Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/333

 COPTHORNE HUNDRED

��ASHTEAD

��bezants, in dexter chief a canton argent with two embattled bars sable.

In the chancel floor are two small brass inscriptions, the first reading :

BODL.KI CONJUX, FROMOUNDI FILIA, CHRISTI SERVA SUB HIS SAXIS EL1ZABETHA JACET.

UNDER THIS STONE LIES ELIZABETH BEREFTE OF MORTALL LIFE,

CHRIST'S FAITHFULL SERVAUNT FROMOUND'S CHILD AND

BODLEY'S LOVING WYFE. DIED THE 2ND MARCH ANNO DNI

��The other brass is inscribed : HERE LVETH BURYED

THE BODYE OF JOHN BROWNE ESQUIER LATE SARGEANT OF HER MAJESTIES WOOD YEARD AND EDITH HIS LATE WIFE W CH EDITH DECEASED THE ... OF JULY 1$<)O.

There are several 18th-century and later gravestones. On the north wall of the chancel is a brass plate to Dorothy wife of Robert Quennell, ' Pastor of this church,' 1 640 ; and there are other monuments to Henry Newdigate, second son of John Newdigate of Harefield, Middlesex, 1629 ; William Duncomb, rector, 1698-9, and Philadelphia his wife, 1724-5 ; Lady Diana Fielding, daughter of the Earl of Bradford, 1733, and others.

There are eight bells by Mears and Stainbank, 1874.

None of the pieces of the Communion plate are of great age, the earliest being a standing paten of 1710 ;

��there are also a cup of 1847, a flagon of 1889, an almsdish of 1847, and a Victorian stand-paten with an illegible hallmark.

The first book of the registers contains baptisms from 1662 to 1698, and marriages and burials, 1662 to 1699 ; the second book has baptisms 1699 to 1784, marriages 1691 to 1754, and burials 1699 to 1783 ; the third contains the printed forms of marriages from 1754 to 1812; and the fourth continues the baptisms and burials from 1782 to 1812.

The church of Ashtead is men- ADVOWSON tioned in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas, where it is valued at 13 6j. 8</. a Theadvowson of the church belonged to the lord of the manor. From 1302, and probably before then, a vicar was presented by the rector, whose benefice in 1331 was endowed by the bishop with the small tithes. The last institution of a vicar appears to have taken place in 1482.** In 1291 the tithes were held by the executors of the will of William de Montfort, 85 to whom John de Montfort, his nephew and lord of the manor, had leased the manor of Ashtead. 86

In 1 543 Sir Edward Aston conveyed to the king the advowson of the church with the manor, 87 and in the various grants of the manor in this and the three following reigns the Crown always reserved the advowson ; ** but when James I granted to Thomas Earl of Arundel the manor of Ashtead he must have included the advowson, for the earl held it in 1624..**

���ASHTEAD CHURCH FROM THE SOUTH-EAST

��w Pof, Nieh. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 208. 85 fife Nicli. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 209.
 * 4 Manning and Bray, Surr. ii, 634.

��86 See Chan. Inq. p.m. 24 Edw. I, viii, m. zz ; 5 Eliz. pt. I, m. 46 ; 37 Eliz.

��no. 59

' Feet of F. Surr. Mich. 35 Hen. VIII. See Pat. 2 & 3 Philip and Mary, pt.

251

��pt. iv, m. ii.

89 Feet of F. Surr. Eatt. 22 Jas. I.

�� �