Explanatory Note

 

The booklet from which this text is taken was written by Elisabeth Lane in 1958, just six years after the formation of Horley Local History Society of which Elisabeth was a founding member. The Society had existed, for some years previously, as the Horley Local History Association.

Elisabeth Lane, although a resident of Charlwood, developed a passion for Horley history which was matched by her great friend and colleague, Os Brown.  These two people, together with Jean Shelley, more than any others, are responsible for the bulk of the early research into Horley’s local history and we owe them a huge debt of thanks.

The text is reproduced exactly as it was written so it is possible that some names or locational descriptions may now be outdated, nevertheless I am sure that whilst being read by anyone familiar with Horley this will not cause any difficulties.  Because of the difficulties of reproducing precise pagination the page numbers of the original booklet are shown in the online text at the commencement of each page thus {25}.

A few years after this booklet was published, Elisabeth wrote another booklet entitled ‘Horley, It’s Church and it’s People’ and we hope to bring this to our online archive very soon.

The gentleman who wrote the Introduction to this booklet, Col. D Macleod, was Chairman of HLHS at that time.

This document was uploaded to our website in May 2024 and copyright is held by HLHS.

Doug Cox

May 2024

EARLY DAYS

IN HORLEY, SIDLOW AND

SALFORDS

ELISABETH LANE

1958

{2} THESE NOTES make no pretension to being a formal treatise on Horley. They aim only at giving a little of the early history of the roads, houses and other places of interest in the parish, including Salfords and Sidlow. As, however, much new information has lately come to light in the Court Rolls of the manor of Horley and the Church Wardens’ Accounts, which is not to be found in the older histories, I think they may be of interest to many in the neighbourhood.

The history of the Church is not included. This will follow as a separate part, and it is hoped that others will write of Horley in the later days of coaches, the railway, motor cars and aeroplanes.

I should like to thank the Monotype Corporation for most generous financial help, Mrs. Murray for her typing, and the Horley Local History Association for their support and encouragement.

ELISABETH LANE

June1958                                                                                                                           

 The design on the cover is a reproduction of the arms of the Salaman family. a double-headed eagle charged on the breast with a leopard’s head. It is taken from the shield of the effigy of a knight who lies in Horley Church. The Salaman’s held land at Langshott in the fourteenth century.

Introduction

{3} THE GROWTH of Horley resembles that of many a parish eventually invaded by main roads and the railway. Beginning as forest, and a wet forest at that, with all the headwaters of the Mole to keep it moist, a few clearings were made here and there by the Britons. When the Saxons came more land was cleared, and it may be that the Saxon settlements laid the foundations of Horley as we know it today, perhaps along Lodge Lane, about Sidlow, Bonehurst Street, Vicarage Lane, Lee Street, Horley Row and Horley Street, and in the Haroldslea—Thunderfield area, where the Saxon place of heathen worship is thought to have been. The name Thunderfield seems to be older than Horley, and it may be worthwhile remembering that, if the first grant of Horley land to the Abbey of Chertsey was made under the name of Thunderfield, the Saxon place of worship may have been on the site of the parish church itself.

The pages which follow this introduction will have much to tell of the manors with which the parish was concerned. As regards the manor of Horley itself there can be few manors in England which have experienced so rarely a change in their lords, for the land of Horley was granted many generations before the Norman Conquest to the Abbot and Convent of Chertsey, who held it as a manor until the Dissolution of the great monasteries in 1539. It then passed into the hands of the Crown and, after King Henry VIll had granted it to a new lord, it passed through a few private hands before being bought in 1602 by that great charitable institution founded in the City of London by King Edward VI, Christ’s Hospital. Most of the Hospital’s Horley lands have now been sold, but the manorial rights were retained.

The coming of the Normans can have made little difference to the people of Horley, except perhaps in more strict manorial control, and in the building or rebuilding of the parish church. Part of the existing fabric appears to have been connected with an earlier church, and though nothing is known of a church in Horley before Norman times, that goes no way to prove that there was not a wooden church of Saxon date long before a Norman had set foot in the parish.

As the centuries passed by the parish no doubt shared in the slow increase in the population of the country. Gradually roads were improved, bridges were built and rebuilt, farming methods changed, more land was enclosed here and there, until, by Tudor times, the parish would have been recognisable in its main features to a parishioner of fifty years ago. Except in one particular: the Common.

