Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/148

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��Wellington appears to have purchased it. 16 In 1835 Alan Mackenzie presented to the church." In 1841 the advowson was the property of Mrs. T. C. Stone,' 8 and in 1906 of the trustees of Mr. E. Thompson.

��Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of The History of the Life of Cicero, was presented to the living in March 17^6-7,'* but did not apparently reside.

CHARITY. Smith's Charity is distributed in. money and clothing.

��ST. MARTHA'S OR CHILWORTH

��St. Martha's (1291) ;' St. Martha and All Holy Martyrs, and Martyr's Hill (1464) ; Martha Hill (1468) ; Marters Hill (1538); St. Martha on the Hill (i 589).

St. Martha's is a small parish, now ecclesiastically merged in Albury, 2 miles south-east of Guildford, bounded on the north by Stoke and Merrow, on the west by Shalford, on the south by Wonersh, on the east by Albury. It con tains 1, 060 acres. Its greatest length north to south is under 2 miles, its greatest breadth on the northern border is under a mile and a half. The soil is chalk in the north, on the downs, but most of it is on the Greensand, which rises in St. Martha's Hill to 570 ft. above the sea. The hill, crowned by what is now called the chapel of St. Martha, is abrupt and isolated, forming a more conspicuous object than the height, which is surpassed by the hills to the south of it, would indicate. It is higher than the chalk down to the north of it, and the views from it south-west towards Hindhead, and eastward along the valley to Albury and Shere, are among the most picturesque in the county.

The valley to the south of the hill, through which the Tillingbourne flows, has for long been the seat of industries dependent upon the good water-power supplied by the stream. There was a mill in Domes- day, a corn-mill and a fulling-mill in 1589,' and from before that date gunpowder mills, which still continue.* There was a paper-mill which was burnt down in 1 896 and has never been rebuilt. Cobbett, in his Rural Rides, has a remark, often quoted, upon the extreme beauty of this valley as God made it, and its pollution by the two worst inventions of the Devil, gunpowder and bank-notes being manufactured in it.

Postford Mill is on the boundary of this parish and of Albury. The road from Guildford to Dorking and the Reading branch of the South Eastern Railway traverse the southern end of the parish ; Chilworth and Albury station, opened 1 849, is just inside it.

An ancient bridle way from the ferry over the Wey at St. Catherine's Hill, through the Chantry Woods, and over St. Martha's Hill, close by the church, and so down to Albury, has been generally identified with the Pilgrims' Way. The line, straight over the top of a steep isolated hill which might have been easily turned upon either side, does eeem to indicate some ancient route to some object of interest upon the hill. If to the church, the Holy Martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, one of the patrons of Newark Priory, to which the church was appropriated, whose shrine at Canterbury travellers here might be seeking, may have superseded St.

��Martha in popular language as the patron of the hill.

Neolithic flint implements and flakes are of more than usually abundant occurrence on this road, on the hill and in the fields to the north of it. On the hill, near the top and towards the southern side, were several curious earth-circles about 28 to 30 yds. in diameter marked by a slight mound and ditch. The best was destroyed a few years ago by the Hambledon District Council, who made a reservoir on the hill to which water is pumped to supply houses on Blackheath. The persons responsible for the work made no effort to observe or record any discoveries. The next best marked lies nearly due south of the church. To the south-west is another, fairly well marked, but much overgrown by heather, ferns, and fir trees. The fourth, nearly ob- literated, is south-east of the church. South-west of the church marks in the ground visible in a dry season may indicate nearly obliterated hut-circles. Small flint implements are to be found in them scratched out by rabbits. At the western foot of the hill, near the road opposite Tyting, is a large barrow with trees upon it, which has, apparently, never been disturbed. On the north side of St. Martha's Hill lies the old farm-house of Tyting, which from the period of the Domesday Survey belonged to the Bishops of Exeter. It stands in a quaint old-world herb-garden, and still retains a small oratory with a group of three lancets in chalk, probably of early 13th-century date.

Chilworth is an erroneous name for the parish. It is an ancient manor, and the few houses usually called Chilworth are partly in St. Martha's and partly in Shalford parishes. Of modern houses Lockner Holt and Brantyngeshay in the part of the parish which reaches Blackheath to the south are the residences of Mrs. Sellar and Mr. H. W. Prescott, respectively. The elementary school was opened in 1873. There are one or two old houses in the hamlet of Chilworth. Some of these are probably due to the settlement here in Elizabeth's reign of workmen employed under Sir Polycarp Wharton in the manufacture of gunpowder. There are two reputed manors in St. MANORS Martha Chilworth, to the south, and Tyting, to the north, of St. Martha's Hill.

CHllWORTH (Celeorde, xi cent. ; Chele worth, xiii and xiv cents.) was held by Alwin under Edward the Confessor, and after the Conquest came with Bramley, in which it lay, into the hands of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux.* It was afterwards held of the lords of Bramley by the tenants of Utworth Manor 5 (q.v.), with which it descended till 1614, at which date Sir John Morgan, who was knighted at Cadiz in 1596," sold

��Inst. Bki. (P.R.O.).

Ibid.

Brayley, Hist. ofSurr. v, 127.

a9 Diet. Nat. Biog, xxrvii, 34.6.

1 ' Taxatio Ealtiiatiea,' Cott. MS. Ti-

��berius C. x. which is nearly contemporary with 1291.

1 Settlement on the marriage of John Morgan of Chilworth.

8 Y.C.H. Surr. ii, 301.

IO4

��4 Ibid, i, 301.

& It is first recorded as being in their possession in 1240-1 ; Feet of F. Surr. 25 Hen. Ill, 7.

6 S.P. Dom. Eliz. cclir, 84.

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