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Town in Surrey, England

Reigate ('/r//aɪ//ɡ//eɪ//t/ RYgate) is a town in Surrey, England, around 18.94 mile (30 km) south of central London. The settlement is recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as Cherchefelle and first appears with its modern name in the 1190s. The earliest archaeological evidence for human activity is from the Paleolithic and Neolithic, and during the Roman period, tile making took place to the north east of the modern centre. A motte and bailey castle was erected in Reigate in the late 11th or early 12th century. It was originally constructed of timber, but the curtain walls were rebuilt in stone about a century later. An Augustinian priory was founded to the south of the modern town centre in the first half of the 13th century. The priory was closed during the Reformation and was rebuilt as a private residence for William Howard, the 1st Baron Howard of Effingham. The castle was abandoned around the same time and fell into disrepair. During the medieval and early modern periods, Reigate was primarily an agricultural settlement. A weekly market began no later than 1279 and continued until 1895. Key crops included oats, hops and flax, but there is no record of rye being grown in the local area. The economy initially declined in the 18th century, as new turnpike roads allowed cheaper goods made outside the town to become available, undercutting local producers. Following the arrival of the railways in the mid 19th century, Reigate began to expand and the sale of much of the priory estate in 1921 released further land for housebuilding. Reigate is part of the London commuter belt, and since 1974 it has been one of four towns in the borough of Reigate and Banstead. The borough council is based at the town hall in Castlefield Road, and Surrey County Council has its headquarters at Woodhatch Place. Much of the North Downs, to the north of Reigate, is owned by the National Trust, including Colley Hill, 722 feet (220 m) above ordnance datum (OD) and Reigate Hill 771 feet (235 m) above OD.

In the Domesday Book of 1086, Reigate appears as Cherchefelle and in the 12th century, it is recorded as Crichefeld and Crechesfeld. The name is thought to mean "open space by the hill or barrow". The name "Reigate" first appears in written sources in the 1190s. Similar forms are also recorded in the late medieval period, including Reigata in 1170, Regate in 1203, Raygate in 1235, Rigate in 1344 and Reighgate in 1604. The name is thought to derive from the Old English rǣge meaning "roe deer" and the Middle English gate, which might indicate an enclosure gate or pass through which deer were hunted. It has also been suggested that the "rei" element may have evolved from the Middle English ray, meaning a marshland or referring to a stream; this theory is considered unlikely as the Old English form of this word is ree rather than rey.|group=note

Woodhatch may derive from the Old English word hæc meaning "gate", and the name may mean "gate to the wood". It is possible, in this instance, that the "wood" referred to is the Weald. In 1623, a survey of the manor of Reigate noted a "Bowling Alley lying before the gate of the Tenement called Woodhatch". Alternatively, the name may derive from that of a local resident: A "Thomas ate Chert" is recorded as living at the settlement in the early 14th century and "Woodhatch" might instead mean "woodland of the ate Chert family". The town is in the Vale of Holmesdale, below the North Downs escarpment. The average elevation in the centre is above ordnance datum (OD) and the area is drained by the Wallace Brook and its tributaries, which feed the River Mole.

Woodhatch lies on the Weald Clay, a sedimentary rock primarily consisting of mudstone that was deposited in the early Cretaceous. Much of Reigate is on the strata of the Lower Greensand Group. This group is multi layered and includes the sandy Hythe Beds overlain by the clayey Sandgate Beds, which together form the high ground of Priory Park. Reigate Heath and the town centre are on quartz rich Folkestone Beds and the water filled part of the castle moat is dug into narrow band of clay present in the sandstone. To the north of the railway line is the Gault Formation, a stiff, blue black, shaly clay, deposited in a deep water marine environment. At the base of the North Downs is a thin outcrop of Upper Greensand, above which lies the Chalk Group. Weald clay was dug for brickmaking at Brown's Brickyard in Woodhatch. Building sand was excavated from Barnards Pit, to the west of the town, and at Wray Common Road to the east. Seams of silver sand which occur in the Folkestone Beds were quarried for glass making and the caves beneath the castle may originally have been excavated for this purpose, before being used as cellars. There is also evidence of ironstone extraction in the town, although this practice is thought to have ceased by 1650. Reigate Stone was mined from the Upper Greensand from medieval times until the mid 20th century and was used in the construction of several local buildings, including the castle, Reigate Priory and St Mary's Church. To the north of the town are the remains of several old chalk pits and lime is thought to have been produced at a site at the base of Colley Hill, although the age of the workings is uncertain.

