Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/685

 KINGSTON HUNDRED

��LONG DITTON

��the Thames to the north. It is rather over 2 miles from north to south, less than a mile broad, and contains 896 acres of land. The parish is traversed by the road from Kingston to Guildford, and the main line of the London and South Western Railway runs through it. The soil is chiefly London clay, but to the north is Thames alluvial gravel and sand, and it contains two patches of Bagshot Sand in the southern part. Long Ditton gives one of the few examples in Surrey of an ancient church and village standing on the London Clay.

The parish is now agricultural and residential. A large number of small country houses and villas have been built in the parish during the last thirty years.

The only house of archaeological interest is the rectory, of which the greater part is half-timber, probably of the 1 6th century. The interior was re-arranged and refitted in the 1 8th century, and modern wings have been added. The original plan appears to have been of an L-shape, the main portion lying east and west, and the wing containing the kitchen, &c., being at the east end and projecting to the south. The main building had two rooms appar- ently, with large fireplaces as now; but an l8th- century stair has been inserted in the one, and the other has an 18th-century passage on its south side from the present stair hall to a doorway or to a wing now displaced by the modern drawing-room wing at the west end. The kitchen and another room filled the east wing, but the rooms there are now all more or less re-arranged, and a modern dining-room wing projects to the north at the same end. The south front of the main house has plain vertical uprights and curved brackets brought out in support of the overhanging first floor, which projects 2 ft. beyond the lower part. The window frames generally are of 1 8th-century insertion. The western third of this front has been modernized, a main post having been inserted before an 18th-century passage window, now blocked. The porch in the angle of the two wings appears to be as old as the rest, but has an 18th-cen- tury doorway ; the front over the porch also projects 2 ft. beyond the ground story. The front of the east wing is of one plane throughout ; the two ground-floor windows are ancient retaining their iron frames and old fasteners, but the upper win- dows have sash frames like the others. The back of the house (north front) is also all in one plane, and some of the old heavy posts reach from the floor to the eaves. There is an 18th-century moulded cornice of wood. The roofs are tiled. In one of the south windows of the first floor is some old stained and heraldic glass of several dates. There are also a man in the dress of the time of Charles I and four large diamond quarries with square flowers. In the garden to the north is a summer-house con- structed of some Elizabethan or early lyth-century woodwork. On the south side stands an ancient yew tree probably as old as the house.

The Manor House, Ditton Hill, is the residence of Baron O. E. von Ernsthausen ; Woodstock, Ditton Hill, of Mr. C. L. L. Smith.

A few industries are carried on in Long Ditton. Messrs. Barr & Sons' nurseries are partly included in

��it ; some barge building is carried on upon the Thames, and the Lambeth Water Works reservoirs are also partly in the parish.

A Primitive Methodist chapel was built in 1875, and in 1889 a mission hall for revival services. A workmen's club was established in 1883. The schools, National, were founded in 1840. The present schools were built in 1874.

Talworth is the eastern portion of Long Ditton parish, separated from the rest by Hook in Kingston. It is on the London Clay, and has an area of 1,193 acres. On the eastern borders is the Hogsmill Stream, which early in the igth-cen- tury here worked the Gunpowder Mills, commonly called Maiden Mills, of Mr. Taylor. The original powder mills of the Evelyns may have been on the same site. 1 According to Manning and Bray* Tal- worth always elected separate parochial officers. It is now ecclesiastically in Surbiton, to which it was annexed in 1876 ;itwas made a civil parish in 1895,* but is included in the Surbiton Urban District. Since the sale of the Earl of Egmont's property it has been covered with small houses.

There was an inclosure act for Talworth in 1 8 1 8, the award being made on 2 February 1820.* The manors had originally been all open fields.'

St. Matthew's National Schools were opened in 1 8 80.

The manor of LONG DITTON, which

MANORS under King Edward the Confessor was

held by Almar, in 1086 formed part of

the possessions of Richard de Tonbridge, of whom

it was held by Picot. The extent then included a

mill, and a rent of 500 herrings payable from a

house in Southwark. 7

The overlordship passed through Eleanor, sister and co-heir of Gilbert de Clare, who died in 1314,' to the Despensers.' Isabel, daughter of Thomas le Despenser, married Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, 10 and was the mother of Anne, wife of Sir Richard Nevill, the Kingmaker. In 1 474 the estates

����CLARE. Or

eheverons gules.

��thru

��DISPENSER. Argent quartered tvith gules fretty or a bend sable o-ver all.

����BIAUCHAMP. Gulei a Jesse betvaeen six cross- lett or.

��NEVILL. Gulet a sal-

��tire argent and a label gpbony argent and azure.

��> y.C.H. Surr.i's, 311, 317.

Hilt, of Surr. Hi, 1 5.

4 Local Govt. Bd. Order 32638.


 * Blue Bk. Incl. Awards.

��* Chan. Inq. Misc. file 103, no. 18. IV. CM. Surr. i, 317. ' See Chan. Inq. p.m. 8 Ed w. II, no. 68 (m. 65).

��Ibid. 23 Edw. Ill, pt. ii (ist noi.), no. 169 ; 49 Edw. Ill, pt. ii (lit nos.), no. 46.

10 See Chan. Inq. p.m. 18 Hen. VI, no. 3.

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