Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/415

 COPTHORNE HUNDRED

��November 1661, he confirmed the possession of the school to trustees for the parish, and left 6 i 3/. \d. a year charged on land called Clarke's and Squire's Piece, for teaching four children. Mr. George Booth, who had acquired the land, left 100 by will, 31 December 1 68 1, to teach three more children. His executors obtained a decree in Chancery, February 1683, enabling them on the payment of 200 to free the land in Newdigate from the charge, and to acquire an estate called Scallow, in Worth, Sussex, which was to be held in trust for the purposes of the school. The master was elected by the parishioners. 86 In 1838 the school had become ruinous, and Mr. J. T. Broadwood of Lyne rebuilt it and endowed it with 200 more. In 1872 the present school building was erected.

The Rev. George Steere, founder of the school, was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1599, and appointed rector by King James in 1610. He copied out the earlier registers into the present book. In 1614 he repaired and ceiled the chancel at his

��WALTON-ON- THE-HILL

own cost, and in 1627 contributed to two new windows. He held the living through the Civil War, and was nominated a member of the Dorking Presby- terian Classis in 1648." He was buried 13 January 1662.""

He further, by his will, left an exhibition of 10 a year for a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, to be chosen by the incumbents of Newdigate, Ockley, Dorking, and Rusper from Newdigate, or, in default of a fit candidate, from a circle of 1 5 miles round Newdigate Church. The payment was charged upon an estate called Blackbrooks in Dorking, and Manning and Bray state that ' it continues to be paid when there is a claimant to it.' The late Rev. L. S. Kennedy, rector of Newdigate, made special inquiries after it, but in vain ; neither the Charity Commissioners nor Trinity College have any record or knowledge of it.

Modern charitable effort is exemplified by the establishment in Newdigate of a farm colony in con- nexion with the Church Army.

��WALTON-ON-THE-HILL

��Waltone (xi cent.) ; Wauton (xiii cent.), Waleton and Walleton (xiii and subsequent cents.).

Walton, called Walton-on-the-Hill to distinguish it from Walton-on-Thames, is a village 5 miles north- west of Reigate, 4$ miles south of Epsom, and a parish lying entirely upon the high ground on the top of the chalk hills. It measures over 3 miles from north to south, and I mile from east to west, being, roughly, a parallelogram. It contains 2,606 acres. The subsoil is chalk, but in the greater part of the parish the chalk is covered by brick earth, clay, and gravel.

The parish is agricultural, and like the neighbour- ing hill parishes, formerly fed large numbers of sheep.

Walton Heath is a large expanse of open land, 613 ft. above the sea at one point, much overgrown by gorse, and is continuous with Banstead Heath ; over it extend some training gallops. The situation is a very fine one, with bracing air and extensive views, and has been utilized for a golf club and links, which have more than a local celebrity. In the northern part of the parish Walton Downs are open land in continuation of Epsom Downs, and a small part of Epsom Racecourse is in Walton parish.

The road from Dorking to Croydon crosses the parish.

The village lies compactly round the church, at a height of 580 ft. above the sea.

In accordance with the practice in some other hill parishes, as Banstead (q.v.), land in the weald was attached to the manors in Walton. It is still so con- nected, and lies in Horley and Charlwood. No mill is mentioned in Domesday, but if there was one it was in the weald. There is no stream capable of turning the smallest mill in Walton parish ; the water is wholly derived from wells and ponds. The name Mere Pond, on the boundary of Walton and Banstead, may be noticed.

��This poor water supply, except at great expense and trouble of sinking deep wells, interfered no more with early settlement in the neighbour- hood than it did in Banstead and Headley. A few neolithic flakes and one knife have been found in the parish ; ' and there are consider- able Roman remains. In 1772 Mr. Barnes contri- buted to the Society of Antiquaries' a notice of discoveries of Roman remains on Walton Heath, about a mile west of the road from Reigate to London, and half a mile east of the pool called Pint- mere Pond. They included a small brass figure of Aesculapius, the memory of which is preserved in Walton as ' a golden image,' and tiles, a coin of Ves- pasian, and fragments of glass and metal. Further digging on the spot took place in 1808,* resulting in the discovery of part of the flue of a hypocaust and more tiles; and again, it is said, in 1864. The remains were surrounded by a rectangular inclosure, of which two sides are fairly perfect. At a point further south on the heath Roman coins have been found.

There are three more rectangular inclosures, which may fairly be mentioned here, as being connected in all probability with the settlement of which this villa was part, though they are actually over the border of Banstead parish. Two of these are south of the two windmills south of Tadworth. They are well-marked, nearly square inclosures, with a mound and ditch and gateways to the east or south-east. They are east of the road from Betchworth to Banstead. The third is west of the road, and very close to Walton village ; but though on land known commonly as Walton Heath, is actually on the Banstead side of the boun- dary. It is larger than the others, less well-preserved, and with a gateway to the north-west. Roman tiles may be found in or near all three. These inclosures have been commonly referred to as the ' Roman

��86 Local record! and Bishop Willis's Visitation Answers, 1725.

��87 Shaw, Church under the Commonwealth,

.433-

88 Registers.

3'5

��1 Neolithic Man in North-EaitSurrey,i 32.

8 Arch, ix, 108.

8 Manning and Bray, Surr. ii, 64$.

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