Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/383

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��Nicholas de Plesey tried to establish a claim to the advowson, declaring that his great-grandfather Robert had given the benefice to a certain Bartholomew de Plesey, and that the advowson had passed with the manor to Robert's son John, and from John to Edmund, Nicholas's father. It was proved, however, that the last incumbent was there by the gift of the abbot, and the temporalities being for the moment in the king's hands, that the king ought to present." Nicholas, however, seems to have tried to assert his right in spite of this judgement, for the next entry in the index to the episcopal registers of Winchester shows that Nicholas actually did present to Headley, 58 while cer- tain officers were in this same year to arrest anyone who attempted to uphold the claims of de Plesey against the court's decision. 59 Immediately after the Dissolution the advowson was granted to Thomas Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster, 60 who seems to have ceded his right, as Henry VIII granted it in the same

��year, with the rest of the estates of the abbey of West- minster, to Andrew, Lord Windsor ; 6l and from this date, excepting a lease of the right to the Bishop of London in 1550 and 1553," the living has always been in the gift of the lords of the manor, 61 until the death of Colonel Bagot in 1881, after which the advowson passed into the possession of Mr. H. Thompson. 64 The present patron is Mr. H. St. John O. Thompson.

Headley Church was rated at 5 in the 1 3th cen- tury, 64 and in 1428 it was taxed for the same amount, paying a subsidy to the king of 6s. %d. w Under Henry VIII the total value was said to be 8 js. 6J." Smith's Charity is distributed as in CHARITIES other Surrey parishes.

There is also a small rent-charge of 4 izs. 2J. on the manorial estates, it is supposed in compensation for a right of cutting brushwood on certain waste, given in bread and coals.

��LETHERHEAD

��Leodride (x cent.) ; Leret (xi cent.) ; Lereda, Lerred (xii cent.) ; Ledred and Leddered (xiiicent.) ;Ledered afias Letherhed (xv cent.) ; Lethered and Letherhed (xvii and xviii cents.); Leatherhead (xix cent.).

Letherhead is a small town or large village 4 miles south-west of Epsom and 5 miles north of Dorking. The parish measures 4 miles from north-west to south-east, from z to ii miles across, and contains 3,48 1 acres. It lies across the Mole valley, and is traversed by the river in its southern part. The south-eastern part is on the chalk downs ; the village is at the foot of the Chalk and partly on the Thanet and Woolwich Beds, and the parish extends northwards on to the London Clay. The immediate valley of the river is alluvium. The clay rises at the northern extremity of the parish into an open common, with some wood on it, called Letherhead Common. The open grass-land on the downs has been partly inclosed, but there is still some on Letherhead Downs. The yew grows thickly on the chalk downs about Cherkley Court.

The village consisted originally of one long street, with a cross-street running down to the bridge over the Mole, but building has recently been extended in several directions, especially to the north and east. It is governed by an Urban District Council, under the Act of 1894, and is supplied with gas by a com- pany started in 1850 and incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1901, and with water by a company formed in 1883, the wells of which are in Fetcham. There are a brewery and brick and tile works ; the parish is otherwise agricultural. The main road from London to Horsham, through Epsom and Dorking, traverses the main street. The London and South Western Railway line from Wimbledon and Worcester Park had a terminus in Letherhead, opened in 1859.

��It had been intended to take this line on to Dorking, but it was never done by the original company. In 1867 the through-route by Epsom, Dorking, and Horsham to Portsmouth was completed by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company using part of the South Western line, but with a separate station at Letherhead. This route had been origi- nally surveyed for the first line to Brighton, which was to have gone through Shoreham Gap in the South Downs, but this plan was defeated chiefly through the exertions of Letherhead people and a Parliamentary counsel whose father lived at Thorn- croft. 1 The South Western Railway line was con- tinued to Guildford in 1887.

Neolithic flints have been found on Letherhead Downs, and British coins have also been found. 1 The Anglo-Saxon remains found at Fetcham (q.v.) lay close to Letherhead parish. Near Pach- evesham, not far from the Mole, in a wood by the side of a small stream is a rectangular inclosure of a single bank and ditch measuring about 80 yds. by 75 yds. At the nearest point of the Mole to this work there is a ford, by the side of Randall's Park. Stone ' pot-boilers ' are said to have been picked up in the square inclosure,* and the ordnance map records that Roman coins were found in the field south-west of it in 1859. Fragments of Roman tile are not at all uncommon in that and the adjoining field, and Pachevesham, now only a farm-house, gave its name to the Domesday manor, indicating that the chief settlement of the neighbourhood had been here by the road leading to the ford.

Part of the south-east of the parish is traversed by the Roman or British track across the downs, described under Mickleham, and near it on Letherhead Downs are two barrows, of which one to the west of the

��'" De Banco R. 360, m. 79 d.(23~24 Edw. Ill) ; Index Winton Epis. Reg. ; Egerton MSS. 2031-34, iii, 17. M Ibid.

69 Cal. Pat. 1348-50, 597.

80 Pat. 3 2 Hen. VIII, pt. vii ; L.andP. Hen. Vlll, xvi )5 o3(33).

L. and P. Hen. rill, xvii, 285 (18) : Harl. MS. 1880.

��ra Pat. 4 Edw. VI, pt iv, m. 16 ; I Mary, pt. iv, m. 16.

83 Feet of F. Surr. East. 9 Eliz. 5 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cclxiv, 17; ; cc, 60 ; Recov. R. Trin. Eliz. rot. 141 ; Inst. Bks. P.R.O. 1663, etc., etc.

M Clergy List, 1885.

Pope Nick. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 280.

293

��** Feud. Aids, v, 114.

7 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 39.

1 Family information.

'Evans, Coins, 83, 169.

8 Neolithic Man in North-east Surrey, 82, where the description of the site and of the parish in which it is are both erro- neous.

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