Coordinates: 51°07′02″N 0°44′05″W / 51.1172°N 0.7348°W
| Hindhead | |
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  Hindhead shown within Surrey |
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| Population | 4,685[1] |
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| OS grid reference | |
| District | Waverley |
| Shire county | Surrey |
| Region | South East |
| Constituent country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Hindhead |
| Postcode district | GU26 |
| Dialling code | 01428 |
| Police | Surrey |
| Fire | Surrey |
| Ambulance | South East Coast |
| European Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | South West Surrey |
| List of places: UK • England • Surrey | |
Hindhead is a village on the A3 in Surrey, about 10 miles south-west of Guildford. Neighbouring settlements include Haslemere, Grayshott and Beacon Hill. Liphook is the next major town southwards on the A3.
The village has been blighted for years by traffic queues, and is now the only place on the A3 route which is not dual carriageway. Detailed design of the Hindhead Tunnel to bypass the village has been completed; construction work began on 8 January 2007. This £371 million project will remove the A3 from both Hindhead and the nearby Devil's Punch Bowl. The scheme consists of a 6.5 km dual two-lane highway and includes a 1.8 km twin-bore tunnel, which will be the longest non-estuarial tunnel in the UK. The target completion date for the project is 2011.[2]
Near Hindhead is the Devil's Punch Bowl, a site of special scientific interest. This area was notorious in times past for highwaymen and lawlessness and was only "tamed" in the 19th Century when the London to Portsmouth railway line removed much of the freight being transported by road. Gibbet Hill above the Devil's Punch Bowl is where murderers and robbers were hung in chains to warn others.
George Bernard Shaw, playwright, lived at "Blen Cathra" in Hindhead, now the site of St. Edmund's School (Hindhead), whilst Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived at "Undershaw" from 1897 to 1907. It was here that he wrote his most famous novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Undershaw later became a hotel and restaurant on the A3. It is now closed and, after a proposal to turn it into flats was denied, the Hindhead council had to step in and do some repairs. Another author to live at Hindhead was Grant Allen (1848-99), who lived at "Hilltop." Arthur Conan Doyle was one of Allen's neighbours and became his friend. It was Doyle who completed Allen's novel Hilda Wade when Allen died.
References
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hindhead |
- Highways Agency A3 Hindhead improvement
- Hilltop Writers, a Victorian Colony among the Surrey Hills — documenting 66 authors who lived in and around Hindhead at the end of the Victorian era
- Hindhead Together A Joint Advisory Committee for the Redevelopment of Hindhead
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