Known at various times as Horne Common, Thunderfield Common, Horley Common and Horley Heath, it stretched from the Chequers almost to Edgeworth, from Vicarage Lane to near Wilgers {4} Farm, a waste of thorns, bracken, rough pasture and wet places unbroken in its extent except for a few enclosures such as Inholms, Clerk’s Land, and a pair of cottages near the Empire Hall.

Turnpike roads and the arrival of the coaching era can hardly have influenced the manner of life in Horley to any great extent. No doubt an extra hostler or two were taken on at the King’s Head or the Chequers, more horses were kept for posting purposes, there was more trade for the blacksmith and the saddler, and the wheelwright may have found it worth his while to stock a few spare wheels; but the traffic passing through the parish was making for the more important centres and can have had little local effect.

The railway made more changes, but few enough at first. A sprinkling of Victorian villas appeared and are still with us, but there were not enough to change the character of the parish. Much more drastic changes were brought about by the enclosure of the commons. Heaverswood Common had already disappeared when the turn of Horley Common came to be divided into fields, and so like many others it vanished. Uncontrolled overstocking with cattle had rendered it a waste of trampled clay, undrained, waterlogged in winter, with little enough of the poorest grazing in summer. Its enclosure brought much more land under cultivation and eventually gave the speculative builder his opportunity, and this developed into a harvest when it was realized that improving railway services made it possible to live in Horley and work elsewhere. With the houses, mainly concentrated about the station, came the shops and offices to serve them, and the time was gone when the village store by the Chequers was the only post office in the parish.

Since then and until about 1925 Horley may be said to have had a growing suburban centre, a fringe of light industries, and a much larger but slowly contracting outer fringe of agricultural land. More lately, as we all know, its suburban character has developed greatly, with steadily expanding light industries, and rapidly dwindling farm lands, until it seems that Horley is no longer content to be a mere parish but aspires to call itself a town. Whether it was prudent to devastate so many hundred acres of valuable farming land in order to erect hundreds of dwelling-houses, thus displacing producers of bread, corn and beef in order to house some 13,000 consumers is for the historian of the future to determine.

For the present this first instalment of Mrs. Lane’s copious notes on the history of a simpler and quieter Horley will infallibly interest many. Indeed, as the story unfolds, it is surely inevitable that those who read it will be infected by the author’s obvious enthusiasm and love for her subject, for the fields and the homes and the people or Horley of the past.

D MACLEOD

 June 1958

 

The Mole at Gatwick 1955

 

The River and its Mills

{5} IN ANY ACCOUNT Of Horley the river should surely have first place, if only from the fact that it has been flowing in the same direction for round about sixty million years, cutting its way continually through the chalk, as may be seen today at the Dorking Gap. In Horley it has now found a bed on the ancient clay of the Weald, bringing down with it a conglomeration of gravel and iron, known locally as “chevick”, which it has laid in various thicknesses in many parts of the parish.

Other rivers may claim as long a life, but only a few have such a curious twist to the history of their names. Known to the Britons as the Emel, Emene or Emlyn (the latter a Christian name still in use by the

Welsh), it survived and was so written as ‘Emling Streame” on the Christ’s Hospital map of c.1602. Why then the “Mole”? Both Spenser, who writes “the nousling Mole” which “cloth make his way still underground till Thames he overtake”, and Milton’s “Sullen Mole that runneth underneath”, obviously refer to the river’s curious sinking into the ground

at the “Swallows” near Mickleham. It would nevertheless seem likely that the real derivation of the name is as the “river of Molesey”, from the place where it joins the Thames. Harrison, in 1577, is the first writer to use it, and as it became generally accepted by Stuart times, the charming old name of “Emlyn” is now completely forgotten.

The mills on its banks were of the utmost value to our forefathers, water was, until windmills came into use, the only available power {6} stronger than man or ox, and the ownership of a mill to grind corn was a valuable asset in the hands of the lord of the manor, So much was this so that it was made illegal for the peasant to grind with a hand mill at home, while every tenant of the manor had the right to take his corn to be ground at the lord’s mill.

