It survives as a sparsely populated, predominantly rural locality, which includes Gatton Park, no more than 12 houses, and two farms on the slopes of the North Downs near Reigate.

Instead, the settlement shrank, and by the beginning of the 17th century the antiquary William Camden was able to describe it as "scarce a small village, though in times past it hath beene a famous towne".

Behind it stands a large urn bearing a Latin inscription, which includes the line "Salus populi Suprema Lex Esto": "Let the well-being of the people be the supreme law".

[7][8] James Ogilvy commented in 1914: "The whole erection could shelter about thirty people from the rain; whether it superseded an earlier town hall does not appear to be known.

Gatton lies on the crest of the escarpment of the North Downs and on its southern slopes, primarily in the Reigate (RH2) post town.

However, in the fields to the northeast, i.e. mostly made up of Upper Gatton Park and Farm, there is a round area of "free-draining, slightly acid, sandy soil" which as the Soilscape study indicates is used for dry pasture, coniferous woodland and, as not stated there, for wheat.

One wood includes a small section in the east the "freely draining slightly acid loamy soil" that provides the infill of the Downs and is seen for example in Kingswood and counterintuitively all of the southern developed parts of Reigate, Redhill, most of Dorking, much and all of central Croydon and all around the lowland commons, heaths and parks of south-west London.

Across the south of Gatton Park and Reigate Hill Golf Course soil is "slowly permeable, seasonally wet slightly acid but base-rich, loamy and clayey".

[19] In terms of geology, overlying the rather older Hythe, Sandgate and Folkestone Beds under even deeper seas, Gault Clay and the Upper Greensand were deposited.

The Gault Clay contains phosphate-rich nodules in discrete bands and has a rich marine fauna with abundant ammonites, bivalves and gastropods.

Beginning 90 million years ago the North Downs hard chalk was deposited, a white limestone comprising over 95% calcium carbonate.