Fangate, the earliest spelling of which was Fengate, means ‘the road through the marshy ground’. Bearing in mind the Horsleys lie on the spring line below the chalk of the North Downs, this area was always rather muddy.

There had been a fairly important house in this area since about 1036, when the Thane of Horsley gave a third of his land to the Archbishop of Canterbury, thus forming the separate village of East Horsley. It belonged to the Archbishop until the Reformation in 1536. This house was referred to in old documents as “at le Fengate”, but in actual fact, it may have been the East Horsley Manor House, belonging to the Archbishop, and had its own farm attached to it. It was rented out to wellto-do farmers. When Lovelace bought the estate he rebuilt thisfarm as a “model farm” around a courtyard, which was the fashion of the time, but in the 1950s it was burnt down. St. Martin’s Court has been built on the site.

The present house called Fangate Manor Farm was originally three cottages for farm workers, called Fangate Cottages, but they have now been made into one house. These appear to be in several builds: the dates 1863, 1869 and 1870 all appear. They are mainly in the Ockham style with some flintwork as decoration.

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