Compton's church of St Nicholas is one of the most architecturally significant parish churches in Surrey and possibly in all of England. It has a rare two-storey sanctuary, with a vaulted lower level and an upper chapel reached by a narrow staircase within the wall. The Norman balustrade on the upper level is thought to be the oldest piece of wooden church furnishing in England. The reasons for the two-storey design are debated, but it may relate to the display of relics on the upper level, visible from both the nave and the chancel.
The village was a quiet place of farms and cottages until the arrival of George Frederic Watts and his wife Mary in 1891. Watts was one of the most celebrated painters and sculptors of the Victorian era, known for monumental canvases of allegorical and mythological subjects. He had exhibited at the Royal Academy from the age of 19. Mary Watts, a talented artist and designer in her own right, threw herself into the life of the village. Between 1896 and 1904, she designed and built the Mortuary Chapel in the village cemetery, covering its interior and exterior with extraordinary terracotta decoration in an Art Nouveau and Symbolist style. Every surface is encrusted with angels, trees of life, Celtic knots, and symbolic patterns. The chapel was built largely by village volunteers trained by Mary in the pottery techniques.
The Watts Gallery, established in 1904 to house George's paintings and sculpture, was a pioneering example of an artist's gallery open to the public. It was restored and expanded with a new visitor centre in 2011. Loseley House, an Elizabethan manor built in 1562 by Sir William More using stone from the dissolved Waverley Abbey, sits just to the north of the village. The More-Molyneux family still occupies the house, and it is open to the public during the summer months. The ice cream made from the estate's Jersey herd is sold nationwide.
