Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/268

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��In the Taxation of Pope Nicholas and in Wykeham's Register the spiritualities of Chipstead were rated at 18 l$i. \d., the tithes being l ijs. 4</. 96 In 1428 the church was taxed at 2 1 6s. 8</. and paid a subsidy of l ijs. 4</. 9r Under Henry VIII the value was nearly the same, being 18 3/. 6J. ; 2s., however, was due yearly to the Bishop of Winchester and "js. 1\d. for the procurations of the archdeacon, reducing the net value to 1 7 1 3*. i o \d. Of this, the house and grounds

��were worth 30*.; the tithes of grain amounted to 9. and private baptisms brought in about 6s. Sd. yearly. 95 The commissioners of 1658 recommended the union of Chipstead and Kingswood in Ewell.

Smith's Charity is distributed as CHARITIES in other Surrey parishes. Christo- pher Shaw, embroiderer, who died 31 July 1618, and was buried at Chipstead, left an annual rent-charge of 1 6s. for the poor.

��GATTON

��Gatetune (x cent.) ; Gatone (xi cent.) ; Gatton (xii cent.).

Gatton is a small parish 2 miles north-east from Reigate. It is bounded on the north by Chipstead, on the east by Merstham, on the south by Reigate, and on the west by Kingswood in Ewell. It is on the crest and southern slope of the chalk downs, and extends southwards on to the Upper Green Sand and Gault. The church and such village as there is stand on the Green Sand. The parish measures about a mile from east to west, and a trifle more from north to south, and contains 1,200 acres of land and 32 of water. A tongue of the parish ran southwards, south of Merstham to the boundary of Nutfield, but was added to Merstham (q.v.) in 1899.

The situation of Gatton is highly picturesque. The upper part of the parish, on the chalk hills, is upwards of 700 ft. above the sea. A great part of the centre of the parish is taken up by Gatton Park, which covers 550 acres, nearly a half of the whole acreage. In it is the lake formed by damming up water from small springs which ultimately flow down to the Mole. There are two other ponds. The parish is very well wooded with various kinds of trees.

The village is represented by a small group of houses at the north-eastern gate of the park ; but there is no shop, no public-house, and now no school. There are five gentlemen's houses, one vacant, besides Gatton Park and the rectory, and one farm. There were undoubtedly other houses in the ground now covered by the park, but though Gatton was a borough there is no evidence that it was ever a place of any importance or of any large population.

The so-called town hall is an open portico supported on pillars in the pseudo-classical style, and may date from the i8th century, when the proprietor was usually the only voter. In it now is an urn 'in memory of the deceased borough.'

The same stone which is dug at Merstham is also found and worked in Gatton parish.

The road which skirts the north-eastern side of Gatton Park is apparently part of the old line of communication along the chalk downs, and the Ordnance map marks it as called in Gatton, 'The Pilgrims' Way.' This does not appear to be justified. The old way left the present road at a point near the north-east corner of the park and crossed the park to the present lodge, whence it continues still eastward to Merstham. The old line of road is clearly visible in the park. In the northern part of the parish

��British coins have been found, some way north of the old road. Close to the former school, much nearer the road and lodge entrance to the park just men- tioned, both British and Roman coins have been found. In the park, near Nutwood House, is an ancient well which has what is supposed to be Roman masonry round the upper part. Roman tiles have been picked up, and the late rector, Mr. Larken, had a bronze ring which he found in the park, which was said by the late Sir A. W. Franks of the British Museum to be part of Roman ornamental horse trappings, intended to hold two straps together. There is therefore reason to believe that Gatton was occupied during the Roman dominion in Britain.

Practically the whole of Gatton is the property of the lord of the manor. Upper Gatton, standing in a park, was formerly the capital mansion of a separate manor (see below). It is now the seat of Mr. Alfred Benson. Nutwood Lodge is the seat of Capt. Charles Francis Cracroft Jarvis. The house called Gatton Tower is used as the rectory. The old rectory near the church was pulled down by Sir James Cole- brooke, owner 175161, who also turned most of the glebe into the lake which he made, and altered the interior of the church, destroying all the old monu- ments. The Tower was originally what its name indicates, and probably built as a summer-house for the view on an eminence in the park, but has had a house attached to it.

There is now no school. The late Lord Oxenbridge supported a national school of about twenty children. It was started as an infant school about fifty years ago and made a mixed school about ten years later. It was his private property and sold with the estate. After the Act of 1902 it was discontinued. The few children attend Merstham or Chipstead School.

So far as can be judged from some- BOROUGH what scanty records there appear to be no traces of burgage tenure in Gatton before the middle of the l$th century, when it first sent two burgesses to Parliament, and subsequently there are no signs of a corporate community except in respect of the distinct Parlia- mentary representation of the ' borough.'

In 1086 the only tenants of the manor were 6 villeins and 3 bordars * and later extents do not show any peculiarity of tenure. The town inhabi- tants, numbering seventeen, were assessed in 1332 for a tenth as a town, instead of the fifteenth then levied from rural districts, 1 but the term ' borough ' was

��96 Pope Nick. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 207 ; Wykcham't Reg. i, 379. 7 Feud, Aids, ii, 114.
 * Vtlar Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 46.

��' V.C.H. Surr. i, 303.

9 Lay Subs. R. bdle. 184, no. 4, m. 3, ii. But the assessment is very low, 3 o;. 2</., less than rural parishes like

��Merstham, which was not of much greater size than Gatton and was assessed at

��196

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