The earliest evidence of human activity in the Reigate area is a triangular stone axe from the Paleolithic, which was found in Woodhatch in 1936. Worked flints from the later Neolithic have been found on Colley Hill. Finds from the Bronze Age include a gold penannular ring, dated to c. 1150 – c. 750 BCE, and a barbed spearhead from Priory Park. The eight barrows on Reigate Heath are thought to date from the same period, when the surrounding area may have been marshland. During the Roman period, the Doods Road area was a centre for tile making. An excavation in 2014 uncovered the remains of a 2nd or 3rd century kiln with several types of tile, identified as tegulae, imbrices and pedales.|group=note Artefacts discovered to the south west of the town centre in 2011 suggest that there was a high status villa nearby. Coins from the reigns of Vespasian (69 79), Hadrian (117–138), Severus Alexander (222–235) and Arcadius (383 408), indicate that there was Roman activity in the local area throughout the occupation of Britain. The former name Cherchefelle suggests that the most recent period of permanent settlement in Reigate began in Anglo Saxon times. Excavations in Church Street in the late 1970s uncovered a Saxon glass jar and remains of a skeleton of uncertain age, but archaeological evidence from this period elsewhere in the town is sparse.|group=note woodland and herbage for 140 swine, pasture for 43 pigs and of meadow. The manor rendered £40 per year in 1086 and the residents included 67 villagers and 11 smallholders. The Domesday Book also records that the town was part of the larger Hundred of Cherchefelle. In 1868, Reigate borough was disenfranchised for corruption, but representation in the House of Commons was restored to the town in the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 23). The manor of Cherchefelle was granted to William de Warenne when he became Earl of Surrey c. 1090 and under his patronage, Reigate began to thrive. The castle was constructed shortly afterwards and the modern town was established to the south in the late 12th century. An Augustinian priory, founded by the fifth Earl of Surrey, is recorded in 1240. The dukedom was restored to the family in 1660, following the accession of Charles II. Reforms during the Tudor period reduced the importance of manorial courts and the day to day administration of towns such as Reigate became the responsibility of the vestry of the parish church. By the early 17th century, the ecclesiastical parish had been divided for administrative purposes into two parts: the "Borough of Reigate", which broadly corresponded to the modern town centre, and "Reigate Foreign", which included the five petty boroughs of Santon, Colley, Woodhatch, Linkfield and Hooley. refn|The division of Reigate parish into two distinct administrative areas is unusual among Surrey towns. The Borough was extended in 1933 to include Horley, Merstham, Buckland and Nutfield. The Local Government Act 1972 created Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, by combining the Reigate Borough with Banstead Urban District and the eastern part of the Dorking and Horley Rural District. Since its inception in 1974, the council has been based in the Town Hall in Castlefield Road, Reigate.

Reigate Castle was built in the late 11th or early 12th century, most likely by William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey. Taking the form of a motte and bailey castle, it was originally constructed of timber, but the curtain walls were rebuilt in stone around a century later. A water filled moat section was dug into the clay on the north side and a dry ditch was excavated around the remainder of the structure. The large size of the motte indicates that the castle was designed both as a fortification and as the lord's residence from the outset. Following the dissolution of the monasteries, the lords of the manor moved their primary residence to Reigate Priory, to the south of the town. The castle was allowed to decay, with only small outlays recorded in the manor accounts for repairs, until 1686, when the buildings were reported as ruinous. Much of the masonry was most likely removed for local construction projects, but in around 1777, Richard Barnes, who rented the grounds, built a new gatehouse folly using the remaining stone. A century later, the Borough Council was granted a long lease on the property, which had been turned into a public garden. Regular tours of the caves beneath the castle are run by the Wealden Cave and Mine Society.

