Every year, around 20,000 young people make great memories at Bentley Copse — Scouts and Guides, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award groups, and schools on residential trips, all enjoying our 30 acres of ancient woodland in the Surrey Hills. It’s easy to take the place for granted when you’re booking a stay or planning an activity session. But if you’ve ever stood in the main field on a still morning, mist hanging in the trees around you, you might not guess that this same ground has been shaping young people’s lives for over a hundred years. Bentley Copse’s story begins not with a masterplan, but with a mother’s gift to her son.
At the end of the First World War, an 18-acre wood in the Surrey Hills belonged to a local farmer and had been used by the military in support of the war effort on the Western Front. When the farmer’s son returned home from service, his mother — whose family owned a neighbouring estate — decided to buy him the wood as a gift. She purchased it from its owner, Lord Ashcombe, then Lord Lieutenant of Surrey.
That simple act of generosity created the first camp at Bentley Copse. A group of Surrey Scouts were soon invited to try out the new facility, and almost by accident, a County Cub and Scout Training Centre was born. By 1956, when Surrey’s Scouting county was divided, responsibility for the site passed to the West, Southern and South Western Districts jointly — a shared stewardship that, in spirit, continues today.
Long before any Scout pitched a tent here, this land already had a name and a history. “Bentley” is believed to derive from the Saxon words for a fire break or boundary, combined with a word for a grassy meadow marked by earthen banks — worn down over centuries into the name we use today. Nearby, in what’s now known as Sheep Walk Wood, three earthen mounds still trace the edge of the original wood boundary, evidence of ditching and banking used to mark land in Saxon times.
Within the Copse itself, an overgrown earthen platform survives — known locally as the “Beekeeper’s Platform” — a quiet reminder that people have been using and shaping this landscape for far longer than a century.
No history of Bentley Copse is complete without Percy Neville. Involved with the site from the early 1920s, he served as Warden for decades, giving up weekends and holidays to shape the Copse into what it would become. Over the course of his wardenship, he planted more than 10,000 trees — Norway spruce, swamp cypress, Chile pine, and holly among them — including the trees that still stand around the Camp Fire Circle today. He also carved the owls that watch over the site, a detail many visitors notice without ever knowing the story behind them.
When Percy Neville died in 1978, the camp flag was lowered to half-mast at headquarters across the county. His ashes were scattered across the Copse he’d spent a lifetime tending — a fitting resting place for someone who gave so much of himself to it.
The site has grown steadily to meet the needs of each generation. The swimming pool was dug out by hand by the Shen Rover Crew in 1953 (now the site of aeroball). A new indoor accommodation building followed in 1972, with additional chalets added through the 1970s. Each addition reflects the same instinct that built the very first camp here: adapting the woodland to serve young people, without losing what makes it special.
In 2018, we celebrated a century of Bentley Copse — a hundred years since that first group of Scouts arrived to try out a wood bought as a gift. Today, the site is owned by Surrey County Scouts, but our doors are open far wider than they were in 1918. Alongside Scout groups from Surrey and beyond, we now welcome Girl Guides, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award groups, and schools on residential trips — around 20,000 young people visiting Bentley each year.
The buildings have changed. The activities have multiplied. But the 30 acres of ancient woodland at the heart of it all — and the belief that time spent outdoors shapes young people for the better — hasn’t changed since the day a grateful mother bought her son a wood in the Surrey Hills.
Next time you’re camping under Percy Neville’s trees or walking past his carved owls, take a moment to think about the century of history beneath your feet.
