Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/169

 BLACKHEATH HUNDRED

��WONERSH

��again claimed the right."' The dispute was only settled when Sir Edmund Bray presented in 1518. Before the next presentation came the abbey was dis- solved. The advowson descended with Shiere Vachery till Morgan Randyll bought it in 1677 14 for Thomas Duncomb, 140a who was then rector. It was leased or sold for occasions by the Duncomb family, but re- mained with them till Thomas Duncomb sold it to John Smallpeice in 1831 IS1 for the Rev. D. C. Delasfone, rector, with which the former sale may be compared. Mr. Justice Bray is the present patron.

There was a chantry of our Lady in Shere Church. In the 1 4th century the rector was responsible for find- ing a chaplain at the altar of St. Mary in his church.' 81 The chantry was maintained from the profits of the ' Chantry House,' which was granted after the sup- pression of chantries to Henry Foisted. 141 It descended with his manor of Albury (q.v.). IM

Early in the 141)1 century Christine daughter of William ' called the Carpenter ' had licence to dwell in Shere Churchyard as an anchoress. 164

The living of St. Mary Felday is in the gift of the bishop

��Mr. Thomas Gatton left .400 in CHARITIES 1758 to educate poor children. In 1 842 Mr. Lomax added to the endow- ment, and a school was established on the scheme of the National Society. The present buildings date from 1877, and were enlarged in 1898.

Smith's Charity exists as in other Surrey parishes.

In 1657 Mr. Maybank left 26 for the poor ot Shere, which was invested in land in Cranleigh.

At some date unknown, but probably before I7I4, IM Mrs. Charity Duncomb left money invested in land in Cranleigh, bringing in l 6s. per annum, to provide bread weekly for poor widows.

In 1 746 the Rev. George Duncomb left 6 a year out of his freehold in Shere, l \s. to buy bread for the poor of Shere, i i6/. for the poor of Albury, 2 1 3/. for teaching children, js. for the parish clerk.

In 1784 Francis Haybitle, farm labourer of Peas- lake, left a rent-charge of 1 5/. a year on a cottage in Shere to provide bread for the poor.

In 1818 Charles Hammond gave 100 to be in- vested in the Funds, and the interest applied to the improvement of the psalmody in Shere Church.

��WONERSH

��Wonherche (xiv tent.) ; Ognersh and Ignersh (xvi and xvii cents.).

Wonersh is a village about 3^ miles south by east of Guildford. The parish is bounded on the north by Shalford and St. Martha's, on the east by Albury, on the south by Cranleigh, on the west by Bramley and the ecclesiastical parish of Graffham, formed from Bramley and an outlying part of Dunsfold. It measures rather over 5 miles from north-west to south-east, and at the widest part a little over z miles from east to west ; it tapers to- wards the south. The northern part of the parish is upon the Greensand, with an outcrop of Atherfield Clay at its base. The southern part reaches on to the Wealden Clay. About the village itself, however, the soil is sand and gravel washed down by a tribu- tary of the Wey, which, rising in Cranleigh parish, traverses Wonersh and falls into the Wey in Shal- ford. The road from Guildford to Cranleigh and Horsham traverses the parish, and the disused Wey and Arun Canal also. The London, Brighton and South Coast line from Guildford to Horsham cuts the southern part of it. Bramley station on this line is close to the village of Wonersh, though in Bramley parish. The two villages are curiously close to each other. The parish is agricultural, and there is a good deal of waste land. Part of the heath- covered high ground of Blackheath is included in Wonersh, also part of Shalford Common, Shamley Green, once spelt Shamble Lea, and part of Smith-

��wood Common in the south end of it. Along th& road to Guildford is a great extent of roadside waste.

Wonersh was one of the flourishing seats of the- clothing trade in West Surrey. The special manufac- ture was blue cloth, dyed, no doubt, with woad, licence to grow which was asked in the neighbour- hood in the 1 6th century. 1 Her Majesty objected to the too free growth of woad as prejudicial to her customs.' The blue cloth of Wonersh commanded a sale in the Canary Islands, among other places. Aubrey 8 tells the story of how the market was lost by the dishonesty of the makers in stretching their webs. But the clothing trade was dwindling irv the whole neighbourhood in the I7th century, 4 and Wonersh only shared in the general decay.

Prehistoric remains are rather abundant. Numerous palaeolithic flints have been found in the drift gravel near the stream, neolithic implements and flakes ajre abundant, especially on Blackheath and near Chint- hurst Hill. In 1900 a small round barrow was opened on Blackheath. It had contained a cinerary urn, broken to pieces when found, in which were burnt bones. The urn had been inclosed by flat slabs of ironstone. In the barrow were two neolithic flints, a round disc, and an axe-head or hammer of rude make. 5

There is a Congregational chapel in Wonersh. St. John's Seminary, built as a place of education for Roman Catholic clergy for the diocese of Southwark, was opened in 1891. It stands near the road to

��149 Egerton MS. 2034, fol. 88a.

Recov. R. Mil. 28 & 29 Chas. II, m. 150.

I5to See Manning and Bray, op. cit. i, 519.

> Feet of F. SUIT. East. I & 2 Will. IV.

1M Egerton MS. 2033, fol. 63.

168 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. i), cvi, 56 ; cclxxiii, 99.

��114 Close, 10 Chas. I, pt. xxviii, m. 33 ; 32 Chas. II, pt. xiv, no. 10.

155 Egerton MS. 2032, fol. 74. Com- pare the account of the cell adjoining the north wall of the church.

1M Before 1714, for in 1786 Thomas Duncomb, rector, did not know when she died. His father, grandfather, and great- grandfather had been rectors before him,

121

��dying in 1764, 1746, and 1714 respec- tively, and none of them left widows.

1 At Unstead ; Loseley MSS. (i Apr. 1586), vii, 29 B.

3 See Loseley MSS. (10 Apr. 1585), xii, 60. A letter from the council on the subject.

iv, 97. 4 See V.C.H. Surr. ii, 344-8..
 * Nat. Hiit. and Antij. ofSurr.(ed. 1718),

Surr. Arch. Coll. XT, 156.

16

�� �