Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Multi-Academy Trust, East Anglia Location Candidate Brochure East Surrey, United Kingdom East Surrey Candidate Brochure pubs and a few restaurants and several shops. The art gallery’s collection includes originals by Joan Miro and Henry Moore. ABOUT MERSTHAM New Merstham Merstham is a village in the borough of Reigate and A larger housing estate, originally entirely public housing, Banstead in Surrey, England. It is north of Redhill and is was built to a geometric layout in the eastern fields. This contiguous with it. Part of the North Downs Way runs along area has its own parade of shops, the Brook recreation the northern boundary of the village. Merstham has ground, three schools, and a youth/community centre along community associations, an early medieval church, a Radstock Way. Oakley, a small country house, is listed and football club and an art gallery. has Victorian gothic architecture features. South Merstham South Merstham is immediately south of both mentioned areas and is made up of mainly Victorian and Edwardian terraces. It provided a workforce for Albury Manor and nearby chalk quarrying and brick working. Nutfield Road has a long parade of shops. South Merstham is home to Connevans Limited, who, in April 2016 became holders of the Royal Warrant, by Appointment to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II Supplier and Manufacturer of Audio Equipment. Watercolour TRANSPORT Watercolour is a development, constructed in 2010–11, in London buses run to Croydon, Coulsdon, Purley and Redhill South Merstham, close to Mercers Park. Here there is a town centre. Metrobus operates buses to Reigate, Caterham Tesco Express and a small number of other shops. and Woldingham. The village is served by Merstham Railway Station on the Brighton Main Line, with services to London Bridge (48 minutes), London Victoria (36 minutes) and Gatwick Airport (11 minutes). Old Merstham Old Merstham forms the north and north-west of modern Merstham and is the original village centre. There is a small day school by the railway station, the Rt Art Gallery, two East Surrey Candidate Brochure when the post office moved from Red Hill Common in the south-west of the town in 1856. Redhill is one of the few places in the UK where Fuller's Earth can be extracted, though production ceased in 2000. Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time at a Merstham quarry, 2 miles north of Redhill in 1868. A large, ornate, Victorian psychiatric hospital with well- trimmed grounds, the Royal Earlswood Hospital, initially the THE LOCAL TOWN OF REDHILL Philanthropic Society's farm school for convicts' children, Redhill is a town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead in which was first established in 1788 at St. George's Fields, Surrey, England. The town, which adjoins the town of London, relocated to Earlswood in what was the south of Reigate to the west, is due south of Croydon in Greater Redhill in 1855. Prince Albert laid the first stone in 1853; the London, and is part of the London commuter belt. The town hospital was for 40 years’ home to two of Queen Elizabeth is also the post town of and an entertainment and the Queen Mother's cousins Katherine Bowes-Lyon and commercial area of three adjoining communities: Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, both of whom had learning difficulties. Merstham, Earlswood and Whitebushes, as well as of two Another inmate James Henry Pullen (1835–1916) was an small rural villages to the east in the Tandridge District, autistic savant. He was a brilliant craftsman and artist Bletchingley and Nutfield. whose work was accepted by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Some of Pullen's ship models, designs and art work used to be on display at the town's Belfry Shopping Centre but have now been moved to the Langdon Down Museum in Teddington. The principal building has been converted to apartments and the renovated grounds provide green open space to balance the large common south-west of Earlswood railway station. THE HISTORY OF REDHILL Redhill is sited about 3 miles south of a minor pass at Merstham (elevation of around 120 m (390 ft) compared to a height of around 180 m (590 ft) on either side) in the North Downs, through which passes the London-Brighton road. Beneath this pass, two rival railway companies excavated the Merstham tunnels, which are still used by regular commuter trains and goods transport, with the two railway lines intersecting to the south of Redhill station. A major factor in the development of the town was the coming of the Richard Carrington, an amateur astronomer, moved to railways. Redhill railway station continues to be an Redhill in 1852, and built a house and observatory. Dome important junction. Way, where Redhill's only tower block stands, is named after it. The site suited an isolated observatory, being on a spur of A town formed here in part of the rural parishes of Reigate high ground surrounded by lower fields and marsh. Here