Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/234

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

snowe, 11 and were held by the sheriff of the county, who received the profits and accounted for them to the public exchequer ; the lord might also call and keep a court leet in any of the townships or tithings in the hundreds which paid a common fine. The surveyors stated that they could not discover that a three-weekly court had ever been held for the hundreds, although they believed the lord thereof might hold one if he pleased.

��BETCHWORTH

��Becesworde (xi cent.), Beceswrde (xii cent.), Beches- worth (xiii cent.).

Betchworth is a parish midway between Dorking and Reigate, about 3 miles from each, 26 miles from London. It is bounded on the north by Mickleham, Headley, and Walton on the Hill, on the east by Buckland and Reigate, on the south by Leigh, on the west by Dorking. It measures 4 miles from north to south, and 2 miles from east to west, and contains 3,713 acres of land and 30 of water. It is traversed by the River Mole, which runs in a circuitous course from south-east to north- west ; and the Gadbrook, a tributary of the Mole, forms part of the southern boundary. It is, charac- teristically of all the parishes on the southern escarp- ment of the chalk, placed on the three soils, the northern part being on the summit and slope of the chalk downs, the central part with the old village and church being on the sands, and the southern part on the Wealden Clay. The chalk furnishes the chief industry. Chalkpits and limeworks have existed for time out of mind, and the very extensive works of the Dorking Grey Stone and Lime Company are in the parish, where lime is burnt and cement manufactured on a large scale. There are also brickyards in the parish, which is, however, mostly agricultural and residential. Gadbrook Common is to the south of the parish, and there is open down-land to the north, interspersed with plantations, Betchworth Clump, a group of beeches, standing up conspicuously on the crest of the chalk hill. The Duke's Grove is a fir plantation below Brockham Warren, planted by a Duke of Nor- folk. The road from Dorking to Reigate passes through the parish. A line of yew trees on the side of the chalk has been taken to mark an ancient way leading from the ford of the Mole along the downs, but if such existed the continuity has been interrupted by the chalkpits and limeworks. A lane coming from the south, and leading to a formerly existing wooden bridge over the Mole in Wonham Park, is called Pray Lane.

The Redhill and Reigate branch of the South Eastern Railway cuts the parish from east to west, and there is a station at Betchworth, opened in 1 849.

There seem to be no records of prehistoric remains in Betchworth. A palimpsest brass, with the arms of the Fitz Adrians, under-tenants of Brockham, on the reverse, was found in the church, and is now in the British Museum. Historically the manors have been transferred from one hundred to another. In Domes-

��day part of Betchworth was held with Thorncroft and counted with that manor in Copthorne. This is probably West Betchworth, now in Dorking parish and Wotton Hundred. Another manor, East Betchworth, with a church, was counted in Wotton Hundred. The transference of East Betchworth to Reigate before 1279 ' may be connected with its acquisition by the de Warennes, lords of Reigate. The tenants did villein service in Reigate, mowing a meadow called Friday's Mead.

The parish of Betchworth has become a favourite residential neighbourhood. Broome Park, south of the railway, is the property of Lady Louisa Fielding. The park comprises about 80 acres. It was formerly the residence of Sir Benjamin Brodie, the eminent doctor. The second baronet removed to Brockham Warren, formerly the seat of Mr. Mackley Brown. Broome Park was sold to General the Hon. Sir Percy R. B. Fielding after 1891. On the site was an old house, now absorbed in or superseded by later buildings. There was also a small house on another site called the Temple, now pulled down. A mantelpiece in the house is said to have been brought from it, and has the crest of Briscoe, a greyhound seizing a hare, upon it. The Old House, an 18th-century house on the east of the village street, is the seat of the Rev. Walter Earle. Captain Morris, of the Life Guards, well known in the latter part of the l8th and earlier igth century as a writer of convivial songs, lived in Betch- worth.

The inclosure award for Betchworth Common fields and waste is dated 30 April 1815, pursuant to the Act 52 Geo. Ill, cap. 60. The fields which lie north of the church and west of the village are still in fact open fields.

The inclosure award of Shellwood Manor * included waste in Betchworth parish, that is about Gadbrook Common. A conveyance of Wonham Manor, 1689, naming the Upper and Lower Great Field of 2 5 acres, and the Great South Field, 1 1 acres, seems to show open fields also in that manor, but when they were inclosed is unknown.

There was a parish school which was enlarged in 1850,' but existed before that date, supported partly by endowments from a Mr. Reynolds and the Duke of Norfolk. The present provided school was built in 1871 and enlarged in 1885.

Brockham Green is a district formed from Betch- worth, and made into an ecclesiastical parish in 1848. The village, clustered round the green, about I miles

��11 Undersnowe was a place between God- itone, Ozted, and Tandridge, where three ways meet, near the south-east corner of

��Rooksnest Park, in Tandridge Hun- dred.

1 Assize R. 877, m. 56.

1 66

��* xz Jan. 1854. See Blue Ek, Incl. Awards.

8 Return at Farnham.

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