William de Warenne, the fifth Earl of Surrey, is thought to have founded the Augustinian priory at Reigate before 1240. Early documents refer to the priory as a hospital, but in 1334 it is described as a convent and thereafter as a purely religious institution. The priory was built to the south of the modern town centre and a series of fish ponds was constructed in the grounds. Although the exact layout is uncertain, the buildings are thought to have been arranged around a central square cloister, with the church on the north side and the refectory on the south. In 1541, Henry VIII granted the former priory to William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham, the uncle of Catherine Howard. The old church was converted to a private residence and the majority of the rest of the buildings were demolished. Richard Ireland, who purchased the priory in 1766, is primarily responsible for the appearance of the buildings today. A fire destroyed much of the west wing and Ireland commissioned its rebuilding. Following Ireland's death in 1780, the priory passed through a succession of owners, including Lady Henry Somerset, who remodelled the grounds between 1883 and 1895, creating a sunken garden. Following her death in 1921, the estate was divided for sale and much of the land was purchased for housebuilding. The final private owner of the house was the racehorse trainer, Peter Beatty, who sold it to the Mutual Property Life and General Insurance Company, which relocated from London for the second half of the Second World War. In 1948, the borough council bought the grounds, having secured them as Public Open Space three years earlier. Also in 1948, the Reigate Priory County Secondary School opened in the main priory building, with 140 children aged 13 and 14. In 1963 the boys moved to Woodhatch School and the Priory School continued as an all girls secondary school. In 1971, the secondary school closed and Holmesdale Middle School, which had been founded in 1852, moved to the priory.

In medieval times, the main road north from Reigate followed Nutley Lane, climbing Colley Hill in the direction of Kingston upon Thames, from where produce and manufactured items could be transported via the River Thames. Although the direct route to London via Merstham had a less severe gradient, it appears to have been little used for the transport of goods. and improvements were often only funded by private donations. In 1793, over half of the traffic on the Reigate Hill turnpike was bound for the south coast and numbers swelled as a result of troop movements during the Napoleonic Wars. A new residential area was established at Wray Park, to the north of Reigate town centre, in the 1850s and 1860s. St Mark's Church was built to serve the new community. Doods Road was constructed in around 1864 and Somers Road, to the west of the station, followed shortly afterwards. In 1863, the National Freehold Land Society began to develop the Glovers Field estate, to the south east of the town centre, and also led efforts to build houses at South Park, to the west of Woodhatch. At the end of the 19th century, the estates of several large houses were broken up, releasing further land for development. The first sewerage system in Reigate was installed in 1876 and included a main outfall sewer running under Bell Street via Woodhatch to the treatment works at Earlswood Common. Reigate Gas Company was formed in 1838 and opened a gasworks on London Road a year later. Initially it was contracted to supply gas for 28 street lights in the town centre, but by 1860, increasing domestic demand necessitated the opening of a larger facility at the north end of Nutley Lane. In 1921, the Reigate company was taken over by the Redhill Gas Company, which had been formed in 1865. On opening it had an installed capacity of 230 kW, but by the time of its closure in 1936, the maximum power output had risen to 2.7 MW. In 1809, two fire engines were presented to the vestry, which was charged with appointing a group of six men to operate it when needed. The brigade was expanded to 12 members in 1854. A new fire station, with a four storey tower and a pagoda style roof, opened next to the new town hall in Castlefield Road in 1901. The brigade moved to Croydon Road in 1955. In 2021, the fire authority for Reigate is Surrey County Council and the statutory fire service is Surrey Fire and Rescue Service. The Ambulance Community Response Post, located at the fire station, is run by the South East Coast Ambulance Service.

The nearest accident & emergency department is at East Surrey Hospital As of 2023, the GP practice is in Yorke Road.

