Caterham, United Kingdom

Its inner bank is about 0.5m wide and 0.4m high with a ditch 7m wide and 0.3m deep situated 2m below its crest. To the west of the ditch is the second bank, 8m wide and 0.5m high. Beyond this the second ditch has become completely infilled over the years but survives as a buried feature approximately 8m wide, visible as a terrace. Traces of a second, slighter terrace are situated further down the slope, representing evidence of additional scarping. The defences to the north east include an inner bank 5m wide and up to 0.5m high from the interior and 4m high from the exterior with a surrounding ditch 8m wide and 0.6m deep. Beyond this is a counterscarp bank 6m wide and up to 1m high. A 35m long section of a second ditch, which has become partially infilled over the years, survives 25m further out to the north east. In the southern and south eastern areas of the monument, sections of the hillfort have been disturbed by later quarrying activity. Although the monument was originally thought to be either Roman or Neolithic in date, excavations in 1950 showed it to be Iron Age and what had previously been thought to be a fragment of an earthwork was almost complete with the banks of the ramparts having been palisaded and revetted to strengthen their defence.

The town lies within the Anglo-Saxon feudal division of Tandridge hundred.

The origin of the name Caterham is disputed and unknown. One theory is that it derives from the Primitive Welsh word cadeir meaning chair and the Old English hām meaning village. This could be in reference to a chair-shaped hill. Other theories derive it from the Old English cattahām or cattehām meaning 'Catta's settlement' or 'settlement of the cats'.

Caterham's church of St Lawrence is of Norman construction and retains a rector as its incumbent. In the reign of King John, Roger son of Everard de Gaist gave this including its church lands to the monastery of Waltham Holy Cross. Everard's grandfather was Geoffery of Caterham who gave land to his son in the 12th century. This monastery ran the glebe as a manor, receiving a grant of free warren in their demesne lands of Caterham in 1253; holding it until the dissolution of the monasteries.

Caterham's original village centre consisted in the nearest part of the ridge of Caterham on the Hill to the railway station in Caterham Valley, including at the street ascending the relatively steep, short hill, Church Hill. Although no conservation area has been designated in either civil parish, four secular buildings, including The King and Queen public house, three churches as well as a vault and tomb in St Lawrence's churchyard are listed; these are along Hill Street/ Church Hill in Caterham on the Hill.

Porkele had been formerly included in the manor given to Waltham Abbey; together the latter manors comprised 1,000 acres (400 hectares). Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1402–1460) held these manors leaving them in 1458 to his third son John Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire when his son died without issue in 1499, under the terms of grant the elder branch, the following Duke of Buckingham inherited. His heirs sold them on the dissolution to Lord Berners who died in debt in 1533 resulting in bona vacantia and seizure by the Crown. In 1570 Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset (as Lord Buckhurst), later Lord High Treasurer, held the 'manor of Caterham and Portele farm,' which he conveyed in that year to Henry Shelley; Sir Thomas's Sondes's widow leased the lands in 1599 to her half-brother, Main Plot seditionist Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham. Then in 1615 her daughter Frances Leveson gave the rest of that lease, due the tenant's attainder to Sir Edward Barrett and Walter Barrett while the reversion was held by Sir Richard Sondes. George Ede purchased this massive estate in 1612 and it passed to Jasper Ockley in 1616. Sir Isaac Shard who was one of two Sheriffs of the City of London in 1730 who conveyed it to Thomas Clark and then passed as with the other manors; in 1911 W. L. Williams its owner lived at Portley in what remained of the estate. De Stafford School in Caterham on the Hill occupies a small part of the estate and is named after the earlier known owner. Adjoining Sunnydown School, state-run, is at what was Portley House and is for secondary education for boys with a Statement of Special Educational Needs.

The only manor did not have as high-profile owners. In 1339 John de Horne released some land in Caterham (and more in Warlingham) to Roger Salaman, who at his death in 1343 was "seised of a tenement". A manor of Salmons appears in 1605 by William Jordan, who soon afterwards acquired the second manor of Caterham (see above) with which Salmons afterwards descended. It was bought out of Chancery, into which it went on the death of Charles Day, by George Drew, who sold to members of the Horne family, who owned the relatively small estate in 1911.