It is owned and managed by the Horsell Common Preservation Society.

[2] An area of 152 hectares (380 acres) is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest[1][3] and part of the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area.

[4] In the south-east corner of the common is the former Muslim Burial Ground, now an Islamic Peace Garden.

There are Bronze Age barrows, protected heathland and thousands of trees.

The Sandpit area was the location of the first Martian landing in the H. G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds (1897) .