Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/620

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��heads and earthen vessels ' are said to have been found in them. fa

Mr. Samuel Dicker of Walton first built a wooden bridge, opened in 1750, at his own expense, obtaining an Act to enable him to do so and levy tolls. 7 In 1780 his nephew, Mr. Dicker Sanders, obtained another Act 8 to build a stone and brick bridge with additional tolls. The present iron bridge was opened in 1863, and is wholly in Shepperton parish. The story is that the river used to run (where it still runs in flood time) under the small arches on the Surrey side approach to the bridges. Probably the river has altered its course ; for, according to geologists, it used to run where the Broadwater in Oatlands Park is now.

In 1516 Henry VIII granted licence to Robert Nortriche and William Fleyter, constables, and the inhabitants of Walton on Thames, to hold a fair on

��William Lilly the astrologer, famous in his day, lived in Walton parish at Hersham. On his death in 1 68 1, he left his house to a son of Bulstrode White- locke, who had befriended him. John Bradshaw the regicide lived in Walton, in a house still partly pre- served. Admiral Sir George Rodney was born at Walton in 1718. His father Captain Rodney, and General Macartney, who killed the Duke of Hamilton, were both living in Walton in 1724.'*

The Inclosure Act in 1800 13 inclosed 3,1 17 acres of land in the Walton manors, including parts of Chertsey, and 475 acres of arable common fields.

In the village is a Wesleyan chapel of red brick with stone dressings, with a tower and spire, built in 1887. The Baptist chapel was built in 1901.

The Public Hall, in High Street, was built by Mrs. Sassoon in 1879.

���WALTON ON THAMES MANOR House

��Tuesday and Wednesday in Easter week and another on 3 and 4 October in each year. 9 In 1601 a complaint was made of the increase in the number of vagrants in Surrey ; it was reported that at the Easter week fair at Walton no less than eighteen such vagabonds assem- bled together, and were heard engaging in treasonable talk about the death of the Earl of Essex, 10 who had been beheaded for high treason a few weeks earlier.

The slopes of St. George's Hill were the scene of an interesting development of the Socialism of the 1 7th century, when a party of Levellers took possession of the ground in 1649 and began to cultivate it for roots and beans. They encroached upon the waste of the manor of Cobham, and the commoners rose against them and drove them away before the Commonwealth Government had had time to act, though Sir Thomas Fairfax as commander in chief had begun an interference which was as illegal as the acts of the Levellers themselves."

��The Metropolitan Convalescent Institution for patients from the London Hospitals was built on a site given by the Earl of Ellesmere in 1 840 and enlarged in 1862 and 1868. It accommodates 300 patients, and is supported by voluntary contributions. There is a public cemetery at Walton.

The Metropolitan Water Board have reservoirs in the parish.

A School Board was formed in 1878. A pre- viously existing school was enlarged in 1 88 1. The infant school was built in 1884.

Ashley Park is the seat of Mr. Joseph Sassoon, J.P. The estate was one of those annexed to the honour of Hampton Court by Act of Parliament," and the house was no doubt originally of about that date. It was of red brick, built in the form of an H. It was alienated by the Crown, and became the property of Christopher Villiers, Earl of Anglesey, brother to the first Villiers Duke of Buckingham. He died in 1624,

��6a J. Douglas, Naenia Brit. 94.

7 20 Geo. II, cap. 22.

8 20 Geo. Ill, cap. 32.

o L. and P. Hen. VIII, ii (i), 2278.

��10 Cecil MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.}, xi, 170.

11 See Whitelocke, Memoriah of English ' . 1,421-2.

��la Bishop Willis's Visit. 1724. 18 39-40 Geo. Ill, cap. 86. " 31 Hen. VIII, cap. 5.

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