On the smallest stretch of Surrey’s rolling North Downs, between Goldamning and Guildford, sits the ancient and historic village of Compton. Compton is most well known for being the epicentre of Surrey’s arts and crafts movement; and has a deep connection to artistic practice, especially pottery. The pastoral location and artistic history means that a lot of the essence of Compton’s character has been maintained through listed buildings, conservation areas, and the underdeveloped land is protected by the Metropolitan Green Belt. However, Compton has a wide variety of housing stock, from grand country manors selling in the excess of £5 million, to detached cottage houses, and socially rented flats!

Compton was originally recorded in the Domesday Book survey in 1086 as ‘Conton(e)’, the ‘tun’ or ‘ton’ linguistically referring to a farmstead. This suggests that the area of Compton had been occupied by settlers far pre-dating the survey. St Nicholas’ Church indicates how old Compton really is; as parts of the church, namely the tower and the chancel, are thought to be Saxon and dated from pre-1066! Most of the church visible today is from the 12th century, and contemporarily it is a Grade 1 listed building.

However, most people know Compton for two names: George Frederic Watts and Mary Fraser Tytler. Married in 1886 when Watts was 68 and Tytler 36, Watts was a prolific portrait artist known for being a proponent of the Symbolist movement, and Tytler was a sculptor and potter, as well as a prominent suffrage activist. In 1891, the Watts’ bought land in Compton; building their own house ‘Limnerslease’ and constructing the Watts Gallery - Artist’s Village, which opened in 1904. Tytler’s own design would go on to become a focal part of the village history; the Watts Mortuary Chapel. Designed and constructed in a British Nouveau style, incorporating elements of Celtic revivalism and symbolism, the chapel is an iconic reminder of British artistic history, and is upheld as a Grade I listed building today.

As Compton sits on a conservation area, and the underdeveloped land is protected under the Metropolitan Green Belt, development in the Compton area is slow. However dissimilar to similar locales in the Surrey region, Compton has a varied housing stock. In fact, Compton’s rental market is unusual in the area, and has a higher average of socially rented rather than privately rented properties in not only the whole of Surrey, but the whole of the UK!