Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/99

 GODALMING HUNDRED

��had its head raised since Cracklow's view of 1823 was taken. In the eastern part of the same wall is a small piscina of 1250.

Both in the nave and chancel the roofs are mostly ancient, the timbers of black oak, very massive and in good preservation ; some of the beams are of unusual size for so small a building. There are some slight remains of plain 15th-century seats, worked in with new material, in the chancel.

The font is the original, a large circular tub-shaped block of hard Bargate stone, brownish-orange in colour, and quite plain save for a band of cheveron or arrow-head ornament incised round the rim, and a little lower down a projecting moulding of circular section, which may have served the practical purpose of giving a grip to the chain or rope by which this huge block was hoisted about between the quarry and the church. This font appears to belong to an early group in Surrey and Sussex, in which are comprised Tangmere (with a circular moulding), Alfold, Yapton and Walberton, the last two showing similar incised ornamentation to the rims.

Of the three bells one is mediaeval, with an unde- cipherable black-letter inscription, the others are modern.

Among the church plate is a cup of 166* and an old pewter plate.

The registers date from 1613, which leads to the inference that it was a separate parish in fact ; it had churchwardens of its own, but up to the middle of the i gth century it was usually held with Witley.'

��WITLEY

A chapel atThursley was taxed with Witley in 1291.* It is said to have been erected into a separate parish in

���THE FONT, THURSLEY

1838,* and the benefice is still in the gift of the vicar of Witley.

Henry Smith's Charity applies to CHARITIES Thursley. Moon's Money, a charity of unknown origin, was applied to the maintenance of the workhouse.

��WITLEY

��Witlei (xi cent.) ; Whitle or Witle (xiii cent, on- wards).

Witley is bounded on the west by Thursley, formerly a chapelry of the parish. It is rather over 6 miles from north to south, and 2 miles from east to west, tapering somewhat towards the south. It con- tains 7,210 acres of land, and 40 of water. The soil of most of the parish is the Lower Green Sand ; the south-eastern part is on the Atherfield and Wealden Clays. On the west side of the parish Witley Common is an extensive waste of heather, connected with Thursley Common and the waste land running thence up to Hindhead, all included in the manor of Witley. The escarpment of the Green Sand to the south is abrupt, affording fine views southward and east- ward, and the central parts of the parish are 300 ft. above the sea. The parish was divided into four tithings. Milford to the north, containing the hamlets of Milford and Mousehill, and now a separate ecclesias- tical parish, Ley or Lea in the centre, containing the hamlet of Wheeler Street; Stoatley ; and Birtley, which includes Witley Street and all the parish to the south. Witley Park was in the last.

The parish is intersected from north to south by the London and Portsmouth road, and in the same direction by the London and South Western Railway

��to Portsmouth. Milford station is in Witley, but Witley station is in Godalming parish.

Pinewood is the seat of Viscount Knutsford ; Rake of Archdeacon Potter ; Lea Park was the home oi the late Mr. Whitaker Wright. At the sale of this property in 1905, the manorial rights over part of the waste of Witley, including Thursley and part of Hindhead, were acquired by trustees for the Commons Preserva- tion Society. The principal landowners are Mr. Webb, Mrs. Francis E. Eastwood of Enton, Mr. E. A. Chandler, the Earl of Derby, and the various purchasers of the Lea estate.

The soil of Witley Common contains a considerable percentage of ferruginous sand. There were iron- works in the parish on Witley and Thursley Heaths, but the more important part of them was probably in the Thursley chapelry, now a separate parish. But iron was found also in Witley Park, in the clay. These ironworks seem to have been among the last which were kept open in Surrey. 1 They were working in 1767.

The social troubles of the year 1 549 led to riots in Witley among other places, dignified by an old in- habitant as ' the general rebellion in these parts,' when the pale of Witley Park was demolished. The rebellion was largely against inclosing of lands. 1

��8 Injt. Bks. (P.R.O.). < Pofe Nick. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 208. s Sumner, Comfectut of Dioc. of ffin- ton, 1 1 6.

��'Sec y.C.H. Surr. ii, 173, and Topley, Gtol. of the Weald, 134, for the valuable ferruginous land in Witley.


 * Mr. M. S. Giuseppi, in Surr. Arch.

61

��Coll. xviii, 17, quoting Exch. K.R. Spec. Com. 2244. The same insurrection is re- ferred to in a paper among the Loselcy MSS. now at P.R.O.

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