Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/158

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��the rectory. It is an ancient timber-framed building, as to which Aubrey repeats a tradition that it was built upon woolpacks, ' in the same manner as our Lady's Church at Salisbury was ; ' 3 and in his day the house was ' encompassed about with a large and deep moat, which is full of fish.'

When every other house or cottage is old and interesting it is difficult to mention all, but a few may be singled out as presenting specially noteworthy features, or as typical of the others. The large number of ancient cottages is perhaps accounted for by the statement that Aubrey makes, that there was here a very ancient manufacture of fustian. Another cause certainly was that such important families as the Butlers, Earls of Ormond, the Audleys, and the Brays, had their mansions in Shere, and gave employment to lesser folk in their neighbourhood.

One or two of the houses in the village retain their ancient bargeboards to the gables. These are

��massive stack of flues having a diagonal member on each face of the square, with a good head and base mould. The half-timber front is now hidden by rough-cast. Another old house on the road to Gomshall is noteworthy for an overhanging gable, and for the fact that the spaces between the timbers are filled with flints, instead of plaster or bricks. Most of the other old houses in the village are covered with rough-cast, which is coloured locally in a pleasant shade of buff. 4

Wolven's Farm, which lies some miles to the east of Albury village, is a fine example of the I yth-century brick house, with panelled chimneys, mullioned win- dows with leaded lights, and a double-storied porch with a brick pediment to its upper window. In this and other details the house closely resembles Crossways Farm, Abinger, about 2 miles distant.

Local tradition says that Hound House, in the royal manor of Gomshall in Shere, was named from

���SHERE VILLAGE

��variously treated : one, which might well be of 1 5th- century date, or even older, being pierced with tre- foils ; another is foliated, with the points of the cusping rounded so as to give a continuous wavy line. In Shere itself a very old cottage in Lower Lane shows a joist-board (i.e. a moulded board covering the projecting ends of the joists carrying the upper story) of late ijth-century character. There is also an old house, long and low, with an overhanging gabled wing on the right, and a hipped- roof wing to the left end, on which side is a par- ticularly fine chimney, with crow-stepped base and a

��the keeping of the king's hounds there, but there is no record of it apparently. It is, however, known that hounds were kept here about 1800, and some old stone kennel troughs have been found.

The village is historically interesting as the seat of the Bray family (vtJe Infra).

It seems strange that Gomshall, which has always been a place of considerable population and import- ance, should never have had a church of its own.

Holmbury St. Mary is the name now given to the two hamlets of Felday in Shere, and Pitland Street in Shere and Abinger, which were erected into aa eccle-

��8 This tradition is so constantly met with that there can be no doubt it is an-

��Bridge, would appear to be more prob- able) that the foundations of the structure

��other way of saying that the house, or were actually laid on wool-sacks filled

church, or bridge, was erected from the with concrete, a method of construction

proceeds of a tax on wool ; or else (which still frequently employed in watery ites. in this case at least, as in that of London

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��* This buff-coloured plastering is very characteristic of Western Surrey. Other examples may be noted in Godalming, Ockley, Guildford, Chobham, Woking, and Letherhead.

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