Merstham

The area has been settled since pre-Roman times. The village lay within the Reigate hundred, an Anglo-Saxon administrative division. Its name was recorded in 947 as Mearsætham, which seems to be Anglo-Saxon Mearþ-sǣt-hām = "Homestead near a trap set for martens or weasels". The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 851 states that a Viking army 'went south over the Thames into Surrey; and King Aethelwulf and his son Aethelbald with the West Saxon army fought against them at Aclea, and there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding-army that we have heard tell of up to the present day, and there took the victory.' According to Stenton, the name Aclea nearly always appears in modern times as…

After World War II the London County Council built the Merstham Estate, originally entirely public housing, to a geometric layout in the eastern fields. This area has its own parade of shops, the Brook recreation ground, three schools, and a youth/community centre along Radstock Way. Oakley, a small country house, is listed and has Victorian gothic architecture features.