Bramley is recorded in the Domesday Book, and St Andrew's Church retains Norman elements including a 12th century chancel arch. The village sits in the gap between the North Downs and the Weald, on the road connecting Guildford to Cranleigh and the south. For centuries it was a quiet agricultural parish, its economy tied to the farms and smallholdings that worked the heavy clay soil.
The village gained significance through its connection to the Wey and Arun Canal, which opened in 1816 to create an inland waterway linking the Thames to the south coast. The canal passed through the parish, and a lock and wharf at Bramley served local farms and businesses. The canal was never a commercial success, struggling to compete with the railways, and fell into disuse by the 1870s. The Wey and Arun Canal Trust, formed in 1970, has been painstakingly restoring sections of the canal, and the Bramley stretch is among the most actively worked.
Bramley's most famous connection is to Gertrude Jekyll, the garden designer who revolutionised English garden design in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She grew up at Bramley House, where her early interest in plants and colour was nurtured by the Surrey countryside. She later commissioned the young architect Edwin Lutyens to design Munstead Wood, her home just across the parish boundary near Godalming. Their collaboration produced some of the finest houses and gardens in England, with Jekyll's planting schemes and Lutyens's architecture complementing each other perfectly. Munstead Wood became a place of pilgrimage for gardeners from around the world. The railway arrived in 1865 on the Guildford to Horsham line, and Bramley station continues to serve the village today, one of the smaller stops on the line but valued by commuters.
