcher had one at the 
south end of Nutley Lane.
One of Reigate’s most distinctive natural resources was its sandstone, known regionally as Reigate Stone. The soft stone, was widely quarried and highly valued in the construction and repair of numerous important buildings, including parts of Westminster Abbey and several London churches. Quarrying remained an important local industry for centuries and left a lasting mark on the landscape. Some caves can still be accessed.
By the eighteenth century, the town’s location on the main road between London and Brighton made it a significant coaching stop. Inns and businesses flourished as travellers passed through, bringing trade and opportunities for local residents.
But transport was becoming a
significant problem. In 1697 the first turnpiked road in Surrey, which
ran from Reigate to Crawley, was described as being ‘very ruinous
and almost impassable for above three miles in Reigate.’ In 1755,
Alexander Broughton, a Reigate attorney, told a House of Commons
Committee that Reigate was ‘in many parts so narrow that two
carriages cannot pass nor a horseman pass a carriage.’
Descending Reigate Hill was particularly hazardous as coaches and carriages had no brakes and a wooden wedging device called a skidpan had to be used to lock the wheels on the road. Coaches were obliged to hire an extra pair of horses from the town to make the reverse journey uphill.
New turnpike roads constructed in the early nineteenth century, including the route through Merstham that would become the A23, created more direct routes that bypassed parts of Reigate. Settlements around what would become Redhill began attracting passing trade that had previously flowed through the town.
Unsurprisingly, the opening of the London to Brighton Railway in the early 1840s devastated the coaching trade, ending Reigate’s traditional role as the gateway between London and Brighton.
Fortunately, Victorian Reigate did not collapse economically as it kept its reputation as the more prestigious residential and administrative town. Its historic High Street has probably survived because of the diversion of heavy commercial growth towards Redhill.
The twentieth century brought
further growth between the two World Wars. while improvements in
transport and housing strengthened Reigate’s role as a commuter town.
The century also marked the end of aristocratic ownership of the town.
The last of the great landowners, Mr Somers Somerset, sold his interests
in Reigate town in 1921 and gave the rest of his manorial interests to
the borough council.
During the modern era, considerable efforts were made to preserve Reigate’s older buildings and maintain the town’s distinctive historic character that visitors still recognise today.
Reigate, Its Story through the Ages, (1945) Wilfred Hooper
A History of Redhill, Volume One, (1999), Alan Moore
Early Medieval Surrey, Landholding, Church and Settlement (1991), John Blair
Cherchefelle and the Origins of Reigate, Adam Corsini, 1976 https://www.layersoflondon.org/map/records/cherchefelle-and-the-origins-of-reigate
Arrival of Louis of France in England (1216), Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College)
The Priory from An Excursion to Brighthelmstone (Brighton), Thomas Rowlandson, (1790)
Reigate Heath 1837 George Johann Scharf (1788–1860) Yale Center for British Art
Town Hall, Reigate (1941), George Hooper
The Old Town Hall, Ian Capper, 2008
To find out how to access the Reigate caves: Underground Surrey – Wealden Cave & Mine Society; Reigate Caves – Wealden Cave & Mine Society