Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/248

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��also made of two freehold tenements in Burstow which were included among the appurtenances of the manor. 104 Sophia Elizabeth Beard and her husband Richard Beard held the manor in i8oi, los and Mrs. Beard was still lady of the manor in 1808."* It was occupied as a farm throughout the igth century."" It is at present held by Mr. William Tebb. The house is surrounded by a broad moat inclosing a considerable area of ground.

The estate of SMALLFIELD in this parish be- longed in the 1 6th and lyth centuries to the family of Bysshe, who were said to be descended from the de Burstows, lords of the manor of Burstow in the 1 3th and 141)1 centuries, through the marriage of an heiress of the latter family with John Bysshe. They said that the Und had been given to their ancestor John de Burstow, who served under the Black Prince in the French wars, and who was promised a gift of some small field or piece of land in return for services rendered by him to Bartholomew Lord Burghersh. Land in Burstow called Crullinges was accordingly granted him, the name being changed to ' Smallfield ' to meet the terms of the promise. 108 The house, Smallfield Place, was erected there apparently in the i yth century 10 * by Edward Bysshe, a successful Chancery lawyer, the father of Sir Edward Bysshe. The latter, who was born there in 1615, was M.P. for Bleching- ley and also held the offices of Garter King-of-Arms and of Clarenceux King-of-Arms ; he was knighted in 1661," in which year he made addi- tions to the house, which bore that date. Manning states that part of the house was pulled down, the remainder being occupied in his time as a farm, and owned by Isaac Martin Rebow, M.P., of Colchester, who died in 1781."' His daughter Mary Hester married General Francis Slater, who took the name of Rebow and owned Smallfield Place when Brayley wrote, in 1841. He died in 1845. By a second wife he left a daughter Mary, -who married John Gurdon, who also took the name of Rebow. He died in 1870. His son was Hector John Gurdon Rebow, from whom Mr. William Leslie Moore, the present owner, bought Smallfield Place in 1898."'

The house, which had been only a farm, was

���BYSSHE. Or a cheve- ron betviten three roses gules.

��converted again into a gentleman's house by Mr. W. Leslie Moore. It is an interesting house of local sand- stone with a roof of Horsham slabs. With its three embattled and mullioned bay windows, its gabled porch, and the fireplaces, staircase, and panelling in the interior, it ranks, although but a fragment, among the more important remains of domestic architecture in Surrey. It has a good staircase and much old panelling in good preservation. 1 " On it are the initials E.M.B. and the arms assumed by Bysshe, a cheveron between three roses. The old Bysshe coat was Ermine a chief battled gules with three leopards' heads or therein. 114 During the ownership of the Rebow family the house was occupied as a farm by a family named Hooker, one of whom used to manage the Burstow Harriers before they became the Burstow Foxhounds.

The church of ST. BARTHOLOMEW

CHURCH consists of a chancel 30 ft. by 14 ft. with

a small vestry on the north side, a nave

38 ft. by 1 8 ft. with a south aisle 8 ft. 10 in. wide,

a timber west tower, and a south porch.

The plan of the nave, and probably that of the chancel, dates from c. 1120, and the north and part of the west walls of the nave, with the west half of the north wall of the chancel, are for the most part of this time. Two original windows remain, one in the chancel and one in the nave ; but nearly all the rest of the building, including the south aisle, belongs to the 1 5th century, and has been con- nected, though apparently on no direct evidence, with Archbishop Chicheley. The church was restored in 1884, the east wall of the aisle and the eastern quoins of the chancel being rebuilt.

The vestry and the south porch are modern addi- tions. The east window of the chancel is of 15th- century date, and has three cinquefoiled lights under a flat drop arch with moulded label. The eastern- most north window is a single trefoiled light, and the only other window in this wall is a narrow round- headed 12th-century light which now looks into the vestry.

Beneath the sill of the north-east window is a recess with two trefoiled openings separated by a mul- lion, and with moulded jambs and square head ; it has served as a cupboard, and possibly also for the Easter sepulchre. West of it is a modern doorway to the vestry, and near the west end of the north wall, in an unusual position, is another aumbry set low in the wall, with rebated jambs and a square head.

��P.P.C. Adderley, 393.

>< Feet of F. SUIT. Ea$t. 41 Geo. III.

106 Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. 11,284. 107 Directories of Surrey.

108 Bysshe, Notae in N. Ufttmem. De Studio Militari, 67, 1654; Surr. Arch. Coll. iii, 381. Aubrey (op. cit. iii, 7) disbelievei hii pedigree altogether, and says the family sprang from farmer* of the neighbourhood. That there was an ancient family of De Bysshe in Burstow, nd that Bysshe Court was a house there, perhaps bears out his suspicions, for it is not the same at SmallBeld Place. Wood (Atbcnae Oxonienses, ii, 483) is also severe upon Bysshe for inventing pedigrees. Aubrey says that the arms borne by him, and placed on his house, were not the ancient arms of De Bysshe. Wood adds

��that he fell into disgrace for falsifying heraldry and genealogies, and died very poor. There are many Bysshes, later on, living as farmers about or in Burstow. One of the family, however, kept a status as a gentleman, and was an ancestor of the poet Shelley.

Roger Bysshe

��Helen = John Shelley (co-heiress)

��Timothy Shelley 1 (b. 1700)

��Sir Bysshe Shelley (b. 1731)

ISO

��Sir Timothy Shelley

��Percy Bysshe Shelley

l<> V.C.H. Surr, ii, 480.

110 Diet. Nat. Biog.

in Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii, 185.

lu Private information. Mr. Isaac Martin Rebow, M.P., was son of Isaac Rebow, M.P., who died in 1734, and Mary Martin, and married his cousin Mary Martin. It a possible that the Martins bought from the son of Sir Ed- ward Bysshe, Clarenceux, who died poor.

" r.C.tf. Surr. ii, 480.

114 Cott. MS. Tib. D. 10.

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