At one time the airline Air Europe had its head office in Europe House in Reigate. Redland plc, the FTSE 100 building materials company, was headquartered in Reigate before its acquisition by Lafarge, and its former headquarters are now occupied by the insurance company esure. Canon UK had its headquarters on the southern outskirts of Reigate. The building, opened by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in 2000, has won numerous design and 'green' awards. The European headquarters of Kimberly Clark are on London Road in the town, just south of Reigate railway station. Further along London Road towards the town centre can be found the former European headquarters of Willis Towers Watson, prior to the merger with Willis, when the global and British headquarters relocated to Lime Street in London. Pilgrim Brewery was founded in 1982 and moved to West Street in 1984. It was the first new brewery to be established in Surrey for over a century.

Reigate railway station is a short distance to the north of the town centre and is managed by Southern. The operator runs services to via Redhill and Trains to via and to via Redhill are run by Great Western Railway. Reigate is linked by bus to Redhill and the surrounding towns and villages in east Surrey. Operators serving the town include Compass Bus, London General, Metrobus and Southdown. Routes 420 and 460 link the town to the East Surrey Hospital and the latter also runs to Gatwick Airport.

The Surrey Cycleway passes through Woodhatch. The Greensand Way, a long distance footpath from Haslemere, Surrey to Hamstreet, Kent, passes through Reigate Park to the south of the town centre. The North Downs Way, between Farnham and Dover, runs from west to east across Colley Hill and Reigate Hill.

There are several primary schools in Reigate. Dovers Green School and Wray Common Primary School are members of the Greensand Multi Academy Trust. Sandcross Primary School is part of the Everychild Trust. Reigate Parish Church Primary School was founded as the Reigate National School. Originally in West Street, it moved to London Road in 1854 and then to Blackborough Road in 1995. Reigate Priory Junior School traces its origins to a non denominational school, founded in 1852 in the High Street. It moved to Holmesdale Road in the 1860s and in 1993 moved to the priory, taking over the classrooms previously used by Reigate Priory Middle School. Reigate School is a coeducational secondary school in Woodhatch. It educates children aged 11 to 16. It is part of the Greensand Multi Academy Trust. It opened as the Woodhatch County Secondary School in September 1958. The Royal Alexandra and Albert School traces its origins to an orphanage for children of Dissenters, founded in Hoxton, London in 1759. The orphanage expanded rapidly and by 1769 had 28 boys and 25 girls between the ages of 6 and 9 in its care. It relocated several times during the following two centuries and, in 1943 it was renamed the Royal Alexandra School and was based on a site at Duxhurst, near Salfords. A separate institution, the Royal Albert Orphan Asylum was founded near Bagshot in 1864 and admitted its first 100 children in December of that year. It was renamed the Royal Albert School in 1942. The management of the Royal Alexandra and the Royal Albert Schools was merged in 1948 and the new organisation purchased the Gatton Park estate. The following year, an Act of Parliament was passed to formally amalgamate the two institutions. Boarding accommodation was constructed at Gatton Park in 1950 and pupils were relocated from the Bagshot and Duxhurst sites in stages between 1948 and 1954. educating 1125 children between the ages of 7 and 18. Reigate College is a coeducational sixth form college for students aged 16 to 19. It opened in 1976 on Castlefield Road, to the east of the town centre. The main building, constructed in 1927, was previously occupied by the Reigate County School for Girls and was designed by the architecture firm Jarvis and Porter.

