What it's like to live in Cranleigh

Waverley is dominated by home ownership: 71.8% of homes are owned, 14.7% are privately rented and just 12.3% are socially rented, below the England figure of 17.1%. Council homes make up 8.9% and housing association homes 3.4%, so social tenancies here are a relatively small part of the picture.

Waverley Borough Council is by far the biggest social landlord in the area with 4,777 homes, followed by Vivid Housing (589), Metropolitan Housing Trust (434), Clarion Housing Association (412) and Southern Housing (310). Average weekly social rents in 2024/25 were £119 for a one bed, £141 for two beds and £159 for three beds.

The age profile skews a little older than England overall: 21.8% are 65 or over and 28.1% are aged 45 to 64, with 19.1% under 16. At 31 March 2025 there were 751 households on the council's housing register, with 549 social homes let through the council and 36 council homes swapped by mutual exchange during 2024-25. The register is not a simple queue.

For a village, the choice of schools here is unusually good. Cranleigh Church of England Primary School runs across an Upper School and a Lower School, both within a couple of hundred metres of the centre, and St Cuthbert Mayne Catholic Primary School is around half a mile away. Park Mead Primary School is just under a mile out. Cranleigh Preparatory School is also nearby, though that is a fee-paying option.

For older children, Glebelands School is the state secondary and sits very close to the heart of the village, about a five-minute walk from the high street. Cranleigh School is under a mile away. There is also specialist provision locally in St Joseph's Specialist Trust and Jigsaw CABAS School, and Bramley Grange Academy lies just under three miles off.

Family life outside school leans on Knowle Park for running around, Cranleigh Library for rainy days and reading groups, and Cranleigh Village Hall for clubs and activities. Under-16s make up 19.1% of the wider Waverley area, a little above the England average, so this is a part of Surrey with plenty of children about.

Cranleigh is a village you can walk a lot of. The supermarkets, pharmacies, library and village hall are all within about a quarter of a mile of the centre, and Cranleigh Church of England Primary and Glebelands School are both a short walk too. If you do not drive, that compact centre matters more than anything else.

For journeys out of the village, roads are the main link. Cranleigh sits on the routes between Guildford to the north and Horsham to the south, and most trips to a bigger town or a mainline railway station are made by car or bus. Bus services connect the village with the nearby towns, but check current timetables carefully against your own working hours before you commit to a swap, especially for evenings and Sundays.

There is no railway station in the village itself, so rail journeys start with a drive or bus ride to a station elsewhere. For rural trips to Ewhurst or Alfold, a couple of miles out, a car or bike makes life much easier.

Knowle Park, a few minutes from the centre, is the main green space within easy reach, and the countryside around the village is as much of a draw as any formal park: Cranleigh is surrounded by Surrey farmland and lanes, so walking and cycling are easy to pick up.

The village pubs do a lot of the social work. The Richard Onslow is right in the centre, with the Three Horseshoes and The White Hart within a short walk, and Little Park Hatch about a mile out. The Bulls Head, a little over two miles away, is worth the trip if you fancy a change of scene.

Cranleigh Library sits in the middle of the village, and Cranleigh Village Hall is the hub for local groups, classes and events. Ewhurst Village Hall, Ewhurst Village Club and Alfold Hall serve the surrounding villages a couple of miles away. It is a quiet sort of leisure: community-run, outdoorsy and local rather than big-city nightlife.

Employment in the wider Waverley area is strong. Census figures show 58.6% of adults in work, slightly above the England figure of 57.4%, and unemployment at 2.3% against 3.5% nationally. More recent benefit data points the same way: around 2% of 16 to 64-year-olds were claiming unemployment-related benefits in August 2026, half the England rate of 4%.

In practice that means a tight local labour market and relatively few people out of work, but it does not mean every job is on your doorstep. Cranleigh is a village of about 12,700 people, so a lot of residents work in the surrounding towns and commute out by car. Local work tends to come from the schools, shops, pubs, care and services that keep the village running.

If you are moving for work, think about the commute first. Journeys to Guildford, Horsham and beyond are road-based, and travel time and cost are the main things to weigh up before swapping.