Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/373

 COPTHORNE HUNDRED

��FETCH',

��Saxon burial has already been noticed ' at Hawks- hill in Fetcham. Since the publication of the earlier volume, however, additional remains have come to light. The earliest record is the finding of some twenty skeletons in 1758 when the road from Letherhead to Guildford was being first made as a really passable driving road. A small pike-head and some blades of knives were found with them. The remains were probably Anglo-Saxon. Other skeletons were found on the inclosing of the Common Fields in 1803.* Subsequent discoveries have been made which con- firm these, but also show more ancient remains at and about Hawkshill. In the year 1900 two hut circles were excavated on the lawn of Hawkshill House, under the supervision of Mr. Reginald Smith of the British Museum. The discoveries included bones of animals, fragments of hand-made pottery, burnt grains of wheat, oats, and barley, and loom weights of burnt clay. The pottery corresponded to fragments found elsewhere of the late Celtic period. Other pits seem to exist, and a larger ring was excavated in the meadow, but the ground had been ploughed formerly, and though traces of fire and a bone were found, the remains here had been scattered. When the house was built twenty years earlier some remains were found, but not properly observed or re- corded.* On the downs in the neighbourhood are some deep holes which seem to be collapsed dene-holes, as on Ranmore Common, but though in the neighbour- hood they are outside Fetcham parish. There used to be a barrow on Standard Hill near the Guildford road. 4 These late Celtic remains, of a period rather before the Roman Conquest, are distinct from the Anglo- Saxon burials, which indicate a considerable settlement in the neighbourhood. In these a bronze wheel- shaped ornament, an inlaid glass bead, a coin of Con- stantino, several small iron knives, and a small hand- made black vase were found. Many skeletons were unearthed when the house was built, others have since been discovered, and in laying down pipes by the road six more were found in 1906. The bodies lay with heads to west-by-south and south-west, and Mr. Smith attributes the burials to the 5th or 6th century. 6

The neighbourhood was probably continuously occupied, for subsequent in date to the Celtic huts there are Roman bricks in considerable quantities in Fetcham Church, remains of Anglo-Saxon architecture in the church, and a road coming from the north and crossing the Mole by a ford, which passes close by the small rectangular camp or inclosure near Pachevesham Farm in Letherhead, close by which Roman coins and bricks have been found. It may be noticed, how- ever, that Deadwoman's Lane, near Hawkshill, was named from a recent suicide, and that the skeleton found in a coffin farther along the road towards Bookham is recent, probably that of a criminal or suicide. Gallows Bush Shot was the name of a field abutting on the Guildford road.'

There were large common fields at Fetcham in- closed in 1 80 1. 7 There were then found to be 316

��acres of common arable, 26 of common meadow, and 330 waste. All was inclosed except part of the waste. (The award seems to be wrongly dated in Sir John Brunner's Return as in 1813. It was carried out in 1803.)

Fetcham Park, adjoining the church, is the seat of Mr. J. B. Hankey, J.P., lord of the manor ; Ballands Hall of Lieut.-Col. Sir F. S. Graham Moon, bart., son of the late rector, the Rev. Sir Edward Graham Moon ; and Hawkshill of Sir E. E. Blake, K.C.M.G.

Fetcham School was founded as a Church school in 1854, and passed under a School Board in 1883. The building was enlarged in 1886. There is also a reading-room in the village.

FETCH4M is mentioned in the MANORS Domesday Survey, when it was held as three manors by the king, Odo of Bayeux, and Oswold the Thegn. 8 The manor which the king held in 1086 had been the property of Edith widow of Edward the Confessor, 9 and in 1088-9 was bestowed upon William de Warenne with the rest of her late possessions. 10 In the 1 3th century a knight's fee in Fetcham is found to be held of the honour of Warenne." The holding was in the hands of John d'Abernon, a minor in ward of John de Gatesden, and the bishop's fee in Fetcham was in the same hands (see below). The two were con- sidered as one manor, and parts were said to be held of different lords. In the 151)1 century a fourth part of the manor was held of the Earls of Warenne and Surrey, and through Elizabeth, sister and co-heir of Thomas Earl of Surrey," the lordship passed to the Dukes of Norfolk. In 1476 John Duke of Nor- folk died seised of this fee, 13 and in 1553 this part of the manor is said to be held of Thomas Duke of Nor- folk, Edward Earl of Derby, and Henry Nevill first Lord Abergavenny " (to whom the Norfolk estates had come by partition) as of their manor of Reigate.

The second manor had been held by Biga of Edward the Confessor, and in 1086 was in the hands of Odo of Bayeux, the Conqueror's half-brother, of whom it was held by Richard de Tonbridge, lord of Clare, and ancestor of the Earls of Gloucester. 14 In the 1 3th century a fee in Fetcham is said to be held of the honour of Clare by John d'Abernon, 16 and in 1 3 14 the manor is included among the fees held of the same honour. 17 In the 1 5th century three parts of the manor are said to be held of the honour of Clare, 18 as a part of which it apparently became merged in the Crown on the accession of Edward IV.

At an early period the two manors appear to have been in- cluded in the estates of the d'Abernon family, and the bishop's manor was one of the

four knights' fees in Surrey held by the Earl of Glou- cester of which Ingelram d'Abernon died seised in

���D'ABERNON.

a che-vcron or.

��A-ZUIK

��l V.CM. Surr. i, 267.


 * Manning and Bray, Surr. i, 482.


 * Surr. Arch. Cull, xx, 119.

4 Manning and Bray, Surr. i, 482. ' Surr. Arch. Coll. loc. cit.

1 By Act of 41 Geo. Ill, cap. iz6.
 * Tablet of charities in the church.

��V.C.H. Surr. i, 297, 304, 327.

9 Ibid. 279, 297.

10 Ibid. 340.

u Titta dt Nevill (Rec. Com.), 2ZO4.

11 Chan. Inq. p.m. 3 Hen. V, no. 37 ; 6 Hen. V, no. 30 ; Feud. Aids, v, 125.

" Col. Inj. f.m. (Rec. Com.), iy, 313.

285

��14 Memo. R. Mich. 19 Eliz. rot. 87. " V.C.H. Surr. i, 304*. 18 Tata de Nevill (Rec. Com.), 219*. " Cal. Inj. p.m. (Rec. Com.), i, 266. 18 Chan. Inq. p.m. 3 Hen. V, no. 37 ; 6 Hen. V, no. 30 ; Feud. Aids, v, 12$.

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