When Jack Smith, a programme manager working in the Communities Service at Surrey County Council, began speaking last year to Paul and Jeremy, chair and estate manager respectively of Horsell Common Preservation Society (HCPS), he found a perfect match.

Jack leads the council’s Green Health & Wellbeing Programme, which aims to promote the health value of nature and green space, and Paul and Jeremy were keen that HCPS – a charity that owns and manages more than 900 acres of heathland, woodland, and meadow across Woking - used its resources to play a larger role in supporting the health, wellbeing, and education of their local community.

The idea of creating a community hub, surrounded by greenery, where groups could immerse themselves in the environment and engage in activities that support their wellbeing, connection and overall health, was born.

After some deliberation Jeremy and Paul identified Rae's Field, a three-acre meadow in their estate, and with a barn in its southwest corner. Wildflowers in the summer, swallows overhead, deer on misty mornings, and horses in the field next door – it was perfect… well, almost.

The barn, once lovingly built by the previous owners - who still own the horse field next door - and largely used for storage over the years, was in a sad and spidery state. Very much in need of some TLC to become the community hub the three had in mind.

A phone call was made to a partner of the Green Health & Wellbeing programme, Volunteer It Yourself (VIY) – a charity that works with local NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) young people to develop and renovate community spaces, offering City & Guilds trade accreditations in the process.

Ed, their chief operating officer, and Graham, project manager, had a plan in no time. They would recruit local NEET young people to work alongside professional tradespeople; carpenters, builders, painters and decorators, to renovate the barn and give it the love it needed.

Eighteen young people and 15 City & Guilds accreditations later, the barn was fully insulated, freshly boarded inside, with new windows, new gutters, fresh paint inside and out, and with considerably fewer spiders.

Alongside this incredible effort from VIY and their volunteers, were the ever-present and capable Jeremy, and senior ranger, Rupert. A two-man band dedicating the time and resource of HCPS to develop the site for the local community.

Beautiful hurdle fencing went up, drainage ditches dug out, new oak planters built, paths laid, lighting installed in the barn, and a phenomenal amount of native trees planted.

With the support of Elliot Street, Surrey County Council’s tree planting and strategy manager, more than 2,000 native trees were donated to the project. Many of these were planted along the approach track to the hub and around the perimeter of the hub garden.

As these mature they will create habitats for invertebrates, food for birds, a nature corridor for small mammals, and a sense of psychological safety and security for visitors.

Jeremy and Rupert were supported by the growth team at Surrey Choices – a team with an unending amount of energy, humour, and passion for what they do. In no time rowan, crabapple, holly and hawthorn were sprouting around the hub.

It's one thing to create a community hub, but bringing the community to it was another. So while the hub was being developed local community groups were approached.

Visits were paid by Andy's Man Club, Shifa, the High Sheriff, and more, all discussing different ways the hub could be used to support the wellbeing of local residents.

Shifa, a network that supports ethnically diverse women around Woking, offering advocacy, wellbeing support, and education, were immediately interested. They not only envisioned their art group, yoga group, and walking groups operating from the hub but also began asking how they can be involved in its creation. Which led to an idea…

It had always been the plan for the hub to feel owned by the local community, so there was a reluctance to over-develop the space without that engagement. VIY had done a fantastic job, but they essentially provided a blank canvas. Four white walls, 70 square metres, even Michelangelo would have felt the pressure.

But not local artist, Sally Ferguson. Surrey Hills Arts helped to find Sally, a retired doctor embracing her passion for art, who was all too thrilled to lead a group of 16 women from Shifa to paint locally inspired murals around the interior walls of the hub.

Not only was this an opportunity for women from Shifa to come together as a community, hone their art skills, and spend time in nature, but it was also a way that they could take some ownership of the hub, make it feel like a home for the community, and celebrate the local wildlife they found nearby.

Shifa visited the hub weekly to continue working on the mural, and once finished returned regularly for their yoga and walking groups.

Several other local groups have expressed their interest too, and over the next year hopefully these other groups will settle into the hub as a space they can run activities from and support their clients.

On any given day now, you might find it hard to recognise the barn that once stood here. A space now shaped by many hands, stories, and aspirations.

Where there were spiderwebs, there are now brushstrokes. Where there were draughts, there's now warmth. And where there was quiet, there's now laughter, conversation, and life.

The swallows still fly overhead, and the deer still pass through on misty mornings, but Rae's Field is no longer somewhere you glimpse through the tree line in passing. It's somewhere our community is coming together, supported, surrounded, and in harmony with nature.

Although the hub is not currently an open-access public space, ie, members of the public aren't able to walk in, rather it's a nature-based community venue that can be hired (for free) by local charities and community groups, from where they can offer services and activities for their clients/beneficiaries.

Any local community groups or charities interested in using the hub can contact either Horsell Common Preservation Society or Jack’s wider service at [email protected], either of which will forward the query to Jack so he can get in touch with them.

There is limited parking at the hub - about 10 cars, the day-to-day operational capacity of the hub itself is about 20 people, exceptions made for one-off events, but there are two other larger Horsell Common car parks within a five-minute walk.

There are also two bus stops, Cheapside and Kettlewell Drive, both a 10-minute walk (0.5 miles) from the hub. The hub is located within Horsell Common itself, set in a meadow surrounded by woodland and accessed via a dirt track through Horsell Common.