                                              SIDLOW MILL

The Saxons had water mills, and the one at Sidlow takes its name from a Saxon woman Sidilufu, though at what date is not known. This, with continual slurring through Sidalawemelle (1279) and Sydeloue Mulle in 1332, when Roberto paid the large tax of 2s.8½ d., has gradually been condensed to the present name. A deed at the time of Richard I shows a connection with Reigate, This translated reads “Grant from Hamlyn de Warenne to Robert de Comba of land and a mill called Sideluna Melna, at an annual rept of 22s. 0d. Witnesses William de Warenne, Adam Punirges, Ralph de Plaiz”, and a later one by his widow Isabel, Countess de Warenne, confirms the grant. But, though Sidlow has always been, and still is, in Horley parish, it was part of the manor of Banstead from early times, and the mill in that manor, quoted in the Domesday Survey as worth 20s„ may have been at Sidlow, since Banstead, situated on the downs, had no water power to grind its corn. In 1412 John Grenyng of Sidlow Mill was fined 2d. as “a Common Butcher taking excessive gain” at Banstead Manorial Court, and in 1432 the mill was paying “Borgh silver” as a borough or tithing to Richard Arundel, lord of that manor. Again in 1533 we read “Side le Mill Bridge. Leading over the said Great River from Reigate towards Crawley is in decay of timber work. Borough Sydemill in the lordship of Banstead ought to repair other half.”

                                            HORLEY MILL

This, at the end of Lee Street, is first referred to in a Latin deed of the early thirteenth century, which reads translated “Grant from Robert son of Walter de Horleia to Alfred son of Robert of a mill at Horleia at a rent of a silver mark (13s. 4d) and a meadow and ploughland by the mill at a rent of 16d, Witness Gilbert de Heafia, Simon his son, John de Heafia and others.” Robert and Walter also held land at Langshott, as may be read on page 12,

Another grant by Gilbert de Dunthon leaves the mill to Alice, daughter of the above-mentioned Alfred, the fourth generation to hold it succession. This is the only time Gilbert’s name appears, but the next owner, William de Newdigate, lord of the manor of the neighbouring village, is well known. He had acquired it by the beginning of the fourteenth century, for a grant from him to Thomas, son of Thomas of Horley Mill, gives the latter land, a house and a garden croft to be held for two hundred years at a rent of 12d.

This was in 1309, but by 1317 that great administrator John de Rutherwyck had been Abbot of {7} Chertsey for ten years and was busy improving the Abbey’s estates in Horley. Amongst other transactions the Abbot bought Horley Mill from William de Newdigate, with the 12d, rent due from Thomas especially noted. Thomas seems to have stayed on under the Abbey for he, or a son of the same name, paid a tax of 8d. in 1332. It is interesting to compare this with the 2s. 8½ d- paid for Sidlow.

The witnesses to these early deeds are most interesting to the local historian. Gilbert, Simon and John de Heafia, and later Nicholas de Hevere, are all ancestors of the Hever family who owned land for so many centuries in Horley, Roger de Loge owned Lodge Manor, 382 acres, partly in Burstow and partly in the district of Salfords, later sold to Roger Salaman in 1329, and Walter and James de Haddiesham (or Hadresham) came from Hathersham Farm near Smallfields. The old house of Edgeworth, on the Balcombe Road, stands on the site of an earlier house owned by another witness, Richard de Egisworth, while two more came from Charlwood parish, Richard de Wakehurst from Rowley and Walter de la Hoke from Hookwood.

Considerable trouble arose over the millstream in 1429, between the Abbot of Chertsey and Reginald, or Raymond, de Cobham of Gatwick. The dispute concerned the banks of the water course from Rowley mill to Horley mill. Raymond took the strong course of disclaiming his responsibility openly in the Parish Church of Horley on Sunday before all the parishioners. The witnesses to this declaration, John Burstow, William Jordan and Henry Lechford, were all local men, who would have known the rights and wrongs of the case.

A century later the Abbey was dissolved and the mill passed, with the rest of Horley Manor, to the king, and from Henry Vlll to Sir Robert Southwell, who sold it in 1544 to Robert Burstow, or BristowThe spelling is quite interchangeable. In a later inquisition of 1574, it was stated that this land be ‘held of the Queen at one fortieth of a Knight’s fee.” His name should be remembered as the first local lord of the manor. His son inherited, but his eldest grandson died as a small boy of twelve and, after a long lawsuit with three aunts, the half brother John received only “Nudigates alias Horley Mill” as his share of the inheritance. How curious it is that the name of Newdigate should have stuck to the mill for over two hundred and fifty years after such a short ownership. It did not remain long in Burstow hands. In 1586 John sold it with “its appurtenances, which included land called Mill Eye, the mill house and all watercourses, ponds, ways and passages belonging to the mill and all its profits and commodities” to John Kerrell and his son Nicholas.

