Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/612

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��crosslet with roundei ends to the base and a long stem. It is marginally inscribed in Lombardic characters : ' Sire Richard Le Petit ladis Persone de cest eiglise ici gist Receyve sa alme Isu christ.' It is of Sussex marble and is of mid -I 3th-century date.

On the south-east wall of the chancel are the remains of a painting of the same date as the vaulting. It is a portion of a representation of ' The adoration of the Lamb.' At the bottom is a crowned and cloaked figure playing a harp, probably one of the twenty- four elders ; above this is a tier of figures of the redeemed and then two tiers of angels, those in the lower tier playing musical instruments. In the last two cases and in the first only one figure remains, and only a few of the second-tier figures are left. On the one old pillar of the nave is painted a crucifix ; this is nearly obliterated. In the museum of the Surrey Archaeological Society at Guildford is preserved a sketch of a painting which was discovered in the nave altar recess which was destroyed in 1 866. It consisted of the bearded figure of an archbishop in mass vestments, before whom a knight in armour was kneeling. Over the head of the figure was the partly obliterated name of ' S. T [H] o M A s ' in Lombardic capitals.

In the window of the present tower are collected some fragments of old glass mainly of 15th-century date. Amongst others is the figure of an angel play- ing a fiddle, and also of St. Anne teaching the Virgin. There are also some old quarries painted with the ' bray ' or hemp-brake badge of the Brays in the modern screen between the chapel and the aisle. There are also some shields of arms, including those of the Dabernons ; Croyser impaling Daber-

��non; Norbury impaling Croyser ; Haleighwell impaling Norbury ; Bray impaling Haleighwell ; Lyfield impaling Bray ; Vincent impaling Lyfield ; Vincent ; Vincent impaling Paulet, &c. On an iron bracket in the chapel is a surcoat with a funeral helm.

There are three bells. The treble is by William Eldridge, 1687. The second was cast by Warner & Son in 1866. The third bears the initials i. s. and was probably cast by Joan Sturdy, c. 1450.

The church plate consists of a cup with cover, two patens, a flagon, and an alms basin, all electro plated.

The registers of baptisms and burials date from 1619, those of marriages from 1620.

There was a church on the ADVOWSQll manor at the time of the Domes- day Survey. 64 The advowson of the rectory went always with the manor" till 1746, when it was included with certain lands in a term of 500 years created by the marriage settlement of Sir Francis Vincent for raising portions for younger chil- dren. 56 When sold under that authority about thirty years later it was purchased by Paul Vaillant, a gentleman of a Huguenot family, Sheriff of London." He died in 1802, and in the following year it was sold by his executors, under the description of ' a neat house, thirty acres of glebe, and the great and small tithes of the parish,' to the Smith family,* 8 one of whom held the manor. It was acquired, with the manor, by the Rev. F. P. Phillips. His son, Mr. F. A. Phillips, held it until his death in 1908.

Smith's Charity is distributed as in CHARITIES other Surrey parishes. In 1786 land worth 3/. a year for the use of the poor, donor unknown, was returned.

��THAMES DITTON

��Ditone (xi cent.) ; Ditton-on-Thames (xv cent.).

Thames Ditton ' is a village on the banks of the Thames, a mile and a half from Kingston, of which it was once a chapelry, separated by Act of Parlia- ment in 1769. The parish measures 3 miles from north to south and about a mile and a half from east to west. It contains 2,964 acres of land and 17 of water. The greater part of the parish is on the gravel, sand, and alluvium of the Thames valley, the southern portion on the London clay. Ditton Marsh (that is March or boundary) is a common partly in the parish on the borders of Esher. The main line of the London and South Western Railway runs through the parish, and the branch line to Hampton Court separates from the main line in it. On this there is a Thames Ditton station.

Considerable finds of bronze implements have been made in the bed of the Thames and in the neighbour- hood of the Dittons, but it was not recorded precisely whether they were in Thames Ditton or Long Ditton parish, or in the bed of the river exactly opposite Thames Ditton and Kingston parishes.* The river drift has yielded evidence of considerable population in prehistoric times. A primitive canoe was found

��in the river a few years ago, but efforts to obtain it for the Kingston Museum have so far failed. Thames Ditton is now, with Esher and Long Ditton, an urban district, formed in iSg,. 3 There is an unusual amount of common land in the parish. The Inclosure Act of 1 799 * inclosing Walton and Walton Leigh (see Walton) included land in Ditton Marsh ; that for Kingston * and Imber Court Manor inclosed waste and 50 acres of common fields in Thames Ditton.

At Weston Green, south of the village, is the chapel of ease of St. Nicholas, a plain red-brick building constructed in 1901, on a site given by Mr. S. Went. A Congregational chapel was built in 1804, and restored in 1887. Mr. H. Speerofthe Manor House erected the drinking fountain in 1879 and the Village Hall in 1887.

Twenty years ago Thames Ditton was a pictur- esque small village, but the older houses are now rapidly disappearing to make room for small riverside villas and bungalows. There are, however, still some 1 6th- and 17th-century houses and cottages near the Manor House. The Swan Inn, next to the ferry, is well known to all lovers of the river and remains as it was in the days when the household of George II

��. Surr. i, 318*.

45 For references, ee above under the descent of the manor, and Inst. Bks. P.R.O. 1620, 1665, 1690, 1732.

66 Manning and Bray, Surr, ii, 726.

��WInst. Bks. P.R.O. 1801.

58 Braylejr, Hist. Surr. ii, 4.60.

1 Called also Ember-and-Weston (S.P. Dom. 1644, p. 6j),and Imber-Ditton (Recov. R. Trin. 8 Geo. Ill, rot. 310)

462

��from the names of two of its ma- nors.


 * V.C.H. Surr. i, 251-3.

Local Govt. Bd. Order no. 32638.

4 39-40 Geo. Ill, cap. 86,

6 48 Geo. Ill, cap. 134.

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