Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/195

 WOTTON HUNDRED

��DORKING

��In 1871 Mr. Charles Webb of Clapham was com- memorated by his family in the building of alms- houses for six aged couples.

Mr. Thomas Summers, of Horsham, left 100 in 1807, which was invested in 3 per cent, consols. The income provides bread for the poor (see Broking also). The vicar and churchwardens of Capel, who were trustees of Smith's and Summers' Charity, obtained leave from the Charity Commissioners to devote the funds to a more useful purpose, the bread having been distributed among a large number of

��people quite well able to provide for themselves, or given to the poor in such quantities that they could not consume it while it was good. All the bakers in the parish had to be employed, and the baker in Coldharbour (q.v.) sent bread three miles and a half to Capel, which was given to the Coldharbour people who had walked the same distance to receive it, and who carried it back to a hundred yards from where it was baked. The Parish Council, however, on becom- ing manager of parochial charities restored the bread dole.

��DORKING

��Dorchinges (xi cent.) ; Dorkinges (xiii cent.) ; Dorking (xviii cent.).

Dorking is a market town 23^ miles south-west of London, 1 2 miles east of Guildford. The market was claimed by the Earl of Warenne and Surrey in 1 278 as of immemorial antiquity. 1 The parish is bounded on the north by the two Bookhams and Mickleham, on the east by Betchworth, on the south by Capel, on the west by Wotton. It contains 1,329 acres of land and 10 of water, and is about 5 miles from north to south and 4 from east to west, but is slightly narrower towards the south. Capel, which lies south of it, was anciently part of the parish, and for the most part of the manor. The parish extends over the usual succession of soils in this part of Surrey. The northern part is on the chalk downs, partly capped by gravel and sand. The town and church are on the sand, the southern part is on the Wealden clay.

From the high chalk down about Denbies, and from Ranmore Common on the north-west border of the parish, the views are beautiful and extensive. Between the spectator and the steep side of Box Hill, immediately to the east, the transverse valley of the Mole runs through the chalk range. Southward lies Dorking in the valley between the chalk and the well- wooded sand hills, which rise to the fir-tree clad heights of Redlands Wood, and to Anstiebury and 1 Leith Hill beyond. The lower ground of the Weald, thickly wooded, extends south-eastwards, and the horizon is marked by the South Downs near Lewes. The boundary of the sand and the clay runs north and south for some way on the southern side of Dorking. The Redlands Woods are a steep sand ridge of north and south direction covered with fir trees, with a silver fir, Ia probably the tallest tree in the county, standing up above them all, while east of it extends the Holmwood Common, a high open common on the clay, thickly studded with hollies and furze bushes, with occasional houses dotted about it. The Glory Woods, a favourite resort of Dorking people, are on the sand hills nearer to the town. There is a small common close to the town called Cotmandene, formerly famous as the cricket ground where the great Dorking players, who did so much for the Surrey eleven, were trained. Caffyn, who first taught scientific cricket to the Australians, was one of them, and Jupp and the two Humphreys were among the last. Milton Heath is another com-

��mon west of Dorking. Towards the high ground of the Leith Hill range parts of Broad Moor, Cold- harbour Common, and the plantation called the Warren are in Dorking parish.

Dorking town consisted till recently of one long street, High Street, which bifurcated at the south- west end into West Street and South Street, the road to Guildford passing out of the former, that to Hors- ham out of the latter. In the last thirty or forty years a good deal of building has broadened out the town, as well as extended it at both ends.

The parish was divided into six tithings called Boroughs ; namely, East Borough, including West Betchworth, at the east end of the' town ; Chipping Borough, the body of the town, a name which justi- fies the Earl of Warenne's claim to an ancient market; Milton Borough, lying west ; Westcote Borough, still farther west and south-west ; Holmwood Borough, to the south ; and Walde or Wold or Wale Borough, farther south still, but now known as Capel parish, and distinct from Dorking.' But in the i.fth and 1 5th centuries, when Milton and Westcote were separate manors, both the views of frankpledge held in Dorking recognized the Chipping Borough, East Borough, Waldeborough, and Forreyn Borough only as tithings. 3 The names are the same in the view of frankpledge of 7 October 1597, but on 27 Sep- tember 1598 the names are changed to Chipping Borough, East Borough, Capel and Homewood Borough. The last therefore answers to Forreyn Borough, as also appears by local names in the latter tithing.

The town is administered as an urban district under the Local Government Act of 1894, which superseded a local board established in 1881. The Act of 1894 separated the urban district from Dorking rural parish, which is administered by a rural parish council.

The parish is almost entirely residential and agri- cultural. But there are lime works on the chalk, though not so extensive as those in neighbouring parishes, a little brick-making, water-mills (corn) at Pixham Mill, and timber and saw-mills.

Poultry rearing is an ancient pursuit of the neigh- bourhood, and the Dorking fowls with an extra claw are a well-known breed, which it is not necessary to derive from Roman introduction.

Sand of fine texture and often in veins of pink colour is also dug about Dorking, and some exten-

��1 Plot, de Qua War. (Rec. Com.), 745. la Dead in 1939.

1 Dorking Manorial Rolls, I4th, 151(1, nd 1 6th centuries panim. The first five

��boroughs were confirmed and denned by a County Council order, 26 July 1894, under the provisions of the Loc. Govt. Act, 56 & 57 Viet. cap. 73.

141

��e.g. View of frankpledge, 7 Oct. 1 6 Hen. VI, in Dorking Manorial Rolls.

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