List of places of worship in Mole Valley

Download coordinates as: The district of Mole Valley has more than 70 current and former places of worship: 56 buildings are in use by various Christian denominations and other religions, and a further 16 are no longer in religious use but survive in other uses or—in two cases—as ruins.

Quakers, Christian Scientists, Plymouth Brethren and other smaller groups also have their own chapels and meeting rooms, mostly in Dorking and the other main town of Leatherhead.

The main centres of population[6] are Dorking, centrally located within the district, and Leatherhead to the north, which is part of a continuous urban area incorporating Ashtead, Fetcham and Great Bookham.

[6] Most have at least one place of worship—usually an Anglican parish church, and in some cases other chapels or meeting houses serving the Protestant Nonconformist denominations which grew in importance from the 18th century.

The main towns have a wider range of places of worship: Plymouth Brethren,[8] Christian Scientists,[9] the Elim Pentecostal Church[10] and Jehovah's Witnesses[11] are all represented, for example.

[14][15] The oldest churches in the district have Saxon origins (i.e. 10th- or 11th-century); examples include Betchworth,[16][note 2] Fetcham[17] and Wotton,[18] each of which retain fragmentary evidence of this era.

Churches built for specific purposes include the landmark hilltop St Barnabas' Church at Ranmore Common (1859; formerly in Great Bookham parish), provided for the Denbies Estate's owners and employees, and Holy Trinity at Forest Green (1897; formerly in Abinger parish)—built not only to serve villagers but to act as a memorial to a man who was killed in an accident.

This was usually used on its own; the chequerboard pattern of flint and stone squares common in other parts of England is seen at only two Surrey churches, both in Mole Valley: Leatherhead and Mickleham.

[39] Clunch is also used at Betchworth, along with chalk;[16] and that material (quarried extensively in east Surrey)[38] is also found in the walls of the church at Oakwood Hill[37] and internally at Fetcham and Great Bookham.

A converted cattle shed donated by Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet of Broome Park[28] serves as a gospel hall in Betchworth;[42] a timber-framed barn in Westhumble is now used as a chapel of ease to nearby Mickleham's parish church;[43] and Providence Chapel at Charlwood was transported to its isolated site in 1816 from Horsham,[44] where it had been used as an officers' mess during the Napoleonic Wars.

The remarkable building, which with its open verandah and white-painted wooden walls "would not be out of place in the remotest part of East Kentucky" in the words of Ian Nairn and Nikolaus Pevsner,[45] served Independent Calvinists and Strict Baptists at various times, but As of 2022[update] is up for sale.

Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism had a much lower following in the district than in the country overall: in 2011, 5.02% of people in England were Muslim, 1.52% were Hindu, 0.79% were Sikh, 0.49% were Jewish and 0.45% were Buddhist.