Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/244

 A, HISTORY OF SURREY

��BURSTOW

��Burstowe and Burghstowe (xiv cent.) ; Byrstowe (rv cent.) ; Brislowe (xvii cent.).

Burstow is a country parish on the Sussex border. The church is 7 miles south-east of Reigate, and about 2 miles south-south-east of Horley Junction. It is bounded on the north and east by Blechingley, pn the east by Home, on the south by the county of Sussex, on the west by Horley, a detached part of Home, and Nutfield. It measures about 6 miles from north to south, and is about I mile broad at the north and 2 miles at the southern part. It contains 4,750 acres. The soil is the Wealden Clay over most of the parish, but in the south-east where the ground rises to Copthorne Com- mon it is Hastings Sand. Across the northern part of the parish a ridge of higher land runs from east to west, formed by a bed of Paludina Limestone. It yields stone, usually called Sussex marble, which is susceptible of polish ; but, as is generally the case in the Surrey examples of this stone, it is too friable for architectural work. The parish as a whole is a typical Wealden parish, formerly thickly wooded with oak, which furnished the massive framework and rafters of the farms ; in the absence of building stone the houses were probably all oak-framed. The upper waters of the Mole drain Burstow, but on the eastern side the streams and ditches communicate with the upper Medway. No main road or railway is actually in the parish, for the main Brighton line and road pass to the west of it, the South Eastern line to the north of it. It is purely agricultural, with a few brick- fields. Copthorne Common is now inclosed in Burstow, though part of the common across the Sussex border in Worth parish is still open. Part of it is called Effingham Park, from an Effingham on the county border, but this has no connexion with the village of Effingham in Surrey. There is some open ground at Outwood Common. The village is not at all compact ; there are a few houses near the church, others are about Copthorne or Smallfield, or are scat- tered farms. The parish was formerly one of the seats of the iron industry in the Weald, which flourished about Copthorne, 1 though no forge or furnace of importance inthe 16th-century lists can be located exactly in Burstow parish. The name Blacksmith's Farm probably refers to a forge, and ornamental iron fire-dogs, fire-backs, &c., were till recently common in the farms and cottages.

There seem to be no records of prehistoric an- tiquities, though it is unlikely that such should not be found about the higher and drier soil of Copthorne ; but this part of Surrey has been much less thoroughly explored, archaeologically, than the west and north.

The antiquarian feature of the parish is the com- paratively large number of moated houses. Many of the older houses possessed this characteristic feature, as the abundance of water, and the retentive nature of the clay soil, made moats the natural defence ; the

��moats remain in whole or in part around several of them. Burstow Lodge is moated. On the west of Smallfield Place there appear to be the remains of a moat. Rede Hall is situated in the middle of a very large moated inclosure ; the old house has been lately rebuilt. Court Lodge Farm, just north of Burstow Church, shows traces of an extensive moat, and south of the church is a moated inclosure in which there is now no house, but which is probably the site of the old manor-house of Burstow Court, taken down in 1786.* Burstow Hall is the seat of Mr. D. M. Jack- son ; Smallfield Place of Mr. W. Leslie Moore ; Bur- stow Lodge of Mr. Lord John Sanger, the well-known owner of wild beasts ; The Gables, where there is a preparatory school, of Mr. E. C. Marsh. About Copthorne and Emngham a considerable number of modern houses have been built.

There was an Inclosure Award, 15 August 1855," inclosing waste at Copthorne and Burstow Common Fields. It is interesting as one of the rare appear- ances of any common fields in the Weald, and it may be noted that they were on a manor which was from its earliest mention attached to a manor (Wimbledon) in the old settled part of the county.

There are Baptist chapels at Burstow and at Fern- hill, and a mission room near Smallfield.

The school at Smallfield was built as a Church school in 1859, and added to in 1 86 1. A School Board was formed, which took it over in 1874.

Outwood is an ecclesiastical district formed from the parishes of Blechingley, Burstow, Horley, Home, and Nutfield (19 August 1870). The church is in Bur- stow parish, and the northern part of Burstow parish is included in the district.

The church (St. John the Baptist) was built in 1869. It is of stone in 13th-century style, with a tower. There is also a Baptist chapel built in 1879. The school, built in 1876, was under the Burstow School Board. Brightleigh is the seat of Miss Colling- wood ; Ashcroft of Mr. W. H. Maw ; Axeland Park of Mr. D. Wardlaw Wardlaw. Abbot's Hospital, Guildford, has land in Outwood.

No mention of Burstow occurs in the MANORS Domesday Survey, 4 but the manor appears to have been held as early as the reign of Richard I by a family who took their name from the land. Sir Edward Bysshe, a descendant of this family,* writing from the evidence of documents and seals in his possession, states that Stephen de Burstow, whose name appears in the seals as Stephen Fitz Hamo, held the manor in the latter part of the 1 2th century, and that he was succeeded by his son Roger and his grandson John, the latter holding during and prior to the reign of Henry III.* Of John de Burstow thre are other records. He made a grant of lands in Burstow about the year 1205.' In 1210-12 John de Burstow held half a

��V.C.H. Surr. ii, 272. 9 Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr, ii, 279.

Blue Bk. Incl. Awards.

fact that it was a part of Wimbledon which was then included in the manor of
 * This is probably accounted for by the

��Mortlake. The large number of pigs, 55, due from the pannage in Mortlake points to a large forest holding, perhaps in the Burstow Weald. The manor of Sutton in like manner had cubilia forcorum in Thunderfield in Horley parish in the Weald (Birch, Cart. Sax. iii, 470), and

I 7 6

��Banstead had its mill in the Weald at Leigh.

5 Sir Edward Bysshe, Clarenceux King- of-Arms.

6 Bysshe, Notae in JV. Uptontm. De Studio Militari, 67 (1654).

'Add. Chart. 7620.

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