The mill was not bought by Christ’s Hospital until 1862, and the last miller left within living memory, as the owners did not find it possible to instal modern machinery. No mill now exists. A sad end, this, to one of the earliest and most important centres of life in the village.

 

LODGE MILL

{8} The manor of Lodge, of which the name Lodge Lane is now the sole reminder was a large district in medieval times. It covered much of Salfords, and other land in Horley Row was included in the manor. Lodge Mill – called Todde’s Mill in 1602 and shown on Mason’s Brook, almost opposite Horley Lodge — was working in Henry Ill’s reign in 1263, when it was granted by Roger de Lodge to Mary, daughter of William de Dammartine. She was even offered a choice of rents, either an annual gift of a “pair of golden spurs” or “6d. and foreign service”. The Dammartine family also held land at Ockley, Buckland and Godstone, and had another interesting connection with mills, for Odo de Dammartine gave one of the very first windmills ever to be built (about 1190) to Tandridge Priory.

“Richard Todd usinge Lodge Mill” was of sufficient importance to be al lotted a place in the “formostygate” in Horley Church, together with Richard Killick, Thomas Saunder and Robert Jordan, but, curiously enough, Lodge Mill was not mentioned in a new list made thirty years later. There is no trace to be found of it on the old site, but Salfords Mill, a little further up the stream, undoubtedly took its place. Here the old mill house still stands, though now used as an hotel, and the mill itself was working at the end of the nineteenth century.

Apart from the river the old roads are Horley’s earliest landmarks, and it is along these that the following notes will lead.

The Balcombe Road

Horley’s roots are to be found in the forests of the ancient Weald, and it is generally accepted that a prehistoric track was made through these forests and marshes by Neolithic man, from his dwellings on the drier chalk of the downs to north and south. The line of this track, which possibly led to Shoreham, is in all probability closely followed by the present Balcombe Road, so famous as one of the great coaching roads to Brighton. It was certainly used by the Saxons, for they have left their names to clearings on either side, and not far off an open space was given over to the worship of Thor.

 THUNDERFIELD

The name dates back to the time when the Saxons were worshipping had brought with them from northern Europe. Among these was Donor or Thor, God of Thunder, whose name is still remembered in the fifth day of the week, and which is derived from the ancient root of “tan”, to sound. The northern sagas give many glimpses of this great and splendid god, “Defender of the World”, who vies with Odin for the chief place in Norse mythology. A strong man, in the prime of life, with a ruddy beard, he rides the thunderstorm in a car drawn by {9} two he-goats, called in the Scandinavian Tanngniortr and Tanngrisny. He grasps his hammer, Mjollnir, with gauntlets of iron, or flings the red hot thunderbolts. He wears a miraculous girdle, which increases his strength when his wrath is aroused. His sons are Magni (power) and Mooi (courage), His daughter is Druor (strength), and his mother Faro (the earth).

In the saga of Olaf the saint, whose figure may be seen above the High Altar at Southwark Cathedral, there is a description of a statue of Thor, virtuously destroyed by the Christians, showing him as a huge man, all adorned with gold and silver. Thor was also the God of fecundity, and his blessing was sought on the rite of marriage. He is always considered—and how strange this is unless as a bringer of rain for the crops—as a friend of man, succouring him in his conflict with demonic powers, who are shown as giants.

A very delightful legend coming from Thursley, or Thors-ley, near Guildford, whose name also derives from the god, seems to bear this out, Here three strange conical hills have always been known as the Devil’s Jumps, and the legend, in which paganism and medieval lore are curiously intermingled, tells of the Devil, horns, tail and all, skipping nimbly from hill to hill while Thor rumbles heavily after him, casting immense stones, and eventually knocking him over, It is pleasant to think that here at least the god was definitely on the side of right, but alas that the blow was not fatal!

That the devil is still at large, and the stone still to be seen at Thursley, would almost persuade one to believe the story true!

 Of the actual worship at Thunderfield it is impossible to write with certainty. The sagas describe temples with altars for blood sacrifices and great statues of Thor, Odin and Freya. Such temples are known to have existed in pagan England, but holy places, hills, pools and groves of evergreen trees or oaks were also used. The latter certainly abounded on the edge of the Weald. It is said that the sacrifices were generally of oxen, but may occasionally have been human.

