Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/554

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��cultivated ground ; the greater part of the land within it is probably not susceptible of cultivation except at great cost, and bears no marks of having been culti- vated. It forms a rough parallelogram with the corners towards the cardinal points ; the sides measure nearly 800 and 680 yards respectively, and it is not unlike the later form of Roman camp, but is not quite regular. One side has been cut into by cottages near the road.

A battery with embrasures for cannon, made in 1853, has been erroneously treated as an ancient fortification.

There are a few interesting old houses in the parish of Chobham. Unfortunately Chobham House is now only represented by a farm-house.

Brook Place, called Malt House on the old ordnance map, is a small, square, and picturesque 17th-century building, now a farm-house, situated about a mile to the west of Chobham village. It is built in red brick with tiled roofs, and two stories and an attic. The main front faces north towards the road, and has an ogee-shaped gable at its west portion, in which is a panel with the initials and date 'W B 1656.' A plain string divides the ground and first floors, and a moulded cornice and string the first and second. The windows are square with wood frames. On the south and east fronts are similar gables, but having no panels ; on the west a later timber-and-plaster wing has been added. From the front doorway (in the middle of the north front) is an original panelled screen with open turned balusters at the top, dividing the passage from the dairy east of it. The stairs are also old, having square newels with modern tops, and a plain moulded handrail, the space below the rails being filled with panelling. Two of the inside oak doors are good examples of the date. They have wide stiles or vertical boards joined by narrow V-shaped fillets. In one of the upper rooms is a fine cupboard of deal inlaid with oak panels, &c. Be- tween the two rooms occupying the western half of the plan is a very thick piece of walling, more than sufficient to contain the flues to the fireplaces open- ing into it. In 1648 this house was the property of Edward Bray, a descendant of the Shiere family, who paid composition for his estate as a Royalist. It belonged to the manor of Aden, but was not the manor-house.

Chobham Place is, as it now appears, a fine Georgian house standing on rising ground north of the village. The hall was part of a house of much older date, and the woodwork of the dining-room is late 1 7th-century. It is said by Manning and Bray ' to have been the seat of Mr. Antony Fenrother in Elizabeth's reign. His daughter Joan married Samuel Thomas, and their son Sir Anthony Thomas succeeded. 3 His grandson Gainsford Thomas died unmarried in 1721 and left it to his first cousin Mary, wife of Sir Anthony Abdy, bart. 4 It descended in that family till Sir William, seventh baronet, sold it in 1809. The purchaser, the Rev. Inigo William Jones, died very shortly afterwards, and it was sold to Sir Denis Le Marchant, bart. His son Sir Henry Denis Le Marchant is the present owner.

��Broadford is the residence of Sir Charles George Walpole ; Highams, formerly occupied by Lord Bagot, is now the seat of Mrs. Leschallas.

The old vicarage house was the butcher's shop next the churchyard. The present vicarage was built in 1811 by the Rev. Charles Jerram, vicar 1810-34. Mr. Jerram was a noted tutor whose pupils included the late Lord Teignmouth, Horace Mann, and W. T. Grant, brother to Lord Glenelg. Lord Teign- mouth's memoirs give a lively account of the secluded condition of Chobham in the early 1 9th century. He says that the small triangular plot between the churchyard and the White Hart Inn was the scene of a pig auction on Sunday mornings before service, the farmers adjourning to church.

Chobham Common was the scene of the first large military camp of exercise in England since the great French war. It was held in 1853, and was in fact the precursor of Aldershot. In 1901 a cross was erected in memory of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, on the spot where she had reviewed the troops on 21 June 1853.

An Inclosure Award was made in 1855,* but there are still several thousand acres of uninclosed land.

Chobham was divided into tithings, Stanners, Pentecost, and the Forest Tything, lying east, west, and north respectively, but the modern division u practically into hamlets. Of these, Valley End, to the west, is an ecclesiastical parish formed in 1868 from Chobham and Windlesham. West End, at the west side of Chobham village, is an ecclesiastical district formed in 1895. Lucas Green, Colony, and Fellow Green are in Chobham parish.

There are Wesleyan and Baptist chapels in the parish. Chobham Village Hall was built in 1887. The Gordon Boys' Home was built in 1885 as a memorial to Major-General Charles Gordon. The chapel was added in 1894 as a memorial of the late Duke of Clarence. The school maintains 240 boys, who are trained for civil, naval, or military life, according to their preference.

The schools (National) were built in 1814 and rebuilt in 1860 ; those at West End (National) were built in 1843, and the Valley End (National) schools by the Hon. Mrs. Bathurst in 1856.

CHOBHAM was granted to Chertsey MANORS Monastery by Frithwald, subregulus of Surrey and founder of the abbey, before 675.*' The grant was confirmed in 967 by King Edgar as ' v mansas apud Chabeham cum Busseleghe, cum Frensham et Fremeslye.' At the Domesday Survey its assessment was 10 hides, as it had been in King Edward's time, and it was still held by the abbey of Chertsey. Of this land, Odmus held 4 hides of the abbey, and Corbelin held 2 hides of the land of the villeins. The monks' part was valued at i 2 lot. and the homagers' part at 6os. In King Edward's time the whole manor had been worth 16.'

The manor of Chobham remained in the possession of the abbey until the surrender of the latter in 1 5 3 7,* when John Cordrey the abbot granted it to the king." The manor remained in the Crown for some time, during which the king kept it for his own use ;

��a Op. cit. iii, 196.

' Inscriptions in the church.

4 P.C.C. Will 118 Buckingham.


 * Blue Sit. Incl A-wardt.


 * Birch, Cart. Sax. i, 55.

��Ibid, iii, 470. 1 V.C.H. Surr. i, 3 10.

Cott. MS. Vitell. A. xiii ; Cart. Antiq. D. 10, 13, 14, 16, 18 ; Cat. of Chart. R. 1257-1300, p. 305 ; Chan. Inq. p.m. 39 Hen. Ill, no. 26 ; Popt Kich, Tax.

4U

��(Rec. Com.), 206 j Cat. Pat.

p. 53 ; falor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 56 ;

Dugdale, Man. i, 424 et seq.

Feet of F. Div. Co. Trin. 29 Hen. VIII.

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