Caterham

 ( Towns In Surrey ) 

In 1840 Caterham contained a total of 477 residents (figures taken from that census, compiled in an 1848 topographical encyclopedia) and in 1848 of its were common land. Similar to today, mostly steeper acres were woodland.

The more modern locality of Caterham Valley in a wide dry valley opening to the north (to Warlingham) and along its slopes is a product of the Victorian age and the coming of the Caterham Line in 1856, which is still a terminus.

Victorian expansion of the town required the building of a much larger parish church, leading to the Church of St Mary the Virgin's building in 1866, directly across the road from St Lawrence's. As it also grew Caterham Valley gained its own Anglican church, to St. John the Evangelist, which was consecrated in 1882.

From 1877 Caterham Barracks on the hill was a depot for the Foot Guards regiments. The barracks were closed in 1995 and the site was redeveloped for housing.

Two main streets (there is only one road called High Street – Caterham on the Hill) therefore serve two very close yet substantial and affluent communities (see demographics), one with the railway station and more modern buildings, one with more historic buildings as soon as the closest hill (to the northwest) is climbed from the heart of Caterham Valley. This set-up means that localism is present in that the Godstone Road during the middle of the 20th century bypassed Caterham Valley staying high and using Tillingdown, along the east of Caterham Valley from St John's School to the Croydon Road roundabout, thereby removing A22 traffic, while businesses set up and thrived in the valley itself.

On 6 July 1974 Police constable John Schofield was shot and killed while on patrol in Caterham.

In 1975 an IRA bomb exploded in the Caterham Arms public house injuring 10 off-duty soldiers and 23 civilians. The pub was popular with the Welsh Guards, who had recently returned to Caterham Barracks after serving in Northern Ireland. The men responsible for the bombing were later jailed for a string of murders and bombings; they were released in April 1999 following the Good Friday Agreement.

Surrey County Council has two councillors from Caterham.

Caterham has ten representatives on Tandridge District Council:

Caterham has two civil parish councils: Caterham on the Hill and Caterham Valley. Caterham Valley parish has two wards, Harestone and Caterham Valley, each electing three elected parish councillors. The parish council clerk is Maureen Gibbins. Caterham on the Hill has three wards, Portley, Queen's Park and Westway, each electing three parish councillors. The parish council clerk is Helen Broughton.

In 1911 Caterham Urban District Council built itself a public hall and office building called Soper Hall, at 3 Harestone Valley Road, to serve as its headquarters. The building was named after William Garland Soper, the first chairman of the council, who had died in 1908. Of the building's £4,000 cost, £1,500 was donated by public subscription in memory of Soper. The building was formally opened in January 1912.

In 1929 the Caterham Urban District was enlarged by the addition of the neighbouring parish of Warlingham, and the district's name was changed to Caterham and Warlingham Urban District. In 1933 the parishes of Chaldon and Woldingham were also added to the urban district. Caterham, Chaldon, Warlingham and Woldingham remained separate civil parishes, but as urban parishes they no longer had separate parish councils, with Caterham and Warlingham Urban District Council being the smallest representative body covering the whole urban district. Caterham and Warlingham Urban District Council continued to be based at Soper Hall, and also acquired a large house next door at 1 Harestone Hill to serve as additional office space. In 1951 the parish had a population of 19,844. On 1 April 1974 the parish was abolished.

Caterham and Warlingham Urban District was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972, with the area merging with neighbouring Godstone Rural District to become Tandridge District on 1 April 1974. For its first few years Tandridge District Council used the offices of both its predecessor districts in Caterham and Oxted, until 1989 when it moved to new offices in Oxted on the site of the old Godstone Rural District Council's buildings. The new building in Oxted was funded by the sale of most of the old Caterham and Warlingham council's properties around 1 Harestone Hill to make way for part of a retail development called Church Walk, with only Soper Hall being retained.

No successor parish was created for the former Caterham and Warlingham Urban District at the time of the 1974 reforms, and the area therefore became an unparished area, directly administered by Tandridge District Council. Civil parishes were re-established for the area in 2000, with the former urban district being split into six parishes: Caterham on the Hill, Caterham Valley, Chaldon, Warlingham, Whyteleafe, and Woldingham.

Caterham on the Hill is located on a considerable area of upland extending north past adjoining Kenley Aerodrome to Kenley and Hartley Hill in Reedham. This elevated area carries on west until Hooley/Old Merstham and forms a very narrow, fairly steep ridge south of Caterham Valley's centre; east of the centre of Caterham Valley are marginally higher rolling pastures of the North Downs on top of a more smaller mass of upland which forms the village of Woldingham followed by a much larger area of upland stretching from Biggin Hill to Downe and Knockholt, Kent.

The M25 motorway (between junctions 6 and 7) is 80 to 90m below and less than 200m south of the North Downs path and the southern border of Caterham Valley civil parish and is linked by an uninterrupted hilltop dual carriageway to the north of Caterham and its lowest point, Croydon Road roundabout.

In the south of Caterham are the following hills:

Caterham lies within the North Downs and Caterham Valley's southern border is immediately south of the North Downs Way, part of a National Trails, which is here on top of the southern edge of the North Downs.

Soil here has the expected shallow, lime-rich soil over chalk or limestone of the escarpment with lower parts of the escarpment summit here, where the topsoil has eroded, having slightly acid, loamy and clayey soils with impeded drainage, which makes that soil particularly fertile.

The gault clay and the Chalk Group that lies under the North Downs are both at their thickest around the valley that occupies the centre of Caterham Valley. While earlier cretaceous clays and greensand and sandy material, underlying, is evident where terrain has eroded, 90 million years ago the North Downs hard chalk was deposited, a white limestone comprising over 95% calcium carbonate. It contains thin beds of marl and nodules of flint, either scattered or in bands. The North Downs extending from Farnham to Dover are formed by this chalk. They now have an often white, almost vertical south-facing slope. In lower slopes flints washed up by early seas come more to the surface and appear closer to the surface.