Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/448

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��ASH

��Esche, Assche (xiii cent.) ; Asshe (xiv cent.).

Ash is a parish on the western border of the county, 36 miles south-west from London, 8 miles from Guildford, bounded on the north by Frimley, formerly part of the same parish, on the east by Pirbright and Worplesdon, on the south by Wan- borough and Scale, on the west by Aldershot in Hampshire. The shape is irregular, but the furthest extension west to east is over 4 miles, from north to south over 3 miles. The southern part of the parish, including St. Peter's Church and Ash village, is on the London Clay ; but the greater portion, once including Frimley, covers the western side of the ridge of Bagshot Sands, which is divided from Chob- ham Ridges by the dip through which the Basingstoke Canal and Railway run, and is known as Ash Common, Fox Hills, Claygate Common. The high land, largely covered by heather with plantations of conifers, slopes westward to the alluvium of the Blackwater River between Surrey and Hampshire. The parish is traversed by the road from Guildford to Aldershot ; by the Basingstoke Canal ; by the London and South Western Railway, with Ash Green station opened 1852 ; by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, with Ash station opened 1849, and Aider- shot North Camp station ; and by the Pirbright, Aldershot, and Farnham branch, 1879 ; and the Ascot, Frimley, and Aldershot North Camp branch, 1878.

The area of the parish is 6,292 acres, including the district of Wyke, formerly in Worplesdon, but added to Ash in 1880.'

The making of Aldershot Camp has revolutionized the whole of this neighbourhood. The camp itself is in Hampshire, but ranges have been established in Ash parish, and houses in connexion with the camp have turned what were desolate heaths into a succes- sion of straggling villages or even towns. Henley Park (q.v.) lies on the other side of the parish. It is one of the numerous parks formed in the Surrey bailiwick of Windsor Forest. Cobbett, the famous political and social reformer, farmed land at Nor- mandy in this parish.

Of prehistoric antiquities only a few neolithic implements, in the Surrey Archaeological Society's Museum at Guildford, have been recorded.

There was an Inclosure Act (Ash and Frimley), 1801, making large inclosures of waste, but reserving certain rights of fuel (turf) to the inhabitants.

There are Wesleyan and Congregational chapels in the village. There are also Wesleyan chapels in Ash Street and Normandy. Wyke is an ecclesiastical parish formed out of Ash, Worplesdon, and Wanborough in 1 847 (fide infra).

Henley Park is the seat of Sir Owen Roberts ; Normandy Park of Mr. P. G. Henriques, J.P.; Westwood House of Lieut.-Colonel Coussmaker.

Ash School (National) was built in 1835 ; Ash Vale School (also National) was built in 1860, and enlarged 1897; Wyke School (National) was built in 1874, and enlarged 1896.

The Victoria Hall was built in 1897 as a Jubilee Memorial. It is used for meetings and entertainments.

��Frimley, though formerly part of Ash, was in Godley Hundred, not in Woking, which justifies a presumption that it may have become the property of Chertsey Abbey at an earlier date than Ash.

The parish, separated from Ash in l 866, is bounded on the north-west by Berkshire, on the north-east by Windlesham, on the east by Chobham and Pirbright, on the south by Ash, on the west by Hampshire. It is 30 miles from London. It contains 7,800 acres, and measures 4 miles from north to south, and 3 miles from east to west. The parish covers the western side of Chobham Ridges, and extends down into the valley of the Blackwater, which bounds the county. The soil is, therefore, Bagshot sand and alluvium, with patches of gravel and large beds of peat. In the latter conifers and rhododendrons flourish exceedingly. The Heatherside Nurseries, where are some of the finest Wellingtonias in England, may be taken as the typical industry of the neigh- bourhood, which is otherwise a residential district, or occupied by those connected with Aldershot, the Staff College, which is in the parish, and Sandhurst which lies just outside it. A very great part of the parish was open land, heather-covered, before the Inclosure Act of 1801. Much of it is still uncultivated. The main road from London to Southampton crosses the northern part of the parish. It is substantially on the line of the Roman road. On the top of the hill, near the Golden Farmer Inn, named after a notorious highwayman, the road to Farnham branches south from it, and passes through Old Frimley village. The main line of the London and South Western Railway cuts the middle of the parish. The Ascot, Aldershot, and Farnham branch traverses it from north to south. The Basiagstoke Canal also passes through Frimley.

Palaeolithic flints have been found in the drift gravels on the hills, and a few neolithic implements at places unspecified in the parish. On the hill, near the southern end of Chobham Ridges, is a very large round barrow called Round Butt ; south of it Main- stone Hill probably preserves the name of the Standing Stone, which formed a boundary mark of Chobham in the early Chertsey charter. Dr. Stukeley, in his Itinerarium Curioium, records a Roman urn and coins as found here.

Frimley Manor House is the seat of Mrs. Burrell, Frimley Park of Mr. N. Spens, Watchetts of Mr. H. J. B. Hollings, Prior Place of Mr. F. H. Goldney.

The Royal Albert Orphan Asylum was built by subscription in 1864. It has about two hundred inmates, boys and girls. A farm is attached to it. Schools (National) were built in 1842, and enlarged in 1897.

The common fields were inclosed under an Act passed in 1826.

York Town with Camberley is a small town which has grown up on the road in the north- western part of Frimley parish, and increased owing to the proximity of the Military College, Sandhurst, over the Berkshire border, the Staff College at Cam- berley, and the Albert Asylum.

��1 Local Govt. Bd. Order no. 10925. 340

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