Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/223

 WOTTON HUNDRED

��WOTTON

��Abbot's Hospital, Guildford, is a poor oil painting of Wotton House from the north of about the same date. The Elizabethan house, apparently, was of brick, with tiled roofs pantiles in some cases mul- lioned windows, and tall stacks of chimneys. It was built in a rambling fashion with long ranges of stab- bling and outbuildings, including a dovecote. It was surrounded by a moat which was enlarged into a swan pool in the rear of the house, and the view of the garden front shows a low terrace wall following the moat, with some little summer-houses, a rustic temple, and a formal flower garden. There is also a large oriel window with a high leaded roof projecting over a stone entrance doorway, marked on the drawing, ' Hall dore to the Garden.' Among the many trea- sures in the present house is the Prayer Book used by Charles I on the scaffold. There are also the MSS. of John Evelyn and a Bible of three volumes filled with notes. In the library his large and curious col- lection of books remains, many of the bindings display- ing his device of intertwined palm, olive, and oak branches, with the motto, ' Omnia explorate, meliora retinete.' Kneller's fine half-length portrait of John Evelyn is in the drawing-room, together with his son and Mrs. Godolphin, his 'deare friend,' whose worthy life ' he has ' consecrated to posterity.'

There are several ancient houses of minor import- ance in the parish ; one with gables and stone-mul- lioned windows, set in an old-world garden at a corner of the high road, is specially noteworthy.

There was a mill at Wotton in the time of Domes- day, which reappeared among the possessions of William le Latimer in 1337. It does not seem to occur elsewhere. It was possibly on the site of the old disused mill-dam at Friday Street, or on the stream higher up, where an old dam, now cut, and former pond are visible. The mill (this or both these) at Wotton was afterwards used for manufac- turing purposes of different kinds.

The manor of GOSTERWOOD (Gostrode, xiv cent.) in Wotton should probably be identified with the hide of land in Wotton which was held by Corbelin of Richard de Tonbridge at the time of the Domesday Survey." In 1280 Nicholas Malemayns acquitted Henry de Somerbury of services which were exacted from him in connexion with his free tene- ment in Wotton." Henry died seised of this tene- ment in 1317, and it is recorded that he did suit for it at Nicholas Malemayn's court at Ockley.* 3 In 1337 another Henry de Somerbury, who died in that year, had this holding in his possession ; it then appears as ' Gostrode in the vill of Wotton.' "

From that time the material for the history of Gosterwood is scanty. In 1527 Robert Draper and Elizabeth his wife conveyed it to Henry Wyatt and others, and it is then for the first time called a manor." Richard Hill died seised of it" in 1550, leaving it to his son Edmund, who was still hold- ing it in 1 574," when he settled it on his wife Catherine Brown. This son Richard conveyed it in

��1593 to George Evelyn, in whose descendants it has remained.

LEITH HILL PLACE is in the outlying part of Ockley, which was inclosed in Wotton and added to this parish in 1879. ^ ' s traditionally the head of a manor, but this is erroneous. It stands in the manor of Wotton, and not in the manor of Ockley, as other outlying parts of the parish were.

The house was a gentleman's house of very con- siderable antiquity, to judge from the sketch of its old state furnished by Mr. Perrin to Manning and Bray's history. The sketch was dated 1700, and shows a 16th-century front upon probably an older house. There was a secret chamber in the wall, usually called a priest's hole, only accessible by a trap-door, but this has now been opened into the adjoining room.

The builder is unknown. The site of the house was originally called Welland, but Leith is mentioned among the properties which fenced Ockley churchyard in 1628. In 1664 Mrs. Mary Millett, widow, of Harrow, Middlesex, settled Leith Hill Place on herself for life, with remainder to Henry Best of Gray's Inn. Katherine daughter and heir of Henry Best married Henry Goddard of Richmond, co. York. In 1706 they sold to John Worsfold of Ockley, who sold it to Colonel Folliott,* 8 after- wards General Folliott, who was a justice of the peace resident in Ockley parish as early as 1728." He altered the house of Leith Hill Place to its pre- sent form. His admission as a tenant of Wotton Manor is not on record, as the court rolls are not complete so early. Two acres of the waste were granted to him in 1742. He died in 1748, his only child Susanna having died in 1743." In 1760 John Folliott, his heir, alienated Welland to Richard Hull, who built Leith Hill Tower in 1765, receiving a grant of the Tower and 4 acres of waste. 61 In 1777 Richard Hull alienated to Harry Thompson. 5 * In 1788 Thompson's heirs alienated to Philip W. Perrin, owner and resident at Parkhurst. During his ownership the house was let as a school. Mr. Perrin died in 1 824, and his heir was Sir Henry Fitzherbert, who sold in 1829 to John Smallpeice, who conveyed it in 1847 to Josiah Wedgwood, a descendant of the great Wedgwood and cousin and brother-in-law to Charles Darwin. His daughters Miss Wedgwood and Mrs. Vaughan Williams reside there now.

The reputed manor of ROOKHAM (Rokenham, xiv cent.) in the parishes of Ockley and Wotton may be connected with the grant of two crofts made by Thomas de Rokenham to his son John in 1314." These lands evidently passed to the Newtimber family in the same century, for in 1399 Robert Newtimber conveyed to trustees a messuage and two curtilages, with other lands and tenements at Rookham, which were said to have formerly belonged to John de Rokenham. 54 In 1418 the trustees of Thomas de Pinkhurst, whose family had held property in Rookham for some years, 55 released his lands to Robert Newtimber. 66

��y.C.H. Surr. i, 338*. Feet of F. Surr. 8 Edw. I, no. 10. 44 Ibid. 1 1 Edw. Ill (nt nos.), no. 39. Feet of F. Surr. Mil. 18 Hen. VIII. 48 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), rcii, 79. 48 Manning and Bray, Hitt. of Surr. in, App. clvi.
 * Chan. Inq. p.m. II Edw. II, no. 50.
 * 1 Recov. R. Hil. 17 Eliz.

��Ockley Pariih Bki.

40 Family tomb of General Folliott in Ockley churchyard and registers.

61 The inicription on the tower ayi 1766, but the grant of the tower is 1765.

w Richard Hull died 1772, aged eighty- three (inicription formerly visible in the tower), so this Richard was hii heir. Manning and Bray (loc. cit.) lay that

'57

��General Folliott's widow and Mary Har- loehis niece told to Richard Hull in 1754, and that Hull's heirs sold to Thompion in 1773. This it not compatible with the court roll, unless the site of the house had been separated from the manor. It is supposed now to be in the manor.

Add. Chart, gozi. M Ibid. 18687.

Ibid. 18654. " Ibid. 18702.

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