Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/708

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��gallery and replaced with smaller segmental-headed lights ; there was formerly a north doorway in the middle of the wall. The outer arch of the west porch is round, but the doorways through the tower are square-headed. The ceilings are flat and plastered.

The altar-table and font are modern ; and a modern screen spans the entrance to the chancel, within which are two large box-pews. The nave is also filled with box-pews, and there are north, west and south galleries. In the chancel on the north side is a large monument erected by Gregory Cole in 1624 to his father and his son, both named George. It formerly stood in the old south transept, which was probably built to contain it. The elder George married Frances Preston and had eight sons and five daughters, and Gregory married Jane Blighe and had three sons, George, buried in this tomb, Thomas, and Robert. The effigies of George and Frances Cole lie under a round arch flanked by Corinthian 1 columns, and in a small niche in the base is the figure of their grandson. Above are the arms of Cole quartering Argent three bends in a border engrailed gules. In the east spandrel of the arch are the arms of Preston : Argent two bars gules and a quarter gules with a cinquefoil or thereon ; and in the west spandrel Preston impaled by Cole. On the frieze are two other shields, one with the quartered coat of Cole and the other : Argent a fesse between two roundels sable in the chief and a martlet in the foot sable, a molet gules for difference impaling Cole, which records the marriage of Henry Lee of London with Elizabeth daughter of George and Frances Cole. On the south wall is a monument to Sir Thomas Jenner, kt., justice of the Common Pleas, 1706-7 ; and to Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart and Duchess of Lauderdale, 1697. There is one bell, by Brian Eldridge, 1620.

The communion plate comprises a silver-gilt cup of 1562, and silver cup and cover paten of 1570, two silver-gilt patens of 1663 and 1696, a silver paten of 1760, and a silver flagon 1740.

The registers begin in 1570, the first book (without its first leaf, which only survives as a copy) containing entries from 1574 to 1 68 1, the second continuing to 1716 ; the third is a copy of the other two made in 1698 and continued to 1786 for baptisms and burials, and 1756 for marriages. In the third book are entries that the church was built on the ' south side of the abbey ' (i.e. prob- ably a house belonging to Chertsey) in 1505, and that the ' chapell ' was ' new repaired and whitened and glazed in 1668.' The fourth book has marriages from 1756 to 1786, and the fifth marriages 1807 to 1812, the register of marriages between 1786 and 1 807 appearing to be lost ; the sixth has baptisms from 1786 to 1812, and the seventh burials for the sime period.

In the vestry is a photograph of a certificate, dated 30 July 1664, by Henry Bignell, minister, of the marriage of Prince Rupert to Lady Francesca Bard ; but the register contains no entry of such marriage.

The church stands to the north of the road below Richmond Hill, and is approached by a narrow passage.

On a site in the grounds of the former Bute House is the new church of ALL S4INTS, completed in 1909. It is a red brick and terra-cotta building of

��a Romanesque style, consisting of an apsidal chancel, nave with aisles, octagonal north baptistery, and a tall south-west tower with a pyramidal roof crowned by a figure of Christ. The altar is raised to a considerable height above the floor of the nave, and has a tall rere- dos and rood, and the baptistery has a tank for total immersion.

A church existed at Petersham at ADVQWSON the time of the Domesday Survey, and in 1 266 was appropriated to Merton Priory as a chapelry of Kingston. In this year an assignment was made for the endowment of a chaplain to celebrate divine service three times a week in the said chapel, namely, on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, and freely dispense there the sacrament of baptism, the prior and convent allowing him two quarters of white wheat, one quarter of barley, and one of oats, to be paid on the feast of All Saints, and saving the rights of the mother-church of Kingston ; whilst the parishioners of Petersham conceded, for the sustentation of the same chaplain, one bushel of wheat for every 10 acres, the whole amounting to 25^ bushels from 255 acres. 60

In 1553 David Vincent, a groom of the privy chamber (see manor), had a grant of land and tithes, including the site of the chapel of Petersham, with 1 3 quarters of wheat pertaining thereto." The appointment of the curate was found in 1658 to be in the hands of the vicar of Kingston ; a but from a note in the parish registers it appears that when the Rev. Henry Walker intimated his appoint- ment by the vicar to the Countess of Dysart in 1667, she claimed it as her right. She was, however, content to approve of Mr. Walker as curate.

The commissioners of 1658 recommended the union of Petersham with Ham and Hatch as a separate parish, but it was not done. Bishop Willis's Visitation Returns, 1725, say that Petersham chapel had been ' partly endowed ' by a Mr. Hatton and his family, probably the Mr. William Hatton of East Molesey who left an endowment to Thames Ditton (q.v.) in 1703. A Robert Hatton had also been Recorder of Kingston in 1638.

In 1769 Petersham was separated from Kingston by Act of Parliament and joined to Kew (q.v.),* 4 to which it remained attached until 1891, when, in accordance with the Kew and Petersham Vicarage Acts, it was separated therefrom. It is now a vicarage in the gift of the Crown. The rectorial tithe is held by the Earl of Dysart.

Almshouses for six persons were CHARITIES built in 1867 by Madame Tildesley de Bosset, who endowed them by will. George Cole in 1624 gave a small benefaction charged on land in Sudbrook Park for the poor, which was returned in 1894 as not paid since 1859.

Dr. Triplet's benefaction of 1668 for apprenticing children is partly shared by Petersham. The Poor's land or the Poor's Half-acre, a house, and some cottages, the rent of which is applied for general purposes of poor relief, were also given by him at the same date.

Smith's Charity is distributed as in other Surrey parishes. The whole are under one management by a scheme of the Charity Commissioners."

��Cott. MSS. Cleop. C. vii. 61 Actt ofP.C. 1552-4, p. 288.

��62 Lambeth MS. Certificate, fol. N. 6. (vol. 21). Farnham MSS.

��* 4 Stat. 9 Geo. Ill, cap. 65.

K Ret. to Surr. Co. Council (1894).

��532

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