George Gilbert Scott's Godstone

Both churches on this route were restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott, one of the leading architects of the Victorian era – he headed the largest architectural practice of the time, and was associated with work on almost 500 churches. Students of the great man need hardly come to Godstone, when they can see many of his most famous buildings in London and other great cities. But, as you’ll see, Godstone has one or two tricks up its sleeve. Sir George lived at Streete Court, a Grade II listed Georgian mansion, which now overlooks Godstone Golf Course and is less than a mile (1.6km) from the centre of the village.

Apart from his work on the local churches, he also designed one of Godstone’s most charming buildings. You’ll pass the mock-Tudor St Mary’s Homes beside St Nicholas’ Church. The almshouses were founded in 1872 by a young widow, Mrs Augusta Nona Hunt, for eight ‘aged or infirm persons of good character’. With their profusion of little gabled windows, Sir George’s designs seem almost to have grown out of the gardens between the Homes and Church Lane. A tiny chapel, with a fireplace in the west wall, completes the delightful group. Do look in and see it – it’s open to visitors daily.

Philistine or protector?

At about the time that he was building St Mary’s Homes, Sir George was also involved in restoring St Nicholas’ Church, and the Church of St Peter’s in Tandridge. By now, some of his most famous projects – the Albert Memorial, the Home Office, and St Pancras Station in London – were already behind him. He had worked on many of the great cathedrals, too, but some people thought that his unusually thorough restorations destroyed too much of the original medieval work. A letter that Scott wrote from Streete Court in 1871 suggests a different story. In it, he told fellow architect George Edmund Street how he was under pressure from an Oxfordshire rector to tear out the old pews from his church: ‘I value it no less for being humble,’ he wrote. ‘It is good old work and in its place, and I hold that it is wrong to renew it... I wish especially that it shall not be renewed against my will or after I am away.’

Take the public footpath beside the White Hart pub, signposted towards the church. Pass by Bay Pond and cross Church Lane and follow the path through the churchyard. Keep the church on your left, and continue along the winding path across two bridges as it passes Glebe Water. On reaching a field, turn right and soon turn through a gap in the hedge onto a gravel track. Turn left, passing a long low building, and then walk beside a large metal gate and continue ahead under the busy A22.

A few paces beyond the bridge, turn right at Hop Garden Cottage and follow the waymarked bridleway out onto Jackass Lane. Turn right here, opposite Little Court Farm, now converted into private houses. At the top of the hill, turn left for 100yds (91m) if you’d like to visit St Peter’s Church. Otherwise turn right, and follow Tandridge Lane to the public footpath on the right, just 30yds (27m) short of The Barley Mow pub.

Turn right and follow the broad, sandy track between open fields, and then a grassy track straight ahead to the kissing gate beside the A22. Cross the main road, and take the footpath, waymarked Greensand Way, directly opposite. A few paces further on, go through another kissing gate, signed GSW, to continue along the bridleway straight ahead, with a steep drop to a pond on your left. Jump the tiny ford (or use the footbridge) and walk up the lane past Leigh Place Pond as far as the B2236.

Leave the Greensand Way here and turn right. Follow the pavement until just beyond Church Lane, then turn left at the bus stop, up The Enterdent. After 100yds (91m), turn right onto the public footpath into the woods. The waymarked path climbs, steeply in places, to a kissing gate near the adventure playground on the edge of Godstone Farm. Follow the waymarked route through the farm grounds, to the stile on the north side of the car park, through a kissing gate, and follow as the path bends to meet the road.

Turn right onto Tilburstow Hill Road for 100yds (91m), then, just beyond the Godstone Farm delivery entrance, cross over and turn off left at the wooden footpath signpost. The path runs along the bottom of fields on the edge of Godstone village, then leads out into Ivy Mill Lane. Turn right for the short climb back to the village green, then right again into Ivy Mill Close, and follow the footpath back to the road and the start of your walk.