Thunderfield was a royal demesne. It was owned by King Alfred in the ninth century. He died in 901 and left it, by name, among many other places, to his nephew Athelme. It is called in his will a “vill”, not a “burg” or fortified place. Alfred’s grandson Athelstan, King of the English raised to the throne of Britain by the right hand of the Almighty”, as he is styled in his charters—held one of his witans or councils at Thunderfield, an assembly in which many great magnates, lay and ecclesiastical, earldormen, thegns and bishops took part. The details—where exactly they met, and where and how so many lodged and were fed—would be of great interest, but alas are not known.

It was also Athelstan who, ten days before Christmas A.D. 933, granted the manor of Sutton “cum Dunthresfelde silvatica” (with Thunderfield in the forest) to Chertsey Abbey. It seems likely that, though the present site of Thunderfield is just outside Horley parish, in {10} Horne, the name may have been applied to much of Horley. It now only survives in Thunderfield Castle. The name Horley is probably later and means the woodland or clearing of Horn—and was often written Hornley.

The pool at Thunderfield is mentioned as a boundary of land in Merstham granted by King Aedred, a younger brother of Athelstan, to the thegn Oswi in 947. Twenty years later the grant to the Abbey was confirmed by King Edgar, “cum cubilibus porcorum quae illuc pertinent scilicet in Dunresfelde”. The point of this appears to be that the Abbey was granted “lying up places” for pigs where they could remain at night and not only graze by day.

 It is probable that in the Domesday Survey a place in Sutton Manor, which is not named and in which the Abbey held two hides of land – i.e. about 240 acres — refers to Thunderfield. It was worth 20s. in the time of Edward the Confessor, and one bordar and one serf are mentioned. The connection with Sutton remained for at least 600 years, for both Benhams and Admonds were still within that manor in 1567.

Though the rest of Horley remained quietly in the possession of Chertsey Abbey, the marsh of Thunderfield was destined for a more turbulent fate. It was claimed by the de Clares of Bletchingley as part of the parish of Horne, and was held by them, with Herewoldsley, in the days of anarchy under King Stephen. It is known that they took an active part in the confused fighting of the times, waging almost continuous war on their local enemies, the de Warennes of Reigate, and the three strongholds which they held some few miles apart at Bletchingley, Ockley and Thunderfield, all commanding roads running south to the coast, would have been of great value in this connection.

Thunderfield was. in all probability, fortified by the famous Gilbert de Clare, who made most skilful use of a little tributary of the Mole, not only to surround the central island, on which a timber stronghold would have been built, but also to strengthen this by further outworks also surrounded by water. Mr. H. E. Maldon gives a full description of this quite elaborate use of water as fortification, and notes that on a very small scale it resembles the great waterworks round the magnificent castle of the de Clares at Caerphilly in South Wales. Gilbert fought on both sides in the struggle, offering his sword alternately to King Stephen and the Empress Matilda.

Both strife and castles were put down with a strong hand by Matilda’s son, Henry Il, although Herewoldsey, which still included Thunderfield, was part of the estate of a later Gilbert de Clare, who was killed during the English defeat at Bannockburn in 1314,

The discovery was made in 1936 of an iron smelting bloomery site, with fragments of pottery of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though with not many hearths or great depth of cinder, on the central is land. It is the only one known in Horley, although the name Cinderfield preserves the memory of another whose site has not been found.

{11} In Rocque’s map of Surrey Thunderfield is shown in the strange guise of a conical tree-topped mound, but is called Horn Castle,

Nevertheless, though the worship of Thor has been forgotten for well over a thousand years, the name Thunderfield remains into the Atomic Age, whose vast man-made explosions rival the thunder of the god.

HAROLDSLEA

This, nearby, was also a Saxon dwelling, being cleared by a certain Hereweald. Held at one time, as has been said, by the de Clares with Thunderfield ; later by the Countess de Warenne who “held one fourth of a Knight’s fee in Herewoldesle”; it was afterwards owned by Reginald de Cobham of Gatwick—by which time it had become his “manor of Herewardsle”. Later, in 1675, “Little Harworsley, with all stables, barns, outhouses, buildings, yards, orchards, backsides, gardens etc., eight fields (twenty-four acres), was sold to Thomas and William Tooth for £280. Thomas’ will, made in 1692, is interesting as showing both the possessions and their value of one of Horley’s landowners at that date.

