Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/298

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��NUTFIELD

��Notfelle (xi cent.) ; Notfeud, Nutfield and Not- feld (xiii cent.) ; Nutefeld and Nuttefeld (xiv cent.).

Nutfield is a village 3 J miles east of Reigate. The parish is bounded on the north by Gatton and Merst- ham, on the east by Blechingley and Burstow, on the south by a detached portion of (formerly) Horne, on the west by Horley and Reigate. It measures 5 miles from north to south, 2 miles from east to west in the northern part, and less than l mile in the southern part. It contains 3,576 acres.

The parish of Nutfield extends from the Upper Green Sand at the foot of'the chalk range, over the Gault, the outcrop of which is wider here than is usually the case in Surrey, the Lower Green Sand, and the Wealden Clay, which forms the soil of the lower half of the parish. On the ridge of the Lower Green Sand there is a considerable width of the sandy clay known as the Sandgate Beds. This is the soil in which fullers' earth is found. It is in Nutfield that this has been most extensively worked, but it occurs, more or less, wherever the Sandgate Beds can be traced, and can be followed from West Surrey to Maidstone ; its existence no doubt had a great deal to do with the formerly flourishing clothing trade of Surrey. The quality of the earth dug from the Nutfield pits, as well as the quantity, made them famous. 1 The in- dustry was formerly of great importance, though not now so considerable ; fullers' earth is still in demand however, owing to its peculiar properties in absorbing oil and grease. Pits are still worked in Nutfield parish, and close to the parish in Reigate. The Fullers' Earth Union, and the Surrey Fullers' Earth Company, are the principal proprietors.*

The village and church of Nutfield lie upon the Green Sand hill on the road between Blechingley and Reigate, which follows the top of the ridge, and a probably an ancient way. There is scarcely any open ground in the parish. A branch of the Mole traverses the southern part. The South Eastern Railway, Red- hill and Tunbridge branch, runs through the parish from east to west ; it was opened in 1 842, but the station, at South Nutfield, some distance from Nut- field village, was only opened twenty years ago.

The hamlet called Ham, 2 miles south-west of Nutfield village, was an outlying part of Blechingley, added to Nutfield in 1 894.*

The history of Nutfield, so far as it exists, is the his- tory of the fullers' earth industry. But in 1755 about 900 Roman brass coins of the later empire were found in an earthen vessel crushed by a wheel in the road between Nutfield and Ham. 4 As roads were usually mended with stone from the nearest quarter, the vessel was

��probably brought with the stone from the Upper Sand ridge.

No Inclosure Act or Award is known. When Manning and Bray wrote, 5 there was waste at Nut- field Marsh where certain tenants only had rights of common.

The ridge of the hill at Nutfield offers a pleasant situation for houses, of which there are several of a good character. Nutfield Court is the seat of Mr. J. T. Charlesworth ; Nutfield Priory, which stands in a park, of Mrs. Fielden ; Woolpits, where was an old house, of Mr. Frederick Scrutton ; Holmsdale House of Miss Sharwood. The Rev. E. Sandford, instituted in 1792, rebuilt the rectory ; it stands in a small park. At South Nutfield, nearer the railway, a large number of gentlemen's houses have been built of late years.

There is a cemetery under Parish Council manage- ment.

The school (national) was built in 1863.

South Nutfield, or Lower Nutfield, is an ecclesias- tical district in the middle part of the parish, near to and south of the railway. It was made an ecclesias- tical district in 1888. The church (Christ Church) consecrated in 1888, is in 13th-century style, in red brick, consisting of nave, chancel, and north porch, with a shingled belfry and spire. The church stands near the old hamlet of Ridge Green.

An infant school (Church of England) was opened in 1889.

The southern part of the parish is in the ecclesiasti- cal district of Outwood, formed in 1 870 (see Burstow). At the time of the Domesday Survey MANORS NUTFIELD was held of the king by Ida of Lorraine, wife of Count Eustace II of Boulogne. 6 Nutfield was afterwards held of the Crown as of the honour of Boulogne, 7 when that honour came to the king by forfeiture. 8 In the time of King Edward Ulwi had held Nutfield for 13$ hides ; it was afterwards assessed for 3, but its value had increased from 13 to \ 5.' There were I o serfs attached to the land, a somewhat large proportion. 10

During the reign of Henry I the manor was granted by the king, at the petition of the Countess Ida, to the priory of St. Wulmar at Boulogne." In 1195 Hubert de Anestie rendered account to the Ex- chequer of 16 for the farm of Nutfield, held of the abbot, and of 4 of that farm for the past year when the land was seized into the hands of the King of England because the abbot was of the land of the King of France. 1 * Hubert de Anestie, still living in 1211-12, when he held the lordship of Nutfield, 1 * left as heiress Denise, who married Warin de Mon- chensey." In 1246-7 the Abbot of St. Wulmar

��1 Topley, Geol. of the Weald, 1 30-3.


 * y.C.H.Surr. 11,279-80.

By Loc. GovL Bd. Order 31855.

4 Manning and Bray, Hitr. of Surr. ii, 266, and local information.

b Hist, of Surr. ii, 266.


 * y.C.H. Surr. i, 312/1, and note 5.

1 Vide infra ; Chan. Inq. p.m. Edw. II, file 34, no. 7.

8 After the death of William son of King Stephen in 1159 the honour was in diminio Regii j Pipe Roll 8 Hen. II, m. i d.

��See note 6.

��urr. i, 3i4,n. 2.

11 Cart. Antiq. A. 30.

"Pipe R. 7 Ric. I, m. 18 d.

"Red Bk. of Exch. (Rolls Ser.), 582.

14 Ibid. 500 ; Cal. of Chart. 1226-57, P- 288 ; Abbrcv. Plac. (Rec. Com.) 252. This Warin de Monchcnsey is stated, in the pedigrees, to have married Joan, sister of the Earl of Pembroke, by whom he had a daughter Joan. It is, however, quite evident from the documents above cited that he must have married, as his second

222

��wife, Denise who was the mother of his son William. A pedigree of the Mon- chenseys in Lansd. MS. 860, fol. 166, con- fuses this Denise de Anestie, who married into the family, with the Denise who married Hugh de Vere and who was really granddaughter of the first Denise. Hu- bert de Anestie's wife was also called Denise (Add. Chart. 24606), but it was certainly his daughter, not his widow, who married Warin de Monchensey. See also note on Holilond, infra.

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