The village was a tything (an ancient administrative division represented by an assembly of households within an area comprising ten hides).

The historian David Taylor shows that the old Downe Place probably stood near Downside Farm, and not on the site of the Cobham Park mansion.

[6] A rural community, Downside (and the adjacent hamlet of Hatchford) is situated in open countryside between Cobham to the north and East Horsley to the south, Stoke D'Abernon to the east and two similar size settlements across the Surrey Wildlife Trust expanse of Wisley Heath and Ockham Common: Ockham and Wisley to the west.

Downside has a large village green, on the northern edge of which is the Cricketers' Inn, dating at its core to the 17th century and a Grade II listed building.

[12] As the later sandy soil mentioned above and certainly further chalk overlayers have been washed away, whereas sand may have been scant, hence why it appears further north; the geology of Downside is Cretaceous: i.e. Hastings Beds, Weald Clay, then pleistocene Folkestone and then covered by a considerable remaining layer of Claygate Beds, Gault Clay mixed in with some eroded limestone from the north downs in the soil to the south.

[14] Downside's economy is predominantly a service sector economy reflected by the lowest versus the upper end of the official categorisation table of occupation given, compiled from the 2001 census: [14] St Michael's Chapel by the village green serves the village's Church of England community and those seeking its help in the Diocese of Guildford, at the end of the only fully developed street.

St. Matthew's Church of England Infant School serves the wider area of Downside including Cobham.