Claygate may get its name from the clay pits in the village that provided bricks for a large surrounding area including some of Hampton Court Palace.

Claygate appears in the Domesday Book as a manor of Thames Ditton, Claigate. This main manor of the village was held by Westminster Abbey.

The manor descended (after its purchase in 1565) from the Vincent family to the Evelyn family. Much land remained in the manor when it was sold between 1718 and 1721 to the Earl of Lovelace, the King family and currently Locke King family who had sold the vast majority of its land by 1970.

The school was built in 1838 as a Church school, and enlarged in 1849.

Claygate's development chiefly was in the 60 years after the construction of its railway line and station (on the New Guildford Line); the station opened in 1885.

With views particularly towards Cobham, Chessington and Leatherhead is Ruxley Towers, a Neo-Gothic Victorian edifice constructed by Lord Foley who owned a considerable amount of land. On the other side on Telegraph Hill is a semaphore station built in 1822 to transmit messages between the Admiralty and Portsmouth.