Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/153

 BLACKHEATH HUNDRED

��SHALFORD

��SHALFORD

��Scaldefor (xi cent.) ; Scaudeford (xiii cent.) ; Shaldeford (xiv cent.) ; Shalforde (xvi cent).

The parish of Shalford lies south-east of Guildford. It is intersected by the River Wey from south to north, and the Tillingbourne running east and west joins the Wey close to the village. It is bounded on the north by St. Mary's and Holy Trinity parishes, Guildford, and by Stoke ; on the east by Chilworth ; on the south-east by Wonersh ; on the south by Bram- ley ; on the south-west by Godalming ; on the west by St. Nicholas Guildford. The parish contains about 2,560 acres. It is 6 miles long from north to south, 2 miles broad, generally, with a narrow tongue running out further to the west.

The soil is chiefly the Lower Greensand, with an outcrop of Gault, and also of Wealden Clay at Shal- ford Park. But like all the parishes on the southern side of the chalk range the northern boundary ex- tends on to the chalk down, where a suburb of Guildford, called Warwick's Bench, is in Shalford parish, not included in Guildford Borough.

Shalford Common is a stretch of open grass ex- tending from near Tangley Manor in Wonersh to the Wey. Trunley Common and Gosden Common are almost touching it to the south-west of the parish, and part of Peasemarsh Common is in Shalford to the west. From near Shalford village towards St. Martha's Hill, the Chantry Woods, so named from part of them having formed the endowment of the Norbrigge Chantry in Trinity Church, Guildford, are a wooded ridge on the highest part of the Green- sand. Half the parish is open common or wood.

The old Common Fields, finally inclosed in 1803, lay between Shalford village and Guildford, on the east side of the road. On the west side is Shalford Park. This road intersects the parish, and divides on Shalford Common, leading south to Horsham, east to Dorking.

The parish is also intersected by the Red Hill and Reading Branch of the South Eastern Railway. Shal- ford Station was opened in 1849. The London Brighton and South Coast and London and South Western Railways intersect the parish, but there are no stations upon them. The canal, made in 1813, con- necting the Wey and the Arun, left the former river in Shalford parish. It became unnavigable about 1870, and is now quite abandoned.

There is a brewery at Broadford on the Wey. At Summersbury there is a tannery, which has been estab- lished over a century. 1 Cloth-making was carried on at Shalford in the 1 7th century.' There are chalk pits and lime kilns on the slope of the downs, in the northern part of the parish.

In 1086 there were three mills at Shalford.* One water-mill only is mentioned in an extent of East Shalford in 1332.' When the manor was divided the lords of each moiety had half the mill. In 1547 Christopher More of Loseley held the mill, which had recently belonged to Robert Wintershull. 6 This

��is Pratt's mill now existing on the Tillingbourne. The other two mills seem to have been upon the River Wey, near Unstead, and near the weir above St. Catherine's lock 6 respectively, being referred to in a lawsuit in 1379 between the inhabitants of Shalford and Robert de Chisenhale, &c. r

A cottage near the old way from St. Catherine's Ferry to St. Martha's Hill, isolated from the village by the old Common Fields, is traditionally called the Pest House. It is usually known now as Cyder House Cottage. In the last house of the parish on the left- hand side of Quarry Hill on the road into Guildford, John Bunyan is said to have held a meeting.

Neolithic implements and a few Roman coins have been found near East Shalford Manor House, 8 and palaeolithic implements have been found between the Chantry Woods and the chalk down.

Opposite the church is an old house called Dib- nersh, the residence of the Misses Morris. It formerly belonged to the Buncombe family (see Al- bury and Ockley), and was sold to Mr. Robert Austen in 1755.

Bradstone Brook is the seat of Mr. J. H. Renton j it was built in 1791 by Mr. Thomas Gibson. Gosden House, the property of Mr. F. E. Eastwood, is the residence of Mr. S. Christopherson. A con- siderable number of small gentlemen's houses have been built in the parish, and a large residential suburb of Guildford is springing up about Pewley Hill in Shalford.

There is a Wesleyan chapel on Shalford Common, originally established in 1843. A new building was erected in 1895. Near the eastern border of the parish is a small iron church where services are held, and another on the borders of Peasemarsh.

The cemetery was opened in 1886. The Village Hall, presented by Mr. Edward Ellis of Summers- bury in 1886, is near the station. It contains a refreshment room, meeting room, and reading room.

The school was built as a Church of England school in 1855. In 1 88 1 it was transferred to a school board, and the buildings were enlarged in 1882.

Shalford is one of the prettiest and most charm- ingly situated villages in Surrey, lying as it does in. the midst of water meadows, with tall poplars and other fine trees, between the River Wey and its tribu- tary the Tillingbourne. The village consists of a winding street of picturesque old cottages, with a few others straggling up side lanes and down to the water. The Seahorse Inn is a pleasant old-world hostelry with square-leaded panes to the windows. Many of the cottages appear to have been smartened up as to their fronts in the beginning of the 1 9th century, but the backs and interiors show them to be really old. A short lane leads down to the little water- mill, tile-hung almost to the ground, and having a large projecting upper story carried on wooden pillars.

It is probable that its proximity to Guild-

��1 y.C.H. Surr. 1 Ibid, ii, 344. 'Ibid, i, 3194.

��, 34>.

��4 Chan. Inq. p.m. 6 Edw. Ill (znd no*.) no. 84.

p. 72.
 * Mic. Bki. (Erch. L.T.R.), vol. 168,

107

��'Estate map 1617 ftnet Col. Godwin* Austen.

' Manning and Bray, op. cit. ii, 99. y.C.H. Surr. i, 253.

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