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Town in Surrey, England

Banstead is a town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead in Surrey, England. It is 3 mile (5 km) south of Sutton, 5 mile (8 km) south west of Croydon, 8 mile (13 km) south east of Kingston upon Thames, and 13 mile (21 km) south of Central London. On the North Downs, it is on three of the four main compass points separated from other settlements by open area buffers with Metropolitan Green Belt status. Banstead Downs, although a fragment of its larger historic area and spread between newer developments, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). One of the Banstead wards is "Banstead Village". The contiguous ward of Nork, which contains Banstead station, shares in many amenities of Banstead and is included in county level population analyses of Banstead but not the central government drawn Banstead Built up Area. The latter takes in Burgh Heath and held 15,469 residents as at the 2011 census.

The earliest recorded mention of Banstead was in an Anglo Saxon charter of AD 967, in the reign of King Edgar. The settlement appears in the Domesday Book (1086) as Benestede. The first element is probably the Anglo Saxon word bene, meaning bean, and the second element stede refers to an inhabited place without town status (as in farmstead). Banstead's non ecclesiastical land and 50 households were held by Richard as tenant in chief, under the Bishop of Bayeux. Its assets were: 9½ hides, 1 church, 1 mill worth £1, 17 ploughs, woodland worth 20 hogs. It rendered £8 per year. The Manor had two ploughs, and there were 28 villeins and 15 cottars (people with a small cottage but no land) with 15 ploughs. This was a farming area that later became well known for its high quality wool. The manor was owned by increasingly wealthy gentry, then by the church, before it fell into the hands of the Crown in the 13th century; Edward I visited more than once. Henry VIII made Banstead part of Catherine of Aragon's dowry, but took it away again and gave it to a court favourite, Sir Nicholas Carew. Carew was later beheaded for treason, but the manor, once covering most of the village but mostly sold piecemeal, stayed in his family until the 18th century. Banstead Downs, which for many centuries meant all the open land stretching from Epsom to Croydon and Reigate, became well known for horse racing in the 17th century. On 20 November 1683, King Charles II and the Duke of York attended a race meeting near the core of the village. The town also gained a reputation as a health resort during that era, famous for its "wholesome air", and London physicians recommended a visit to Banstead to their ailing patients.

There are two tiers of local government covering Banstead, at district and county level, being Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and Surrey County Council, both of which are based in Reigate. There are no civil parishes covering Banstead, which has been an unparished area since 1974.

Banstead was an ancient parish. The parish was included in the Epsom Poor Law Union from 1836, and therefore became part of the Epsom Rural Sanitary District in 1872. When elected parish and district councils were established in 1894, Banstead was given a parish council and the Epsom Rural Sanitary District became the Epsom Rural District. In 1933 the Epsom Rural District was abolished, and a new Banstead Urban District was created, covering the parishes of Banstead, Chipstead, Kingswood, Walton on the Hill, and Woodmansterne. The parish councils in the area were all abolished at the same time; as urban parishes the new urban district council was their lowest level of local government. Later in 1933 the urban district council bought a large Victorian house called The Lodge at the corner of Brighton Road and Chipstead Road and converted it to become their headquarters, renaming it the Council House. Banstead Urban District was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, becoming part of the new borough of Reigate and Banstead. The civil parishes within the former urban district, including Banstead, were abolished at the same time, although they had had no practical functions since 1933. The former Banstead Urban District Council's headquarters at the Council House served as additional offices for the new Reigate and Banstead Council for some years, before being mostly demolished in 2002 and rebuilt as flats called Holmewood House. The frontage of the original building was incorporated into the new building, with the old part now being a locally listed building.

Banstead has several churches. All Saints' Church and Christ Church Banstead are on the high street. Within the area there is also Banstead Community Church, St Anne's Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, St Paul's Church, the United Reformed Church and Crown Family Church that meets at the Banstead Community Centre.

There are several schools in and around Banstead. Further education is not available in the town, most students go to institutions in Sutton, Epsom or Reigate.

The Beacon School, previously Nork Park Secondary School, is the predominant secondary comprehensive school in the area. Nork Park, a public park, borders the back of the school. It is one of the 23 schools that supply ball boys to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. It has over 1000 students. The neighbouring London Borough of Sutton has five grammar schools, which accept pupils from outside the borough.

The majority of the town is bypassed by the A217 dual carriageway to the west. The A2022 passes through the residential area just to the north of the town centre, however the town centre frequently suffers from traffic congestion. There are several bus services through the village, linking to Epsom, Sutton and Croydon, which all have good onward bus and rail connections. Banstead railway station is to the west of the town's centre, across the A217. It is within Nork ward rather than Banstead ward.

With its close proximity to London, television signals are received from the Crystal Palace TV transmitter, placing Sevenoaks in the BBC London and ITV London areas. The town is served by both BBC Radio Surrey and BBC Radio London. Other radio stations including Heart South, Capital Xtra, Greatest Hits Radio London, Greatest Hits Radio Surrey & East Hampshire, and SUSY Radio, a community based station which broadcast from Redhill. The Surrey Mirror is the local newspaper that covers the town.

Much of the land is at about 125 m above sea level and as this descends to about 100 m it is bisected by a railway line in a relatively deep cutting. Underneath a variable depth humus topsoil, most of the village is on various flints or chalk.

On the site of Downview and Highdown Prisons by the end of the 19th century stood one of the London County Lunatic Asylums, Banstead Asylum, a psychiatric hospital from 1873 to 1986. After being sent by panel to treatment there in the late 1960s, singer songwriter Vincent Crane wrote the song "Banstead," which featured on the 1970 album sharing his band's name Atomic Roooster. In the 1890s the asylum had two small lodges, small hospital, cemetery and coal gas works.

Banstead Athletic F. C play home games in Tadworth, near the town. Banstead Woods Parkrun runs on Saturday mornings, since 2007, exceptions permitting. Banstead Cricket Club have played at Avenue Road since its formation in 1842 making it one of the ten oldest in the county. The Lady Neville Recreation Ground is on Avenue Road. It is named after the wife of Sir Ralph Neville a local High Court judge who bought the land in 1895 when for sale as building plots. The couple's daughter, Edith gifted the land to the civil parish as such in 1925.

Banstead appears as a destination in the 1895 novel The Time Machine by H. G. Wells and also gains a brief mention in another of his novels, The War of the Worlds.