Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/232

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��Edward de la Hale endowed the chapel with lands which in I $478 were valued at I zoi. 6J. a year. The chapel was suppressed in 1547," and the lands, chapel and chapel-house granted to Henry Polstede and William More. 80 The materials of the chapel were valued for sale. A pension of loot, was granted to the 'chantry priest,' Hamlet Slynn. 91 The inhabitants petitioned against the destruction of the chapel, and obtained its restoration to them for use as a church. 8 * In 1 560-1 a petition to the same effect was presented, reciting the former facts, and adding that the former priest was not then there. Elizabeth granted a perpetual payment of 3 (>s. 8^. from the Exchequer to the priest officiating at Okewood, which is still received. 81

In 1723 Sir John Evelyn, the patron, and Richard Miller, esq., gave 200 in aid of the endowment. In 1725 Dr. Godolphin, Dean of St. Paul's, and Sir Wil- liam Perkins of Chertsey, gave 100 each, and in 1741 Mr. Offley, rector of Abinger, left two farms to trustees for the repair of the building, the surplus to go to the curate in charge, provided that he held two services every Sunday." The conditions were not fulfilled in the latter part of the 1 8th century, when the services were very irregularly performed. A cottage near the chapel, called Chapel House, is the

��traditional home of the priest. But there was no later parsonage house till 1884, when the present vicarage was built by Lord Ashcombe. The ecclesi- astical parish of Okewood was formed in 1853 ol parts of the old parishes of Wotton, Abinger, and Ockley, upon the Sussex border. The chapel was in the outlying part of Wotton, which was united to Abinger civil parish in 1879.

In 1717 William Glanville, nephew CHARITIES to John Evelyn, left by will a rent- charge on a farm near Pul borough to provide 40;. each for five poor boys who, on the anniversary of his death, should attend at his tomb- stone in Wotton churchyard and repeat from memory the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Command- ments, read I Cor. xv., and write two verses of the same chapter. The two best performers receive in addition 10 each to apprentice them to some trade. Wotton boys under 1 6 years old have the first chance, but failing suitable claimants from Wotton, Shiere, Abinger, Cheam, Epsom, and Ashtead parishes, and the tithing of Westcote, Dorking have the next right of competing.

Smith's Charity is distributed as in other Surrey parishes.

��" By Act of I Edw. VI, cap. 14. 80 By Act of Pat. z Edw.VI, pt. i, m. 31. SI Exch. Anct. Misc. no. 82, m. 3, I Edw. VI.

��M Aug. Decrees, Misc. Bk. vol. 105, fol. 231.

39 Ezch. Memo. R. East. 3 Eliz. rat. 116.

��9< Paperj preserved at Okewood Vicar- age, formerly at Wotten House.

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