EDGEWORTH

This, originally probably a clearing made by the Saxon Ecgi, was owned by Richard de Egisworth who paid 12d. tax for it in 1332 and was of sufficient importance to witness a grant of Horley mill by William de Newdigate to Thomas the Miller. It certainly remained a valuable farm for a place in the third “seate in that compas against the alley towards the pulpit in Horley Church” was allotted to John Saunder for Edgeworth in 1634, and these seats were only given to the well-to-do.

HOLYLAND AND HORLEYLAND

These appear to be quite distinct farms, one to the east and the other to the west of the Balcolmbe road, but the names are so much alike that some confusion is possible. Holyland would be the house for which Robarto ate Helilond paid 16d. tax in 1332, and of which John Atte Holieland was the owner sixty years later. The Drewe family lived there in Tudor times. By 1593 it seems to have belonged to the Needlers, people of some importance, and Henry Needler was assessed the large sum of £6 on which he paid 24s. tax in that year. Another who also owned Coppingham , Parkers and Fishes (now Fishers Farm) died in 1613 leaving 40s. to the poor of Horley. His widow Ann had considerable trouble and a long lawsuit over the vicarage, which “had become voyde 3 years last paste”, and it was said that she “did and still doth plott and secretly combine” with her son-in-law against George Needham of Horley, Clerke, who, it seems, had been promised the living. The result of the feud is not known. According to Manning and Bray another of the family was a Colonel in Cromwell’s army. Two more Henrys followed more peaceful pursuits. One was a gifted violinist, of whom Handel wrote ” I met Mr. Needler, he played two or three solos sweetly upon his violin; it soothed some of my melancholy thoughts and I was sorry when he had done.” Another, a poet, philosopher and musician, was born in Horley in 1690 but died at the age of twenty-eight after losing his reason, as may be read in the Surrey Archeological Coll. vol. XXV.

Horleyland House was, up to the 1914 war, the kennels of the Surrey staghounds and was always known as the Kennels.

LANGSHOTT

Langshott, which lies a little to the east of Balcombe road, is known to a great number of Horley people through the generosity with which the late owner, Major Jennings, lent his house and garden for countless good causes. Many of us retain a picture of the summer sun shining on the timbered house, and on the gay flower beds and brilliant green of mown lawns.

{13} The land belonged from very early days to Merton Priory, but its long history is closely interwoven with that of Horley. This early connection is shown in a deed of c. 1225 when Robert and Walter de Horle were granted a house and f, our acres at Langshott, at an annual rent of 2s. and three acres at Lepesheth, by the Priory. Here a little piece in the puzzle of local history falls into place for it is also known that they owned Horley mill at about this time. Evidently they were people of growing wealth. In March 1319 Richard de Langshote alienated a house to Chertsey Abbey in mortmain, but with apparently no land attached, while the mill was alienated at the same time by William de Newdigate.

The Salamans were a family who held land from Merton Priory at Langshott, and the effigy, carved in Reigate stone, which lies in the north aisle of the church, dated about 1315 is believed to represent Ralph Salaman, father of Roger. The shield displays the Salaman arms, a double-headed eagle charged on the breast with a leopard’s head, and this monument is said to be one of the finest in Surrey. The family was evidently of importance, and Roger was a considerable landowner. Salamans held the manor of Imworth and lands in Gatton, in addition to Lodge Manor in Horley, with 382 acres in Horley, Burstow and Nutfield, acquired from Roger de Loge in 1329. There is also mention of eighty acres at Aldagh in Salfords.

The tax assessments of 1332 are immensely interesting, giving not only the names of the various families, but the relative value of their land, and are given as an appendix to these notes. John de Landestote (another variation of Langshott) was only assessed at 8d., while Roger Salaman paid 2s. 11d. in Burstow and Salaman “le marler” 3s. 2d. This name is also found in 1303 when Robert le Marlere releases a field called Buffislande to his sister-in-law Eadilda.

A Salaman was Vicar of Horley from 1403 to 1410, and about 1415 a brass with the figure of a woman was laid in the Salaman chapel. Here this was seen in 1877, “barbarously defaced by having sleepers for support of the organ loft resting upon it”. It was later placed in the north wall of the chancel, and is generally believed to be a Salaman. The inscription of Johan Ffenner does not belong to it. Roger Salaman’s granddaughter, and his heiress, married Thomas Codyngton, whose family were Lords of the Manor of Lodge in Burstow, which included land in Horley in 1471.