Micklefield School was founded in 1910 and takes its name from its original location, Micklefield House in Evesham Road. It moved to its current site in Somers Road, to the north of the town centre, in 1925. In 2021, Micklefield is a coeducational, independent day school for children aged 2 to 11. Reigate St Mary's School was founded in 1950 as the choir school for St Mary's Church. Initially for boys only, it became coeducational in 2003, when it was made the principal feeder school for Reigate Grammar School. In 2021, Reigate St Mary's is a coeducational day school for children aged 2 to 11. Reigate Grammar School traces its origins to 1675, when Henry Smith, an Alderman of the City of London, left a bequest of £150 for the purchase of land for a "free school". The first master, Revd John Williamson, was the vicar of Reigate and for the first two centuries, several headmasters were also parish priests. The school became a grammar school in 1861 and around this time many of the original buildings were replaced. The school was taken over by Surrey County Council under the Education Act 1944, but became independent in 1976. In the same year, girls were admitted to the sixth form and the school became fully coeducational in 1993. It merged with Reigate St Mary's Prep School and Chinthurst School in 2003 and 2017 and, as of 2021, the three school together educate around 1,500 pupils aged from 3 to 18. An international division was created in 2017, to work in partnership with the Kaiyuan Education Fund, to establish up to five schools in China. Dunottar School was founded in 1926 and is named after Dunottar Castle in Aberdeenshire, where the Scottish Crown Jewels were kept between 1651 and 1660. In 1933, the school moved to its current site, the former High Trees house, which had been built in 1867. In 2021, Dunottar is a co educational independent day school for children aged 11 to 18. It became part of United Learning in 2014. There are two schools in the town for students with special educational needs: Brooklands School on Wray Park Road and Moon Hall College at Flanchford Bridge near Leigh.

The first record of a church at Reigate is from the late 12th century, when the church of Crechesfeld was presented to the Priory of St Mary Overie by Hamelin and Isabel de Warenne, the Earl and Countess of Surrey. At the time of the gift, the church is thought to have consisted of a nave, chancel and possibly a central tower. The oldest parts of today's Church of St Mary Magdalene, Reigate date from c. 1200. The building was extended several times in the late medieval period, including the additions of the north and south aisles in the mid late 13th century, The weatherboarded upper section of the post mill holds the sails and sits above the brick roundhouse below. The roundhouse was converted into a chapel of ease to the Church of St Mary Magdalen in 1880 and services are held in the building during the summer months. It is thought to be the only windmill to be used as a church in England.

St Mark's Church, in Alma Road, was opened in 1860 to serve a new area of housing, under construction to the north of the railway station. It was designed by the architects firm, Field & Hilton, and is built in Reigate Stone. The tower and spire were added in 1863, but the spire was demolished in 1919. The church was heavily damaged during the Second World War, necessitating the demolition of the south transept. Most of the windows were destroyed by bomb blasts and a new East Window, designed by Francis Spear, was installed in 1955. The pulpit dates from 1898 and the reredos was installed in 1919. Following the First World War, the east end of the church was reordered to raise the floor level and the chancel was enlarged into the nave in 1957.

St Luke's Church, to the south of the town, was opened in 1871. It is constructed from Reigate Stone and is built in the Gothic style. The west end was damaged during a storm in the 1960s and the affected wall was replaced by a clear glazed window. The church was extended to the west, with the addition of an annex, which provides accommodation for the Winter Night Shelter.

Although John Wesley visited Reigate four times between 1770 and 1775, the first Methodist chapel was not established in the town until 1858. The current church, in the High Street, was built in 1884.

The Catholic Church of the Holy Family was built in Yorke Road, on land donated by a local benefactor. It was consecrated in 1939. A mass centre was established in a wooden building in Woodhatch, but was closed in 2003 after almost 50 years of use.

Reigate Priory Museum holds an early 16th century portrait of John Lymden, the final Prior of Reigate. The Town Hall holds several artworks, including paintings by Henry Tanworth Wells (18281903), George Leon Little (18621941) and George Hooper (19101994). Landscapes depicting scenes of the Reigate area by the artists Alfred Walter Williams (18231905), James Thomas Linnell (18261905) and Albert Ernest Bottomley (18731950) are held by Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, the Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust, Brighton, and Derby Museum and Art Gallery respectively. Among the works of public art in the town is a statue of the ballet dancer, Margot Fonteyn, by the artist Nathan David, which was installed at the south end of London Road in 1980. refn|The statue marks the site of the house, where Fonteyn was born in 1919.

