In this series I'm taking the train one stop beyond the Greater London boundary, getting off and seeing what's there. Today that means Chipstead, one stop beyond Wooodmansterne on the Tattenham Corner line. For positioning purposes it lies southwest of Coulsdon, a tad into Surrey, and spreads across a large area of dippy chalk downland. As suburbia goes it's top notch, a lot of rustic detacheds on hillsides and way out of your price bracket. Do come.
Chipstead station opened in 1897, a fortunate byproduct of the race to bring trains to the edge of Epsom racecourse. The stations hereabouts are nominally perverse, with Kingswood in the parish of Chipstead, Chipstead in the parish of Woodmansterne and Woodmansterne just across the border in Greater London. As ever the arrival of the railway nudged the residential centre of gravity much closer to the station, its platforms perched on a contour above the valley bottom. Living nearby must get irritating because a public footpath crosses the tracks just to the west so drivers have to whistle every time they approach, which is four times an hour in total. The station building was sold off as a private residence 30 years ago so its owners may need the best earplugs of all.
Chipstead's shops fill a long gabled parade which steps down from the station to the main road. It's fronted with herringbone brickwork, topped by flats with diamond-latticed windows and occupied by none of your usual rubbish. Expect to find a vintner, a vintage butcher, a private surgery, two cafes and a salon with such retro signage you could imagine Margo from the Good Life emerging with a new do. The newsagent sells a top class range of magazines and displays 'The Times' on its awning, which feels about right. The biggest disappointment is that the sole takeaway option is a Tandoori restaurant because you'd hope Chipstead would have a chippie but it doesn't. Fans of fried fish instead need to drive to Mr Chips on Chipstead Valley Road in Coulsdon near Woodmansterne station, because I told you local names were complicated.
The main road along the valley is Outwood Lane, which I see is the B2032 so expect me to come back in seven years time. It starts near The Midday Sun, a disappointingly feast-focused pub, and winds on past Tesco and the water treatment works. The 166 bus almost makes it to the foot of Station Parade before bearing off for the hills and the lavender fields. The fingerpost at the mini roundabout is pristine white so hints at a strong communal presence behind the scenes. In fact there are two, the Chipstead Residents' Association and the Chipstead Village Preservation Society, and I can't work out if they compete or complement each other in the never-ending battle to keep things exactly as they are. The CVPS knocks up a very proper noticeboard whatever.
But the real treasure here is across the valley on the chalk escarpment and that's Banstead Woods. They've been here a while, Anne Boleyn used to own them, as the curve of information boards by the car park explains. And they conceal all sorts of delights, some temporary and some plain unexpected like the sculpted form of a wooden lion at the first fork in the path on the way up. Next is a wooden lamppost with a girl standing underneath, and it turns out this is because the woods host a Narnia-themed nature trail based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and she's meant to be Lucy. I nearly missed the White Witch because she was tucked behind a tree but I gasped audibly when I saw someone had carved a wardrobe you can actually walk through, brushing through four hanging jackets on the way.
Much better signed, and considerably longer, is the Banstead Woods Nature Trail. It leads deeper into the woods for a more satisfying stroll, and is much augmented at present by multiple patches of proper bluebells. These grow alongside much of the main path, and if you step off along some minor track you have every chance of finding yourself in a dappled glade of bobbing blue. I loved how quiet it all was, the weekly Parkrun having just evacuated, and like them I was almost tempted to go round twice. On the edge of the woods the land falls away to flatter meadows on the valley floor where the locals prefer to exercise their dogs, and where no river runs because that's chalk bedrock for you and whatever created all this has long since drained away.
On the far hillside Chipstead's finer houses spread out along quiet lanes and various private cul-de-sacs. Density was never a concern when these were built and road access never a priority, so householders enjoy whopping plots and pedestrians are very much an afterthought. I had to dodge several vehicles after the pavement ran out and was nearly reversed into at a minor passing place. Many of the front hedges are thick, high and impeccably shaped so I suspect the local topiarists do a roaring trade. But if you keep walking eventually a cluster of older smaller houses appears, this the heart of the original village where the pond still is and the post office used to be. The White Hart is Georgian and looks much more like the kind of pub a proper Chipsteader would frequent.
Up here is where the sport hides out, including the bowls club, a private tennis hideaway, football, cricket and a better-than-usual rugby club. The village hall has a prominent spot by the crossroads but is outdone for capacity by an unlikely entertainment venue up a back lane. This is the Courtyard Theatre, home to the Chipstead Players whose am-dram triumphs merited converting a former stable into a 97-seater back in 1995. Their next production is Terrance Rattigan's Separate Tables at the end of next month, then Brief Encounter in July and Dracula in the autumn, and you can count me impressed. I was also impressed by the bluebells in the orchard, but less so by the jobsworth CVPS sign on the gatepost.
You are very welcome to enter but you do so at your own risk.
Keep your eyes open for trip hazards.
Take extra care in high winds.
Protect the natural environment.
Leave no trace of your visit.
Keep dogs under close control.
ENJOY YOUR VISIT.
The parish church is nowhere near what most people think of as Chipstead, being over a mile from the shops and the station down lanes you wouldn't want to risk after winter Evensong. It's called St Margaret's and claims a history dating back to 675 AD, although the earliest part of the current stone church was built in 1150, the tower is more 1200 and the supposed 1000 year-old yew outside the entrance toppled in the Great Storm. I would have liked to go inside and see the memorial to Sir Edward Banks, the 18th century builder of Waterloo, Southwark and London Bridges, but the door was sensibly locked. I don't think June Brown is commemorated here, inside or out, but the real life Dot Cotton was a regular churchgoer and lived in Chipstead too.
You don't have to step far from Church Green to find yourself in another village altogether, this being Hooley, a linear outpost despoiled by the passage of the A23. They have a separate Residents Association and less exciting noticeboards, many of the posters on which are actually about Chipstead. For a sprawling non-nucleated village Chipstead displays a remarkable cohesion rarely seen elsewhere, but unless you live near the station you'll be relying on your car a lot.