To return to Langshott. The confirmation of the rights of the Priory of Merton, in the manors of Shelwode, Legh, Horlegh, Cherlewode, Newdigate and Langeshot in 1468 give a curious sidelight on the law at that time. It shows that, by a charter of Richard I, the Priory had enjoyed “among other liberties, all deodands, treasure trove, chattels of their men and tenants being felons, fugitives, condemned, convicted, hanged, outlawed or waived, and chattels called ‘wayf and stray’ within their manors; also free pannage in the king’s forests for their pigs and free pasture for their mares and for those of {14} their men or tenants ….. also assay and assize of measures and weights and victuals”.

Seventy years later the Priory was dispossessed, and Richard Gylmyn held Langshott on a thirty years’ lease from King Henry VIII. A buttress in the south aisle of Horley church bore the inscription “Here lyeth Alice the eldest daughter of — Gilmyn gent”, with the date 1615, but Langshott had already passed to other owners.

The Bridges connection with Horley began in 1671 when Langshott was bought by William Baines, who married Sarah Bridges, and later left it to his wife’s nephew. I am told that the present house was constructed out of two cottages, of which the photograph still exists, by Sir Henry Bridges who left it to his son the Rev. Alexander. It remained in the family until 1923, when it was bought by Major Jennings, who sold it again in 1957.

Before leaving the Balcombe road, a disqovery which was made when the Christ’s Hospital map of 1604 was examined should be mentioned. On that map the track of the Balcombe road is roughly sketched in, and close to the road, on the east side of it, apparently not far from the King’s Head, there is drawn a cross, named Horley Cross. Opposite to it and on the west of the road is the drawing of a tree, named Repier’s Oak. Local memory and tradition of the existence of the cross and the oak have disappeared. All that can be said with certainty is that in the Middle Ages wayside crosses were not uncommon. Why it was that the cross and the oak confronted each other in this way must be left to conjecture. But it is perhaps significant that Crossoak Lane leads off from Bonehurst Lane, and the field at the junction of these two roads is also called Crossoak.

HORLEY ROW

This name was given to a row of ancient houses between Benhams on the east and Hutchins on the west. Some of these show traces of late fifteenth century work, others have been partly rebuilt, and one or two pulled down. Whether they were in existence before the fifteenth century we do not know, but whenever they were originally built their doors came to the very edge of the north side of the Common. All the way from Hareland Corner to the Chequers was a narrow strip of common land belonging to the waste of the manor of Lodge, lying between the present highway and the houses of Horley Row, This strip was enclosed during the latter end of the last century, and this enclosure left the old public footpath, which ran along the north side of the Common, paved with flagstones, inside the enlarged gardens of the houses. The path can still be seen here and there, but the flagstones were removed from the last few feet of the old path in 1956, in the garden of Monks Cottage. The name Horley Row properly belongs to the houses and is not the correct name of the street now so labelled, which should be Horley Mill Road.

 

   Benhams before restoration.

{15} Benhams is interesting because that house and Admonds, or Edmondsbury, in Meath Green were the last holdings to be left in the manor of Sutton, to which Thunderfield and a great part of Horley belonged in the tenth century. In 1592 it was said that Admonds “was not long ago attached to the manor of Horley . . . formerly parcelled out of the manor of Sutton”, and a few years later Benhams is described as “a tenament with seven acres . . . within the fee of Sutton and the Lordship of Horley”.  Henry Shove, who had a seat in church in 1634 for Benhams, also owned Hitchhurst.

At the other end of Horley Row lies Hutchins, otherwise Hareland, It is an ancient house with some oak panelling of the time of Henry VIll in its original position. Unfortunately, some generations ago this house, which must have been a fine specimen of the smaller mansion house or farm house, was severely dealt with when improvements were attempted. In the seventeenth century it was the property of the prominent family of Turner, one of whose tombs lies on the left of the path as one enters the parish church by the north door. From the middle of the eighteenth century it has been in the possession of the Blundells, and their descendants, and so remains. It was apparently Richard Blundell, second son of Thomas Blundell of Cinderford, who left his initials and date on the pump in the kitchen.

Horley Cricket Club ground occupies the greater part of Hareland Meadow, at the junction of Meath Green Lane, Vicarage Lane, Horley Mill Road and Lee Street. Opposite this, on the other side of {16} Meath Green Lane, there was a field named Leymer, now covered with houses with a frontage also to Lee Street or Ley Street.

