Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/329

 COPTHORNE HUNDRED

��ASHTEAD

��ASHTEAD

��Stede (xi cent.), Akestede (xiii cent.), Ashstede (xiv cent.), Asshested (xv cent.).

Ashtead is a village 2 miles south-west from Epsom, a mile and a half north-east of Letherhead. The parish measures 3 miles from north-west to south-east, and rather under 2 miles from south-west to north-east, and contains 2,645 acres.

The parish lies in the normal way for parishes on the north side of the chalk downs, with one end upon the chalk, the village and church upon the narrow belt of the Woolwich and Thanet beds, and the other extremity reaching on to the London Clay, which rises in Ashtead Common to a height of 2 70 ft. On the common is a spring of the nature of the Epsom well. Here there is a large extent of open common and wood, but the open fields and open chalk land pastures at the south-eastern part of the parish have been inclosed.

The parish is mainly agricultural, but there are brickfields and special brick and tile manufactories at the Ashtead Brick Works in Barnett Lane. Messrs. Peto & Radford have electrical accumulator works, and Messrs. Cadett & Neall photographic dry-plate and paper works.

The road from Epsom to Letherhead passes through Ashtead, and the joint London and South Western Railway and London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Companies' line has a station at Ashtead opened by the London and South Western Railway Company in 1859.

On the top of Ashtead Common is a camp, or inclosure. Coarse hand-made pottery, calcined flints, and flint flakes occur in and near it. Round the church is a well-defined rectangular inclosure. In 1830, when the church was restored, a considerable number of Roman tiles and part of a hypocaust were found in the inclosure, with fragments of tile orna- mented with a raised pattern, and in one case figures of animals. The last is figured by Brayley. 1 The trackway or road across the downs, described under Mickleham, is about half a mile to the north-east. The rectangular inclosure, with these Roman remains, is worth comparison with the rectangular inclosure at Pachevesham described under Letherhead. The fields immediately outside it are called the Upper and the Lower Bury Fields.

Samuel Pepys records in his diary a visit to Ashtead, his ' old place of delight,' where he was obliged to stay owing to Epsom being too full to accommodate any more visitors. He found a lodging with a Farmer Page in a little room in which he could not stand upright. The house of a cousin of his, who had formerly lived in Ashtead, was then occupied by Mr. Rouse, called the Queen's Tailor.

In a map of the late 1 8th century, 8 Ashtead Com- mon Field is marked south of the church and south- east of the village. It was inclosed before the Tithe Commutation of 1836, but no Act or Award is known.

��1 Surr. iv, 396.

9 In the possession of Mr. H. E. Maiden.

Bishop Willis's Visitation, of that year.

��Ashtead Park, the seat of Mr. Pantia Ralli, is a house built late in the i8th century in place of the old house which stood rather nearer the church.

Ashtead Grange is the seat of Mr. W. T. Birts ; Forest Lodge of Mr. Augustus Meyers ; Caen Wood of Captain Warner. Many new houses are springing up about Ashtead.

Near the station is an extensive recreation ground, which is a favourite resort of schools and other parties from London during six months of the year. There is an institute and a working-men's club in the village.

The parish is supplied with gas by the Epsom Company, and with water by the Letherhead Company.

The chapel of ease of St. George, near the station, was built in 1905. It is a red brick building in the 13th-century style. There is also a Baptist chapel, which was built in 1895.

The old Rectory House at Lower Ashtead was replaced by the present house, the gift of Colonel Howard, in 1823. The rectory was enlarged in 184.5.

In 1725 Mr. David White, who had been a brick- layer of Ewell, left South Sea Annuities for the education of 8 poor children. A school was then started, the first in the parish. 3 The present school was built in 1853, at the cost of the Hon. Mrs. Howard, and enlarged in 1861, 1895, and 1900. Another school was built in 1906. They are both under the County Council.

A manor of ASHTEAD is mentioned

MANORS in Domesday : it had been held by

Turgis of Earl Harold, and after the

Conquest it became the property of the Bishop of

Bayeux, who granted it to his canons of Bayeux. 4 " 6

If this was the manor of Great Ashtead, the canons must have lost it before the end of the 1 3th century, 7 for it is then found as part of the honour of Reigate, being held of the Earls of Surrey in socage by the service of I mark. 8 It so continued for a century,* until in 1 397 Richard Earl of Surrey and Arundel, grandson of Edmund Earl of Arundel (who married Alice heiress of the Warennes Earls of Surrey), was attainted and beheaded, 10 and his estates passed to the Crown." Thomas son of the Earl of Arundel was restored to the title, but dying in 1415 without issue, his Warenne estates passed to his sisters and co-heirs. One of these, Elizabeth, had married Thomas Mowbray, created first Duke of Norfolk. Ashtead ultimately remained with the Mowbray family, until John fourth Earl of Norfolk dying (1475) without male issue, his estates passed to his only daughter Anne : she died childless in 1481, and her co-heirs were the representatives of her two great- aunts, the daughters of Thomas Mowbray, first Duke of Norfolk, and Elizabeth Arundel." The estates were divided, and the chief rent payable by the manor of Ashtead came to the Howards, Dukes of

��. Surr. i

" The tenure of the canons probably did not survive the forfeiture of Odo in

toSS.

> Chan. Inq. p.m. 14 EJw. I, no. $9. 247

��9 Ibid. 4] Edw. Ill, no. 19.

10 G.E.C. Pierage, i, 147.

11 Chan. Inq. p.m. z Hen. IV no. 46 " G.E.C. Peerage, v, 413.

�� �