Composer Gustav Holst lived in Cranham for a while, and it was there, in the house now called 'Midwinter Cottage' (opposite the Black Horse Inn) that he wrote what is probably the best known tune for the Christmas carol In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti.

A Fairport Convention album, Gladys' Leap, is named after the leap of local postwoman Gladys Hillier, who would jump over a local stream to avoid a long journey.

In 1949 George Orwell stayed at a nearby sanatorium, in his search for a relief if not a cure for the tuberculosis from which he was suffering and which would kill him six months later after his admission to University College Hospital.

[7] In 2010, pop star Lily Allen bought Old Overton House, just outside Cranham, for a reported £3 million.

[8][9] Old Overton House is Grade II listed with the earliest part of the property dating back to the seventeenth century.