Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/431

 EFFINGHAM HUNDRED

��GREAT BOOKHAM

���SLYFIILD. Gulrs a jesie engrailed argent be- fween three taltirei or.

��1582, by his will proved in 1590 directed his executors not to pull down or deface any manner of wainscot or glass in or about his house of Slyfield. 44 In 1598 Henry Slyfield his son died seised of the capital messuage, manor or farm called Slyfields, held of Sir William Howard as of his manor of Great Bookham, leaving a son and heir Edmund, 46 who in March 1614 sold the manor to Henry Breton and his heirs for the sum of 2,000.*' In November of the same year Henry Breton conveyed these premises, for the sum of 380, to George Shiers,* 8 who died in 1642 leaving his second son Robert his heir.*' George Shiers, son of Robert, was created a baronet 1684, and, dying unmarried in 1685, aged twenty- five, left his estates to his mother, Elizabeth Shiers, who died in 1 700, having devised this estate to Hugh Shortrudge, clerk in holy orders, 40 rector of Fetcham. The latter suffered a recovery in 1714, and in 1715 conveyed the estate to trustees for charitable uses, but chiefly for the benefit of Exeter College, Oxford, thereby carrying out an intention of Mrs. Elizabeth Shiers, who is commemorated at Exeter College, Oxford, as a benefactor.*' The pre- sent occupants of Slyfield Manor House are Mr. Ed- ward J. M. Gore and the Hon. Mrs. Gore.

Slyfield House is situated on the main road between

��Letherhead and Cobham on the banks of the Mole, and is near Stoke D'Abernon Church. It now con- sists of quite a small portion of the original house, which was quandrangular or ^-shaped in plan, the present dwelling-house representing about one-half of the south side, while the block which is now used as farm-buildings formed the north-east angle.

The arms of Shiers occur in two rooms of the house, while there is no in- stance of the Slyfield coat ; and there is nothing to suggest that any parts of the existing buildings arc earlier than the advent of the Shiers in 1614. The house is built of red brick, the south front being of two stories divided into bays by Ionic pilasters standing on high plinths, and running up to a moulded cornice under deep- projecting eaves with modil- lions, with a very picturesque effect. The pilasters have a considerable entasis, and at half height shields in slightly raised brickwork with lions' heads and fleurs de lis, a treatment recalling Inigo Jones's work on the west side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. The western part of this front has a curved brick gable, and the pilasters are differently treated, having simple moulded Tuscan capitals ; this was evidently the central feature of the front, the western half being now represented only by the lower part of its fa9ade

���SBIIM of Slyfield, baronet. Or a bend azure between a lion sa- ble and three oak leaves vert with three tcallops or on the bend.

�� ���SLVFIELD HOUSE, GREAT BOOKHAM

��Surr. Arcb. Coll. v, 45 ; vii, 61. 4(1 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. z), cell, no. 131.

7 Close, II Ja. I, pt. xxtY, no. 55 ;

��Recov. R. Eat. iz Jai. I, rot. 51 ; Feet of F. Surr. Mich, iz Ja. I.

"Feet of F. Surr. Hil. iz Ja. I ; Cloie, iz Ja. I, pt. xxxviii, m. 31.

3 2 9

��Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. z), d, 13 ; inscription in church.

40 Surr. Arch. Coll. vii, 61.

41 Manning and Bray,Hf. ofSurr.li,6<)Z.

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