Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/282

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��tion of the churches of Horley and Epsom made to Chertsey Abbey by the Bishop of Winchester and confirmed by the Crown in 1313,'" the concession being due to the decrease in the revenues of the monastery incidental to floods, to pestilence among the cattle, and to other misfortunes from which the Chertsey lands had lately suffered. 1 " Confirmation was also made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the abbot was inducted into the churches on St. Dun- stan's Day, 1313, by the Archdeacon of Surrey. 147 The church of Horley, surrendered with the manor in 1537,"* was granted with it (q.v.) to Sir Nicholas Carew, and has since followed the same descent, the present patrons and lay rectors being the governors of Christ's Hospital.

In 1316 the abbot purchased of Michael le Waps a certain messuage with garden, curtilage, and a croft

��of arable land which he assigned as a manse for the vicar of Horley. 149 Thomas Cowper of Horley, in his will, proved in March 1499, desired to be buried ' in the church of the Blessed Mary at Horley in the chapel of St. Katherine ' ; he bequeathed to the high altar zod., to each of the four lights in the same church 4</., and for two torches 1 3/. 4</. 1JO The early churchwardens' accounts of Horley contained frequent memoranda of sums received for St. Katherine's and St. Nicholas' lights in the church ; in 1518, for in- stance, 47/. was received for St. Katherine's light, kept by two of the married women of the parish, and 34/. %\J. for St. Nicholas' light, kept by two men. 1 " A will of 1534 records bequests to the lights of the Holy Cross and of the Blessed Mary in the church."* Smith's Charity is distributed as

i r L

in other Surrey parishes.

��LEIGH

��Leghe (xii cent.) ; Legh and Leygh (xiv. cent.) ; The Lea, 1499 ;' Lye and Lee (xvi cent.).

Leigh is a small village, 3 miles south-east of Reigate. The parish, which is of irregular form, is bounded on the north by Reigate, on the east by outlying portions of Buckland and Charlwood and by Horley, on the south by Horley and Newdigate, on the west by Capel, and on the north-west by Betch- worth. It measures about 3 miles west and east, by 2 miles north and south, but a tongue runs down south into Newdigate for nearly a mile further. It contains 3,412 acres.

The soil is Wealden Clay, with the exception of some sand and alluvium on the banks of the Mole and its tributaries, which traverse the parish. The Mole, running generally from east to west, bounds the parish on the north-east. Brooks flow into it from Charl- wood on the south and the Holmwood Common on the west.

The village consists only of a small cluster of houses about the green near the church ; there are cottages at Dawes Green to the west, and scattered farms and houses. Shellwood Mill stands on high ground, which was once Shellwood Common, but is now inclosed, and is that somewhat rare survival in these times, a working windmill.

The extensive commons formerly in Leigh have been inclosed, except Westwood Common and some road- side waste.

The roads of the parish are now as good and hard as any others, though liable to interruption in places by actual flood in a wet season. Formerly they were almost a byword, even in the Weald, for the impas- sable character of this deep clay after the rain of any autumn or winter.

Leigh is not named in Domesday, but was no doubt partly inhabited before that date. Shellwood Manor, which includes the greater part of it, was part of Ewell. Banstead Manor included Dunshot tithing in Leigh,

��Stumblehole, part of the Leigh Place estate, and other farms. The manors of East Betchworth and Reigate also extend into Leigh, both mentioned in the Domes- day Survey ; and Brockham and Charlwood, which were not manors in 1086, are partly in the parish.

Elizabethan coins have been found on the site of Shellwood Manor House, and the adjacent farm called Shellwood Manor is a good old gabled house of per- haps ijth-century origin.

At Shellwood Common in Leigh the last stand of the abortive Royalist insurrection of I August 1659 was made, but was overcome without fighting. The original rendezvous of the Royalists at Redhill had been occupied by troops beforehand, but a few men had apparently ridden on here, only to scatter when the soldiers appeared.*

Leigh was one of the parishes where the iron indus- try existed. It was among those excepted from the operation of the Act I Eliz. cap. 1 5 against conver- sion of timber of a certain size into charcoal for the purposes of iron smelting. During the 1 6th century ironworks existed at Leigh on lands 8 acres in extent, called Burgett and Grove Lands, a lease of which had been obtained in 1551 by George and Christopher Darell, who were engaged in developing the iron industry in this part of Surrey." Hammer Bridge in Leigh, on a branch of the Mole, above the village, commemorates perhaps a hammer of Mr. Darrell's works at Ewood in Newdigate, a little higher up the same stream. 4 In 1635 it was presented at the court baron that there had formerly been great woods, now cut down, of oak, beech, and other trees, in Shellwood, Westwood, Leigh Green, Dawes Green, and other places, where the tenants used to feed swine and had since pastured their cattle. 5 This felling of the woods must no doubt be associated with the iron- works, so that Darrell's preservation of his woods, referred to in the statute of 23 Elizabeth, cap. 5, had not been successfully imitated.

��145 Cal. Pat. 1307-13, p. 556; Exch. K.R. Mite. Bks. xxv, fol. 16 d.

" 6 Ibid. foL i6d., 17.

"7 Ibid. foL 18.

148 Feet of F. Div. Co. Trin. 29 Hen. VIII.

"'Lansd. MS. 455, foL 51 ; Cal

��Pat. 1317-21, p. 319; Coll. Tofog. and Gen. IT, chap, xviii, 164.

150 P.C.C. 39 Home.

lsl Surr. Arch. Coll. viii, 244.

s Ibid. 246.

1 Will of Richard Ardeme, P.C.C. 5 Moone,

208

��3 r.C.H. Surr. i, 423.

Surr. Arch. Coll. xvii, 30-1 ; f.C.H. Surr. ii, 263-4.

4 Ibid. 269.

1 80.
 * Manning and Bray, Hist, tf Surr. ii,

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