Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/306

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��spandrels, and the arch springs from carved bunches of foliage on the doorposts, on the inner faces of which are three sunk quatrefoils, an unusual detail. The side bays are each divided into two trefoiled openings, with a quatrefoil over in the traceried pointed head of the bay ; the middle rail is moulded, and the plain boarding below it is modern in the south half of the screen. The muntins are all moulded : on the face of the northernmost is a short length of half-octagonal shaft with a moulded capital, from which sprang a vaulted cove below the loft ; on the moulded cornice stands a line of brattishing, but the rest of the loft has. as usual, been removed. The space above the screen was evidently once boarded, as in the soffit of the chancel arch is a row of square holes (now filled in) in which the uprights were fixed.

The font is dated 1665, but the octagonal panelled bowl is clearly some two centuries earlier, and the date doubtless records its return to the church after having been thrown out by Puritan fanatics in the time of the Commonwealth.

The hexagonal pulpit contains a number of early 16th-century linen-pattern panels in two tiers, one pair of panels being modern ; the framing of the pulpit appears to be modern also.

The middle window of the north aisle contains a few fragments of 15th-century glass in the two piercings over its middle light.

On the south wall of the chancel is a brass plate inscribed : ' Orate p' aiabz WillrGraffton qnda Clici hui' ecclesiae et Johe ux eius et JohiS filii eordm qor aiabz ppiciet deus am.' Above it is the figure of a man in a long cloak girt at the waist and with fur trim- ming ; his hands are clasped in prayer ; also a woman in long high-waisted gown and a loose head-dress hang- ing down behind her. Over the man is a shield charged with a cheveron, and over the woman one charged with a cheveron impaling a saltire. On the south wall of the south aisle is a small I "th-century brass with a Latin inscription to Edmund Moly- neux.

On the north wall of the chancel is a chalk panelled tablet to Charles Gillman, son of Anthony Gillman of Reigate. The date of his death was left blank, and has been roughly scratched in at a later date ' 1 3th April 1631.' The inscription finishes : 'as by y" monum' of y said Anthony in Reigat apears ' ; the shield over is charged with a leg cut off at the thigh, booted and spurred.

There are six bells ; the treble by Mears and Stain- bank, 1897 ; the second by William Eldridge, 1663 ; the third, Thomas Mears, 1793 ; the fourth, C. and G. Mears, 1848 ; the fifth and the tenor, Wm. El- dridge, 1662.

The oldest piece of the communion plate is a cup with a trumpet stem with the hall-mark of 1665 ; it has a cover dated 1 666 ; there is also a chalice and paten of 1 849. In the vestry are kept two wooden collecting boxes with handles, of the usual 17th- century type ; both have painted inscriptions,

��' Pray remember the poore,' with the name of the parish.

The registers date from 1558.

The Domesday Survey mentions ADVOWSON the existence of a church at Nut- field, 140 but no other early record of it is found. It was valued at 8 I z/. in the Taxatio of 1291."' It is not mentioned in the gift of the manor to the priory of St. Wulmar of Boulogne, nor in the surrender of the manor by the abbot to Warin de Monchensey, but there is nevertheless some reason for supposing that the advowson became the property of the priory and was retained after the surrender of the manor. John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, pre- sented to the church in I328, 14> and it is possible that he had received a grant of the advowson when the possessions of alien priories had been seized by the Crown some years before ; another advowson which he held in 1328 had come into his possession in that manner. 143 In 1337, at the beginning of the Hun- dred Years' War, the Sheriff of Surrey was ordered to restore church, goods and chattels to Giles de Fossato, parson of Nutfield Church, whose possessions had been seized because he was 'a native of the power of the king of France.' '" As a reason for this con- cession it was stated that the king had considered the poverty of Giles and wished to have compassion on him. 144

It is not evident how the advowson passed to the lord of the manor, but it had become his property by I363, 146 and was held by successive lords until the death, in 1466, of Nicholas Carew. 147 His son, who died shortly after, left, as has been shown, sisters and co-heirs who married into the families of Ewerby, Tropenell, and Twynyho, and each sister retained a third of the advowson. 148 The portions belonging to the two latter families descended with their respective shares of the manor (q.v.). 149 Of the latter property each of the two families afterwards held a complete moiety, which probably accounts for the fact that their shares of the advowson were con- stantly referred to as moieties also, though in reality they were thirds only. In 1 5 80 William Best pre- sented on a grant from William Charde and Elizabeth, one of the Tropenell heiresses. 144 These two thirds were finally conveyed to the Turner family in l6l9. 1M The third held by the Ewerbys passed to the family of St. John by the marriage of Joanna the daughter and heir of Sir John Ewerby with John St. John. 1 " The son of John and Joanna, also called John, 153 pre- sented to the church in 1 5 50, 164 and in 1 5 90 conveyed one moiety of his third to Henry Burton and the other to Walter Cole. 1 " In 1620 Walter Cole and William his son and heir sold their share to Sir Thomas Penruddock, Sir George Stoughton and George Duncombe, trustees of Ann, Dowager Countess of Arundel. 166 In 1626 presentation was made by Sir Julius Caesar by virtue of a grant made him by Burton and Cole, 157 presumably before the latter gave up his right in the advowson. The king presented by

��... Surr. i, 312*.

141 Pope Nich. Tax (Rec. Com.), 2o84.

1<a Egerton MS. 2032, fol. 67 (Winton Epis. Reg. Index) ; Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii, 274.

143 Cd. Pat. 1327-30, p. 315.

144 Cal. Close, 1337-9, P- " 6 - " Ibid.

148 Add. Chart. 23621.

��14 7 Vide manor of Nutfield ; Egerton MSS. 2033, 2034.

14 " Vidt infra.

Feet of Div. Co. 35 Hen. VIII ; Chan. Proc. (Ser. 2), xc, 10 ; East. 3 &4 Phil, and Mary ; Mich. 6 & 7 Eliz.

" Add. MS. 6167, fol. 317.

151 Feet of F. Surr. Trin. 17 Jas. I, 2.

152 Berry, Hants Gen. 230.

228

��158 Ibid.

1M Egerton MS. 2034, fol. 169 ; Man- ning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii, 274.

155 Feet of F. Surr. Trin. 32 Eliz.

156 Close, 1 8 Jas. I, pt. iii, no. 37 ; Feet of F. Surr. Trin. 18 Jas. I ; G.E.C. Peerage ; Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii, 509.

"7 Add. MS. 6167, fol. 317.

�� �