in Foreign and Merstham when a turnpike road was built in 1859 he made astronomical observations that first 1818. The settlement was originally known as "Warwick corroborated the existence of solar flares as well as their Town" after Warwick Road, and became known as Redhill electrical influence upon the Earth and its aurorae. In 1863 East Surrey Candidate Brochure he published records of sunspot observations that first Settlements within the Borough demonstrated differential rotation in the Sun. In 1865 ill . Banstead, Burgh Heath and Nork health prompted him to sell his house and move to Churt, . Kingswood including Lower Kingswood Surrey. Chipstead and Woodmansterne Park . Hooley and Netherne-on-the-Hill St John the Evangelist, built in 1843, was the first of Redhill's . Redhill, Earlswood, Meadvale and Merstham three Anglican parish churches. The parish originally . Whitebushes/South Earlswood and Salfords stretched from Gatton in the north to Sidlow in the south. The construction, to the east of Redhill, of the M23 Horley motorway between 1972 and 1975 reduced north-south . Sidlow traffic through the town. Reigate, Gatton, South Park, Flanchford / Skimmington / Wonham Mill (hamlets) and Woodhatch . Walton-on-the-Hill and Mogador / Margery (hamlets) . Tadworth, The Tattenhams (Tattenham Grove, Heath & Corner) . Epsom Downs REIGATE AND BANSTEAD Reigate and Banstead is a local government district with borough status in East Surrey, England. It includes the towns of Reigate, Redhill, Horley and Banstead. History of Local Authority and Politics The district was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Elevations, Landscape and Wildlife Government Act 1972 as merger of the former borough of The northern third of the borough is on the North Downs or Reigate with Banstead Urban District and part of Dorking its upper slopes. Commanding viewpoints exist in several and Horley Rural District. There are two civil parishes locations in this area with the southern aspects of Colley Hill towards the south the borough: Salfords and Sidlow and and Reigate Hill noteworthy enough to have had a major Horley. The remainder of the area has two rather than three memorial and a picnic area with large café respectively. tiers of local government; the next tier up is Surrey County Historically much of this third was named Walton Heath and Council. Banstead Heath. For tourists, Box Hill on the southern ridge with its visitor centre and greater than 180-degree viewpoint After elections (held on a one third up-for-election basis in over the River Mole attracts higher numbers less than 3 three out of four years) on 3 May 2012, there are 37 miles (5 km) west along the Pilgrims' Way in Mole Valley. Conservatives councillors, 7 Reigate and Banstead Residents Association, three Green councillors, two Liberal The softer Greensand Ridge which is parallel to the south Democrats and two Independent councillors breaks up in the middle of the borough, forming the Redhill basin and various mounds around Reigate before continuing in both directions at higher elevations, see the Greensand Way. The Mole forms a section of the western East Surrey Candidate Brochure border of the borough down to Wonham Mill at the western extreme of Flanchford in the Reigate post town, itself at a millpond at the foot of the wooded Snag Brook a tributary which rises near the A25 Dorking Road. Most of the county is Metropolitan Green Belt. There are significant areas of forest and heath management, including five reserves within the national wildlife trust scheme: see Surrey Wildlife Trust. The North Downs Way was officially designated by then Minister of Housing and Local Government, Anthony Greenwood, on 14 July 1969, and opened in parts shortly afterwards, becoming fully open in 1978. At that time, it was 141 miles in length, 36 miles of which were newly created NORTH DOWNS WAY Public Rights of Way. The North Downs Way National Trail is a long-distance path in southern England, opened in 1978. It runs from Farnham East of Boughton Lees, the path splits in two, the northern to Dover, past Guildford, Dorking, Merstham, Otford and section running via Canterbury and the southern via Wye; at Rochester, along the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding this stage the path crosses the Stour Valley Walk and Natural Beauty (AONB) and Kent Downs AONB. passes the Wye Crown. The two sections of the path reunite at Dover. The northern route is 211 km long, and the Planning for a new Long Distance Path, as they were southern route 201 km, the current length of the North classified in 1949, began in Kent in 1950. After an extensive Downs Way being 246 km (153 miles). survey, it was agreed that a route on "a line which offers the best scenic qualities for the walker" along the ridge of the The pathway is mixed-category in that it varies throughout North Downs, rather than the Pilgrim's Way (which even in length from footpath (around 48%) status to bridleway, the 1960s was predominantly metalled road), was preferred.