Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/215

 WOTTON HUNDRED

��OCKLEY

��Holebrook is a farm in Ockley. William le Latimer (vide Wotton), who died in 1327, held Holebrook in Ockley of Nicholas Malemayns by payment of ^oJ. a year."

ST. MARGARET is prettily situ- CHURCHES ated in a well-kept churchyard abutting upon the high road, and surrounded by some exceptionally fine trees. The site is level and low-lying, at some distance from the present village, and close to a patch of woodland. It must originally have been surrounded by woods.

The building is of sandstone and rubble, dug from the neighbouring hills, with a small admixture of clunch, or hard chalk. Before 1873 it consisted only of a nave about 40 ft. by 22 ft., and a short chancel 2 2 ft. wide by 1 9 ft. long, with a large tower, about 176. square internally, and a porch on the south of the nave ; but in that year it was enlarged by the addition of a spacious north aisle, with an arcade of pointed arches, and an organ-chamber and vestries on the north of the chancel, while the chancel itself was nearly doubled in length.

There is no trace in the walls of work earlier than the beginning of the 1 4th century, to which date the nave and chancel both originally belonged.

There are two windows at present in the south wall of the chancel, one of which, to the west, is partly ancient and indicates a date of about 1 300. It is of two lights, cinquefoiled, and has a trefoiled spherical triangle, inclosing a trefoil, in the head. In the eastern window, which may have been removed from the north wall at the enlargement, the latter figure has six foliations. The roof and all other features in the chancel are modern.

The south wall of the nave appears to be slightly later circa 1 3 20 and has two good buttresses and two well-proportioned traceried windows, each of two lights. The eastern of these retains the original net tracery, executed in local sandstone, but that to the west has been restored. Next to it eastward is the south entrance doorway, which is a plain example of the same date. It is approached through a most picturesque porch of open oak framework on a base of herringbone brick and timber. This has an arched opening to the front and two others on the sides, with arched braces inside, and the sides are partly filled in with a rail and turned balusters. The foliated barge- board is a restoration of that shown in Cracklow's view. Although probably not earlier than the first half of the 1 7th century, this porch retains all the spirit of the mediaeval carpentry in design and execu- tion. The framework is put together with projecting oak pins, and the roof, of somewhat flat pitch, retains its heavy stone healing.

The massive western tower is another instance of the clinging to a traditional style. It is rude Gothic of 1 700 that being the date, with the name WILLIAM BVTLER SEifc, inscribed on the slope of a but- tress on the west wall. William Butler was a leading parishioner, perhaps churchwarden, in 1 700. The builder was Edward Lucas. The parish account books give the date as 1 699, when the contract for building was signed. The heads of the twin open- ings in the upper stage and of those below are elliptical or obtusely pointed, while in the interior the arch of the nave and the blind arches in the other walls are pointed, but with classical mouldings

��and imposts. The present battlements were heigh- tened at the restoration of 1873..

There is a curious square-headed two-light window of diminutive proportions next to the buttresses at the south-east end of the nave. Its openings, though only 8 in. wide, are further protected by stanchions and cross-bars. Its height from the floor removes it from the class known as low side-windows, but it corresponds very curiously with similar openings at Send and Woking churches in Surrey, which also occur in the eastern part of the nave and in the neighbourhood of an altar. All are of late date (c. 1480 to 1520).

The nave roof is of early 14th-century date and retains its original moulded tie-beams and plates. That of the chancel is modern, but both are ' healed ' with Horsham slabs.

In the eastern window of c. 1320 in the south wall of the nave is preserved some good glass with crocketed canopy-work, borders, and grisaille quarries of coeval date. There are no old wall-paintings.

One or two ledgers with heraldry and some tablets of late 1 7th and early 18th-century dates remain in the tower, but with these exceptions the church is- remarkably destitute of ancient monuments.

The registers date from 1539. They and the parish account books (which commence in 1683) are very full, and contain many curious entries.

Besides modern pieces, the church plate includes a silver cup and paten of 1614 and a paten of 1716.

There are six bells, all dated 1701, hung in a good solid cage, which is of the same date.

St. John's Church on Ockley Green was consecrated

5 December 1872 by Bishop Wilberforce. It is a

plain building of stone, with pointed windows and a

bell-turret. The first reference to

ADrOWSON the church of Ockley is in the Taxatio

of Pope Nicholas, 1291.

In 1 293 the king presented to it on behalf of Nicholas Malemayns his ward. 30 The advowson re- mained with the manor until

1694 when Sir William Dun-

combe, at the same time that he sold the manor, sold the advow- son to John Constable of Ock- ley. Edward Bax, who bought the manor (q.v.), was a Quaker, and would not buy the advowson. Constable sold it in 1711 to Edward Bingdon of Dorking, who left it in 1719 in trust for his sons James and Edward. It was sold in 1724 for 1,000 to Clare Hall, Cambridge. 31 The College probably then knew nothing of the ancient ownership of Richard de Tonbridge, ancestor of their foundress. Smith's Charity is distributed as in CHARITIES other Surrey parishes.

In 1624 Mr. Henry Spooner left a rent-charge of IO/. a year to the poor of the parish.

In 1731 Mrs. Elizabeth Evershed left 100 to be invested in land to provide education 'according to the canons of the Church of England ' for poor children of the parish. With other benefactions of the late Mr. George Arbuthnot and the late Mr. Lee Steere, this provides an endowment of about a year for the schools.

���CLARE COLLEGE, CAM- BRIDGE. CLARE impaling DE BURGH all in a border table with drofi or.

��29 Chan. Inq. p.m. I Edw. Ill, no. 56. 3

��80 Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, p. 153

��33. M College Bks., communicated by the Matter.

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