Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/541

 GODLEY HUNDRED

��CHERTSEY

��window and at the south-east a small baptistery or chapel serving as an approach to the vestry ; this baptistery has a modern single-light east window, and in its south wall an old chalk piscina has been re-set ; it has a sixfoiled drain and a plain pointed and chamfered arch.

The roof of the chancel is gabled and has a modern panelled ceiling. The nave roof has an apparently old truss with a king post from which struts branch four ways. Over the west end is a modern wood bell-turret partly supported by wood posts from the floor to the nave ; it has two pointed lights in each side and is hung with oak shingles. Over it is an octagonal spire also covered with shingles. The aisle and other roofs are modern.

The font dates from the ijth century and is octagonal in plan with quatrefoil panelled sides to the bowl ; three of these panels contain heads of angels wear- ing diadems, and two others have plain shields, the other three inclosing paterae of foliage. The stem is panelled with two trefoiled sinkings on each face, and the base is moulded. The pulpit is six-sided and bears the initials and date RS 1 6 1 6 RS ; each face has two rectangular panels, the lower and larger one inclosing a lesser formed by a moulded rib.

Set in the north jamb of the chancel arch is a brass figure of a priest above the following inscription :

'Hie jacet Thorns Teylar rector ecclie pochialis de Biflete et unus canonicor' ecclesie cathedralis Lincoln qui quidfn Thorn's obiit. . . die mensis. . . A dfii millio cccc LXXX. . . cuius anime f piciet' De'.' The exact date of the death has never been filled in. The figure is dressed in a fur almuce, alb, and cassock. The stone slab from which the brass was taken still remains in the chancel floor.

Over the north doorway are the remains of a mural painting, apparently that of a seated king under a canopy, and the wall is covered with a masonry pattern of double red lines with flowers in each com- partment. This formerly covered the whole surface of the nave walls, and was revealed in 1853 ; the work is probably of early 14th-century date, and a little to the west of the doorway is also a painted consecration cross with expanded arms ; the masonry pattern seems to be painted over the cross, although probably nearly contemporary with it. Other instances

��of the painting over of consecration crosses in this manner have been noticed.

The three bells are modern, dating from 1853, the old tenor having been a mediaeval bell, inscribed ' Protege Virgo pia quos convoco Sancta Maria.'

The oldest piece of the Communion plate is a cup of 1 764 ; there are also two cups, two patens, and a flagon, all of silver, given in 1893.

In the register the baptisms begin in 1698, the marriages in 1755, and the burials in 1728.

There is a small iron mission church of St. John at Byfleet Corner.

The church of Byfleet was among JDVOWSON the possessions of the abbey of Chert- sey at the time of the Domesday Survey," and it so continued until after 1284, in which year Geoffrey de Lucy, who held Byfleet of the abbey, was patron of the church." Shortly after this, however, the church passed into the king's hands with the manor (q.v.). 73 From that time until the present the patronage has remained in the gift of the Crown." The living, a rectory, is now in the gift of the Lord Chancellor.

The chapel of Wisley was attached to Byfleet as early as 1535," presentation to the chapel being included in that made to Byfleet until after 1646.'" In 1648 George Bradshaw was appointed to Wisley alone.

The rectory of Byfleet was sequestered during the reign of Charles I. In June 1645 the wife of the rector, Hope Gifford, petitioned for aid towards the maintenance of herself and her children. A fifth part of all tithes due to the rector was ordered to be paid her by any person to whom the rectory might stand sequestered. Mr. Scuddamore, the person in question, refused, however, to do this, and in 1646 suffered sequestration himself on this account." Nevertheless Calamy gives him among the ejected ministers of 1662. The charities include Smith's, as in CHARITIES other Surrey parishes, also a sum of 11 i os. under the will of 'Lady Margaret Bruce,' probably Margaret daughter of the fourth Lord Balfour of Burleigh, who would have been Baroness Balfour of Burleigh but for the at- tainder in 1715 of her elder brother, whose heir she was. She died in 1769.

��CHERTSEY

��Cerotesege (earliest charters, ascribed to vii cent.) ; Certesia (in Latin of the same) ; Certesyg (xi cent.) ; Certeseye (xiii cent.) ; Chertesay (xiv cent.).

Chertsey is a market town on the Thames 9 miles from Windsor and about the same from Kingston. The parish is bounded on the north-west by Egham and Thorpe, on the north-east by the Thames between it and Middlesex, on the south-east by Weybridge, Byfleet, and Pyrford, on the south-west by Hcrsell and Chobham. It measures about 4 miles each way, being roughly quadrilateral. The north-eastern and eastern parts are on the gravel, sand and alluvium of the Thames Valley and of the Wey Valley. The

��old course of the Wey forms part of the eastern boun- dary, and the actual confluence of the Wey and the Thames is in Chertsey parish, not Weybridge. The Bourne Brook and the stream from Virginia Water which joins it flow through the parish to the Thames. The western and southern parts of the parish are on higher ground where the barren heaths of the Bagshot Sand begin, these stretching back to the commons of Woking and Chobham. Eminences of the Bag- shot Sand stand out above the river valleys also, the most striking being St. Anne's Hill, west-by-north of the town. It is only 240 ft. above the sea, but from its situation in the middle of the valley it commands fine

��V.C.H. Surr. i, 310*. 73 Chan. Inq. p.m. 12 Edw. I, no. 16. ' See Cal. Pat. 1317-21, p. 102. ^Ibid. 1381-5, pp. 306, 325,4"!

��1385-9, p. 145 i 1388-92, p. 121 ; 1399- 1401, p. 543 i 1422-9, pp. 5, 155, 388. Vide references to manor. last* Bki. (P.R.O.).

403

��?' Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 31. 7Inst. Bkfc (P.R.O.); Ldi. Jour*. (1648), 588.

fl Surr. Arch. Coll. ix, 248-9.

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