Reigate Priory F. C. was founded in 1870, just seven years after The Football Association was created. It has played its home games at its ground in Park Lane for the entirety of its history. South Park F. C. was founded in 1897 and has been a member of the Redhill & District Football League since its inception. The club initially played its home games in upper South Park, between Crescent Road and Church Road. In the late 1920s, it moved to its current premises in Whitehall Lane.

Reigate Priory Cricket Club was founded in 1852, but it is believed that the sport has been played in the town since the 1770s. refn|Thomas White, the batsman responsible for the so called "wide bat controversy" at a 1771 match between Chertsey and the Hambledon Club, is thought to have lived in Reigate for much of his life.

Reigate Heath Golf Club was founded in 1895. Permission to create a 9 hole course on the heath was granted on the condition that male and female club members had equal rights. The course was formally opened on 20 February 1897; the clubhouse was completed shortly afterwards, but was extensively remodelled in 1969. The 18 hole Reigate Hill Golf Club course was laid out as a par 72 course by the designer, David Williams. The club, at Gatton Bottom, was officially opened in November 1995 by professional golfers David Gilford and Andrew Murray.

Old Reigatian R. F. C. was founded in 1927. Initially the club played its home games at St Alban's Road, but after one year it relocated to Home Farm, Merstham. It moved to its current ground on Park Lane in 1946 and the current clubhouse opened in 2012. As of 2022, the 1st XV plays in the London Two South West League.

The Cranston Library was opened in 1701 and is the oldest public lending library in England. It was intended primarily for the use of the clergy of the Archdeaconry of Ewell, but its remit was expanded in 1708, to maintain a collection of books "for the use and perusal of the Freeholders, Vicar and Inhabitants" of Reigate Parish "and of the Gentlemen and Clergymen inhabiting parts thereunto adjacent." The library is named after its founder, Andrew Cranston who was the Vicar of Reigate from 1697 to 1708. It is housed on the first floor of the vestry of the Church of St Mary Magdalene. The collection includes over 2000 books, most of which date from the 17th and 18th centuries. On opening, it also housed the police station and courts, but the police moved to new premises in Reigate Road in 1943 and the courts service vacated the building in the early 1970s. The town hall has been the headquarters of Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, since its inception on 1 April 1974. It was built on the site of a chapel, dedicated to St Thomas Becket that was existence before 1330. Following the Reformation, the chapel became a market house. It was demolished in around 1785 and was replaced by the current red brick structure. The building served as the headquarters of Reigate Municipal Borough Council from its formation in 1863 until the borough council moved to the new town hall in Castlefield Road in 1901. Randal Vogan purchased the old town hall in 1922 and presented it to the Borough Council. refn|Randal Vogan's generosity to Reigate is commemorated in two local street names: Randal Crescent and Vogan Close. They were primarily designed as infantry redoubts, to be used in the event of an invasion by the French. The Reigate Fort was completed in 1898 and is one of the largest in the 72 mile (116 km) defensive line. It was defended by an earth rampart and had a clear view south over Reigate. Among the surviving buildings is a magazine, which would have been used for storing ammunition. Reigate Fort was declared redundant in 1907 and the land was sold. During the First World War, it was used as an ammunition store and is thought to have been used as a communications station for the British Army South East Command in the Second World War. The fort was restored in the early 2000s and is open to the public.

Reigate Hill Footbridge carries the North Downs Way over the A217 to the north of the town. It was completed in 1910 and has a span of 97 feet (30 m). It was built using the Hennebique method of construction and is one of the earliest reinforced concrete bridges in England. It replaced an earlier chain suspension bridge, which was built in 1825.

Wray Common Windmill was built in 1824 and is to the northeast of the town centre. It is a tower mill constructed of tarred bricks with a metal cap. The mill was used to grind corn until 1895, when it became an agricultural store. It was converted into a four storey private residence in the 1960s. The building underwent a programme of restoration between 2004 and 2007, which included the installation of new, non functioning sails.