The district of Mole Valley has more than 70 current and former places of worship: 56 buildings are in use by various Christian denominations and other religions, and a further 16 are no longer in religious use but survive in other uses or—in two cases—as ruins. Mole Valley is one of 11 local government districts in the English county of Surrey—a small inland county south of London which is characterised by small market towns, ancient villages and 20th-century suburbs.
The latest census results show that the majority of residents are Christian. Dorking, one of the district's two main towns, has a Muslim community centre and mosque, but all other places of worship serve Christian denominations. The Church of England—the country's Established Church—is represented by the largest number of churches. The Roman Catholic Church and the larger Protestant Nonconformist groups such as Methodists, Baptists and the United Reformed Church each have several buildings and congregations of their own. Quakers, Christian Scientists, Plymouth Brethren and other smaller groups also have their own chapels and meeting rooms, mostly in Dorking and the other main town of Leatherhead.
English Heritage has awarded listed status to 29 current and three former places of worship in the district. A building is defined as "listed" when it is placed on a statutory register of buildings of "special architectural or historic interest" in accordance with the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, a Government department, is responsible for this; English Heritage, a non-departmental public body, acts as an agency of the department to administer the process and advise the department on relevant issues. There are three grades of listing status. Grade I, the highest, is defined as being of "exceptional interest"; Grade II* is used for "particularly important buildings of more than special interest"; and Grade II, the lowest, is used for buildings of "special interest". As of February 2001, there were 5 Grade I-listed buildings, 44 with Grade II* status and 919 Grade II-listed buildings in Mole Valley.
Overview of the district
Mole Valley covers a area in the centre of Surrey and had a population of 85,375 at the time of the United Kingdom Census 2011. It is one of 11 local government areas in the county, which lies immediately south of London in southeast England. The main centres of population are Dorking, centrally located within the district, and Leatherhead to the north, which is part of a continuous urban area incorporating Ashtead, Fetcham and Great Bookham. The M25 motorway runs through them, several railway lines provide connections in all directions, and Gatwick Airport is just beyond the southeastern boundary of the district. Nevertheless, it is mostly rural—more than 90% of the land is countryside, much of which is covered by the Surrey Hills AONB—and there are dozens of small villages. Most have at least one place of worship—usually an Anglican parish church, and in some cases other chapels or meeting houses serving the Protestant Nonconformist denominations which grew in importance from the 18th century. The main towns have a wider range of places of worship: Plymouth Brethren, Christian Scientists, the Elim Pentecostal Church and Jehovah's Witnesses are all represented, for example. Roman Catholics are served by large churches in Dorking and Leatherhead and smaller modern buildings in Ashtead and Fetcham. The Methodist church in Leatherhead recorded in the Methodist Statistical Returns published in 1947 survives, but the chapel at Capel is no longer in use and Dorking's Methodist chapel has been demolished; the congregation now share St Martin's Anglican church.
The oldest churches in the district have Saxon origins (i.e. 10th- or 11th-century); examples include Betchworth, Fetcham and Wotton, each of which retain fragmentary evidence of this era. (Even older material in the form of reused Roman rubble is visible at St Giles, Ashtead and at Fetcham.) Norman churches extended or altered in the 13th century are common and across the county; in Mole Valley, Charlwood is a good example. Work from later centuries generally consisted of extensions and rebuilds, although one new church was provided at Leigh in the 15th century. Victorian restoration affected many churches, sometimes to the extent of completely rebuilding them (as at Buckland and Capel, both by Henry Woodyer).