Middle Ages The first specific reference to the land which later charters, parish,
hundred and county maps state to be Kingswood is in the
Domesday Book, where a passage in the entry for Ewell states that "2 hides and 1 virgate were removed from this manor; they were there before 1066, but
reeves lent them to their friends; and 1 woodland pasture and 1 croft" – Ewell's
Lords of the manor in 1086 were Osbern of Eu (held of
King William) and King William himself.
Henry II granted it with Shelwood much further detached, in the
Weald, as parcel of the manor of Ewell to
Merton Priory, The wider
Copthorne Hundred was a royal hundred. Kingswood by being a liberty was excluded. That hundred around on all sides but the south was worth almost £48 in the 14th century and £136 16s. 4d. in 1636. Burgh Heath however was recorded, appearing as
Burgh, held in 1086 by
Hugh of Port of Bishop
Odo of Bayeux, his overlord; its assets were 5 exemption units (large estates) for which it was taxed on 2.5.
Early Chapel There was a chapel in the far-removed hamlet of Kingswood which had existed long before the middle of the 15th century; for when the vicarage of Ewell was endowed in 1458, it is mentioned as of long standing. Mention occurs towards the close of the reign of
Edward I of England. A church ruling stipulated that the vicar of Ewell should not be obliged to minister to the hamlet of Kingswood or to celebrate Mass in the chapel there; that when any of the Sacraments of the Church were to be administered to the people of that place, the rectors (
Prior and convent of Newark) should provide a priest for the purpose; and in case of the death of any inhabitant of Kingswood and his removal to Ewell for burial, the vicar should meet the body at Provost's Cross, on the south side of Ewell, which had been the custom from ancient time. The subsequent history of this chapel is obscure.
Post Reformation Kingswood Manor Nonetheless, on the
dissolution of the monasteries (1536–8) King
Henry VIII seized Kingswood Manor that comprised almost all the land of Kingswood, earlier valued at £14 6s. 8d in 1535, annexing it to the
honour of Hampton Court Based on the 1841 census,
Samuel Lewis writes of Kingswood in 1848 there were 848 inhabitants and, in brief, consisted of of which 400 were woodland and the remainder almost wholly arable. Kingswood became in 1899 the terminus of a branch of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, now the Tattenham Corner branch. Writing in 1911, Malden states: the neighbourhood which used to be singularly sequestered and rural is fast becoming residential, especially since the opening of the railway. But the majority of the new houses are in the part of Banstead included in the
ecclesiastical parish of Kingswood, not in the old portion of Ewell. Lower Kingswood School was built in 1893 and enlarged in 1903. Tadworth and Kingswood School (in Banstead parish) was built in 1875. Both are County Council Schools. Kingswood is today characterised by housing which is described as
arcadian, which implies it is 'spacious and tree-dominated'. Kingswood was formerly a
liberty and
chapelry, in 1866 Kingswood became a separate
civil parish, on 1 April 1974 the parish was abolished. In 1951 the parish had a population of 3606. ==Geography==