Coldharbour is the highest village in south east England, perched on the Greensand Ridge at around 750 feet above sea level, below the summit of Leith Hill. The name "Coldharbour" appears in many places across England and has been debated by etymologists for centuries. It may derive from a corruption of the Latin "collis arborum" (hill of trees), or it may simply describe what it sounds like: a cold, exposed shelter on a high road. Either explanation fits this windswept hilltop settlement.
Leith Hill Tower, a short walk from the village through beech and oak woodland, was built in 1765 by Richard Hull of Leith Hill Place. The tower was designed to raise the summit above the symbolic 1,000-foot mark (it reaches 1,029 feet with the tower, making it the highest point in south east England). Hull was buried beneath the tower at his own request, reportedly upside down so that he would be "the right way up" when the world was turned over at the Day of Judgement. The story may be apocryphal, but it has been told for over 250 years. The tower was restored by the National Trust and is open on weekends, with views that on clear days extend south to the English Channel and north across London.
Leith Hill Place, the substantial house below the hill, was later the childhood home of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the composer. He spent summers here as a boy, and the Surrey landscape is often said to have influenced the pastoral quality of his music, including "The Lark Ascending" and the "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis." The surrounding woodland and ridge were part of the Wealden iron-producing region, and old hammer ponds, created to power forges, can still be found hidden among the trees. The Plough Inn at the centre of the village has served walkers, riders, and locals for generations, and on a clear evening the views from the lane outside stretch south across miles of Weald countryside.
