‘A City’s Paradise’: preserving the remainder of Box Hill, voluntary social action and Country Life, 1919–1936

ABSTRACT

Land was first purchased at Box Hill, Surrey, on the North Downs, to save a famous viewpoint in 1914. Safeguarding the remainder of Box Hill from development necessitated public appeals in 1919, 1923, 1926 and 1935. Led by the largely autonomous Box Hill Management Committee, and often supported by Country Life, voluntary social action in Surrey and London was mobilised to preserve adjoining land for the National Trust by accretion, intent on avoiding spoliation by villas on winding drives, extensive tree felling, streets of bungalows, and highway construction. Sub-national piecemeal protection and voluntary vigilance sustained delight in the country by subscribers who affirmed their familiarity with Box Hill, where views, trees and sequestered spaces on low and high ground offered quiet enjoyment amid common nature. Using sources which originated in the hill’s management, complemented by Country Life and newspaper reports, the article evaluates the interrelationship of locality and nation during the subscription appeals, with reference to private acts of informal benevolence and personal sense-impressions of Box Hill. The importance of providing respite from congested districts, on unembellished former wooded pasture in its natural state, is explored before sufficient national political consensus arose for the statutory protection of open country. In 1944 the Greater London Plan demanded that remaining unspoiled chalk country should be taken into public possession.

Keywords:

• Box Hill
• Surrey
• rural amenity
• landscape preservation
• National Trust
• Country Life
• voluntary social action
• North Downs
• Londoner’s hill
• open spaces

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the editor and referees of Landscape History for all their help and advice. I am grateful to the National Trust and Friends of Box Hill for the opportunity to consult the Box Hill Management Committee minute books and newspaper cuttings, particularly the help received from Mr Ben Tatham. Country Life volumes were gratefully consulted at its Picture Library, formerly in Southwark. For their help I wish to thank archivists at the Special Collections Library, Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, the Dorking Museum and the Surrey History Centre, particularly Mr Julian Pooley. Images are reproduced by permission of the Friends of Box Hill, National Trust, Dorking Museum, Surrey History Centre and Future Publishing Ltd. Material from the Farrer MMS is reproduced by permission of the Farrer Estate and the Surrey History Centre and is the Copyright of the Farrer Estate.