Brilliantly by broadband, adequately by car, barely by bus. Two railway stations sit within reach. Hardly anyone commutes on them. Most working residents don't commute at all. The rush hour in East Horsley happens on the stairs.
Horsley and Effingham Junction are the local stations, both with direct trains to London Waterloo. At the 2021 census only about 3% of working residents took the train to work, which is a modest turnout for two stations. There are 49 bus stops in and around the village, and the share of residents using the bus to get to work rounds to zero.
The commute mix explains why. About 58% of working residents worked from home at the 2021 census, and about 33% drove. Walking accounted for about 2% and cycling about 1%. Car ownership follows the driving: only about 6% of households have no car, and about 65% have two or more. Anyone buying here should assume a car, and probably a second one.
In the Department for Transport's modelling, the nearest town centre is about 15 minutes away by car and about 32 by public transport.
Broadband is where the village is strong. Gigabit-capable broadband is available to about 95% of premises, superfast broadband reaches effectively every one, and no premises fall below the universal service minimum. For a place where most workers earn a living through a router, that's the connection that matters.
Mobile coverage is near complete: about 100% of the area gets fourth- or fifth-generation signal from at least one operator, and about 99% from all of them.
For a typical working week, the practical picture is a home office with a fast line, a car for everything local, and the train saved for the days that need London. Commuting daily without a car is possible from the stations, but the village isn't laid out around it.
The published journey times to the nearest town centre are modelled figures for the area, not a route from any particular front door. By car it's about 15 minutes, by public transport about 32, by bike about 31, and on foot about 87. That last figure is the finding: nobody walks to town from East Horsley, and nobody should plan to.
The same Department for Transport statistics cover everyday destinations. A doctor's surgery is about 9 minutes by car, 18 by public transport and 23 on foot. The nearest hospital is about 26 minutes by car and 55 by public transport. A food shop is about 8 minutes by car or 20 on foot. The nearest cluster of employment is about 30 minutes by car and 22 by public transport. The car and walking times are stable because the destinations don't move. The public transport figures date from 2019, and services have been cut since, so treat those with more caution.
The current bus timetable is thinner than the stop count suggests. The average stop sees about 9 scheduled departures on a weekday and fewer than one in the peak hour, and only about 21% of stops have any weekend service at all. A stop you wait at for most of an hour isn't really a bus service.
Road noise is widespread. Every postcode in the area sits near or above 65 decibels of road noise on the official noise mapping, the level at which that mapping treats road noise as significant, and the loudest band present reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source: about 90% of postcodes sit near the 65-decibel mark from the railway, with the loudest rail band at 65 decibels. How much of either reaches a particular house depends on the house, so check it on the viewing.
East Horsley's connectivity is middling overall. It's excellent for anyone whose working day runs through a fibre line, workable for anyone with a car, and poor for anyone who was counting on the bus.