Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/283

 REIGATE HUNDRED

��LEIGH

���The extensive wastes of Shellwood Manor were inclosed under an award of 12 January 1854.' There is no evidence of common fields.

There are some good houses in the parish. Mynt- hurst is the property of Mr. Henry Bell, J.P. ; Den- shott (properly Dunshott), of Mr. Cecil Brodrick ; Burys Court of Mrs. Charrington ; Nalderswood of Mr. A. G. Fraser.

The present school (National) was founded in 1845. On 20 October 1 849 the Duke of Norfolk conveyed a site on the waste of Shellwood Manor to the National Society for the schoolhouse. It has been enlarged in 1872 and 1885.

The earliest records of SHELLWOOD MANORS show it to have been a member of the manor of Ewell ; it is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but was probably included in Ewell, which was ancient demesne of the Crown. In 1156 Henry II granted the manor of Ewell with its members of Kingswood and Shellwood to the Prior and convent of Merton, Surrey. 7 In 1324 John le Dene, one of the prior's tenants at Shell- wood, 8 received licence to build a chapel in the ' manor of Leigh." Shellwood was held by the prior until the surrender of the monastery in 1538.' In I 539 the king made a grant to Sir Thomas Nevile, for 400, of the manor of Shellwood with land called Dencland, Man- wood, and Fynchland, and tenements called Ryvesland and Hokesferm in Leigh, to hold for an annual rent of 3 ?' l\^-> ^h reversion to Sir Robert Southwell and Margaret his wife, daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Nevile, and Margaret's issue : the grantee was charged with a life annuity of 40^. granted by the late priory to James Skinner." In 1 547 Sir Robert Southwell and Margaret received licence to alienate to Henry Lechford, 1 * in whose family the manor remained until 1634," when Sir Richard Lechford, great-grandson of Henry, conveyed to Sir Garret Kempe and John Garnett. 14 They in the same year conveyed to Penning Alston and Spencer Vincent, trustees of Dr. Edward Alston, the estate being then charged with an annuity of jo to Mary, Lady Blount." It was sequestered for her delinquency in 1644; in 1651 the trustees complained that they had paid 40 per annum to the State ever since, and that though Lady Blount's term had expired, yet the sequestration of two-thirds was continued on a false pretext of the recusancy of Edward Cotton, the tenant." The latter seems, however, to have been a recusant, and petitioned to contract for his estate in January 1654." Later in the same year he, with the trustees of Edward Alston, conveyed Shellwood to George

��MERTON PRIORY. Or fretty azure with eagles argent at the crossings of

the frit.

��Browne of Spelmonden, Kent, 18 whose sons, Ambrose and John, both held after him."

Both died childless ; the survivor, John, who died in 1736, devised the property to Thomas Jordan, son of his sister Philippa. 10 Jordan also died without issue in 1750, his sisters Elizabeth Beaumont and Philippa Sharp were his co-heirs." Shellwood became the property of the Beaumonts, to whom John Sharp and Philippa quitclaimed their right in 1753." The manor descended to the son and grandson of Elizabeth Beaumont," and was sold in 1806 to the Duke of Norfolk." The present duke is now lord of the manor.

During the 1 3th and early 14th centuries the customs and services due from the men of Shellwood to the Prior of Merton seem to have been a constant subject of dispute. In 1223 Gilbert de Covelinden and others were summoned to answer to the prior for their refusal to do the services which he exacted of them for the tenements which they held of him, as he said, in villeinage. The men, however, denied all villeinage (defendant omne villenagiuni), and said they held freely. The prior maintained that the manor of Ewell, of which the lands of Fif hide and Shellwood were members, was held in villeinage, and demanded judgement as to whether the members of a manor could be freer than the chief holding. The men asked that an inquisition might be taken to discover what services and customs their ancestors had per- formed when first the lands came to the prior.* 5 An account of the inquiry, enrolled on a Curia Regis Roll for 1226, gives an interesting description of these services.* 6 The prior claimed that besides paying the ordinary rent of 5*. per virgate for their lands, every tenant should come in harvest time, with his entire household, exclusive of his wife and his shepherd, to the ' bedripe ' (the wheat harvest) of the lord, and should then be allowed two meals, the first with ale, the second without, that each man should assist in making a house called the ' Sumerhus,' or pay 6J. towards the same, at the choice of the prior, that they should cut down brushwood in the wood of Shellwood and bring it to Tadworth, and should inclose a rood of land around the court of Ewell, and that they should send a man of their household to till the fields of Ewell both in winter and in Lent, the prior finding them food. They also owed him pannage at the rate of one hog in every ten, or, if they had less than ten, \d. for every hog. No son or daughter of a tenant might marry without the prior's licence ; each man also owed Peter's pence \d. so long as his wife was alive, \d. after her death. Moreover the prior claimed that every man should come to the court of Ewell to make the court when summoned by the prior's bailiff. They were not allowed to sell ox or horse without the prior's leave, and the best ox in each man's possession, or horse if he had any, could be taken as a heriot by the prior

��Blue Bk. Inc. Awards.

I V.C.H. Surr. ii, 95 ; Cart. Antiq. U, 6 ; Plat, de Quo War. (Rec. Com.),

739-

8 Vidt infra.

Winton Dice. R. Stratford, 8*.

10 Maitland, BracKn's Note Bk. no. 1661 ; Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 325 ; Palor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 48. See note 7.

II L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiv (2), g. 651 (50).

3

��11 Pat. I Edw. VI, pt. viii, m. 15 ; Feet of F. Surr. Trin. t Edw. VI.

u Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cxlv, 13 j Feet of F. Surr. Hit 45 Eliz. ; Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), CCCMV, 195 ; Feet of F. Surr. Hil. 20 Jas. I.

14 Feet of F. Surr. Mich. 10 Chat. I.

u Cal. of Com. for Compounding, 2735.

"Ibid. "Ibid. 3179.

18 Feet of F. Surr. Trin. 1654 ; Berry, Surr. Gen. 81.

Ibid. ; Feet of F. Surr. Mich. I

209

��Jai. II ; Recov. R. Mich. I Jas. II, rot. 171.

20 Berry, Surr. Gen. 81 ; P.C.C. 124 Derby.

81 Berry, loc. cit.

M Feet, of F. Surr. Mich. 27 Geo. U.

M P.C.C. 400 Harrij j Recov. R. East. 12 Geo. Ill, rot. 260.


 * Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii.

K Maitland, Bracttm's Note Bk. no. 1 66 1.

10 Hen. Ill, m. 8.
 * Ibid, note 5 Cur. Reg. R. 94, Hil.

2?

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