Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 7.djvu/124

 times have been an estate of the Michener family, but was long occupied by the Billinghursts; and Mousehill Manor, in Witley parish, once the property of the Shudds, and afterwards of the Stillwells. The manor-house, now standing at Mousehill, is said to date from the 16th century, when the Shudds were still lords of the manor.

But the most interesting addition to the Peper Harow estate was the purchase of Oxenford Grange, now within the confines of the park. There can be no doubt that Oxenford was granted to Waverley Abbey by Richard de Aquila before 1147, since the grant is confirmed by the Papal Bull of the date already mentioned. Like Wanborough, it was a grange or outlying farm, the best land of which the monks doubtless knew how to fertilize by irrigation from the brook which flows along it. In the reign of Henry VIII. it was made over to Sir William Fitzwilliams, together with the other spoils of Waverley Abbey. In 1548, under a settlement made by him, it passed to his half-nephew, the first Viscount Montacute. It would appear from a passage in the Loseley Manuscripts, that a manse or residence then existed at Oxenford, sufficiently commodious to be occupied by Anthony Garnett, secretary to Lord Montacute. Other papers in the same Collection show that the farm of Oxenford was held on lease, successively, by Mr. Lussher (probably William Lussher of Elstead), by a younger Garnett, nephew of Anthony, and by one Spencer, against whom there were afterwards complaints for his "misgovernment" and suspicious "resort"; whence it may be surmised that he too was a Romanist of doubtful loyalty. The rent to be paid by Lussher for a term of ninety-nine years, without condition of repairs, was but £4. 13s. 4d.; the rent to be paid by the younger Garnett for a term of twenty-one years was £20. Two-thirds of the land ultimately found their way into the hands of Lord Holies, Mr. Froude, and the first Lord Midleton. The other third was purchased so late as 1822 from the Stillwells of Mousehill. The new farm-buildings close by the gatehouse represent Mr. Pugin's idea of the barns and sheds appropriate to a conventual