MEATH GREEN

Hutchins was at the very corner of Meath Green, which, on the Christ’s Hospital map of 1602, is written as “Moy Grene”. The name came originally from an old English word meaning a junction of two streams, and it is certainly not far from here that Mason’s Brook joins the Mole.

The Green is shown as a considerable open space, growing wider towards the north, and finally branching into two lanes, with a house in the centre. It was known as Muttesland when it was received from the Abbot of Chertsey by John de Burstow in 1339. Some two centuries later Burstows still owned land to the west of the Green, which Thomas Burstowes later sold to John Kerrell. A sad little tale in which these families were involved in some illicit hunting is found in the Court Rolls. Here it was stated that “Geo. Paine, John Kerrell and John Burstowe, all of Myegrene, each fined 6s. 8d. for hunting hares on the previous day in the demesne and chasing one with dogs, and killing it contrary to the statute”. This was in 1569, when 6s. 8d. was a large sum. It cost no more for special permission to bury your father inside Horley church. Here it will be noticed it was called Myegrene, but It was also written both as Methgrene and Methborrowe at the end of the same century.

It was one or the four tithings of the manor of Horley—see page 26 —and its tithing man, who was responsible for its affairs, was elected at each Court. The year 1603 saw the first of these to be held by the Governors of Christ’s Hospital, who, it appears, were determined to put things on a more businesslike basis. Fines for non-attendance of landowners were in many cases increased, and great numbers of tenants were “given a day” to repair bridges or cleanse ditches. Among others “the inhabitants of Methgrene” have not repaired “le Clappers” at Sinderford Bridge or Platt Bridge, fined 6s. 8d. for each and given a day in which to complete repairs, and “John Huntley has allowed his ditch from Plottbridge to Heavers Wood to fill up, which want of amendment is common knowledge to all the King’s Lieges there”

The tithing man for Methgrene was Roger Show who brought the “common fine by ancient usage” of 12d. The following defaulted and were fined 4d.—Thos. Spencer, Ric. Fenner, Bernard Humfrey, Ruben Hollinwood and John Boothall, who was nevertheless elected constable for the next year.

Ric. Braye, John Dudney, Rob. Hewett, Thos. Martin and Abraham Baker were fined 2d. each, Rob, Wells was excused. It was at this court that Bernard Humfrey and Agnes Shoe were fined a further 6d, each for “breaking assize in the baking of spiced cakes”.

Meath Green remained a tithing or borough of Horley manor as {17} long as courts were held and was represented at every one of the twenty-three of these between 1562 and 1627. It was still officially known as the “boro” of Meath Green in the nineteenth century for a plaque on the present Cinderford Bridge, over Mason’s Brook reads: “Built 1863 at the joint expense of the boro of Meath Green and the parish of Horley.” And in a map of 1858 the “manor stone”, marking the boundary, was shown at the corner of Meath Green Lane and Lodge Lane. The boundaries of the tithings are now lost. Several times in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the inhabitants are “given a day in which to repair the boundaries which are broken down”, but these most probably refer to the boundaries of the common which was both fenced and gated.

Chiswick Farm, properly Cheesewick as it is still pronounced, is an old house which, however, is probably newer than the name. Local tradition says that this cheese farm was long ago one of the farms in this locality owned by “the monks”. If tradition is correct, it may have belonged to Reigate Priory, which is also believed to have owned Priestland in Vicarage Lane, as well as lands lying to the east of Erbridge Street. But nothing is known with any certainty of its earlier history.

LADYLANDS

Ladylands is one of the least spoilt of Horley farms, with its charming timber and brick front and massive central chimney. It stands in its own fields, a little to the east of Meath Green Lane, facing south to catch the midday sun. The name is possibly connected in some way with the Virgin “Our Lady”. It was common custom to devote money from certain farms to the upkeep of the church, which in Horley was formerly dedicated to the “Blessed Mary”.

In the first mention found of the farm, in 1556, it belonged with “Kenersley” to Henry Lechford, in right of his wife Clemency Huchar, and it was sold with the manor to John Moore of Worth in 1566. John Kerrell, who bought it in 1619, was perhaps the son of the John fined 6s, 8d. for poaching in Myegrene, mentioned earlier. Before this, Ladylands, with Landons—here called Londons—had belonged to Henry Drake whose son Richard paid as heriot on his father’s death “a bull dark coloured with white face value 33s. 0d.” A seat in church was allocated to Ralph Parker for “Londons” in 1634, next to Robert Burstow for Benhams and Nicholas Charrington for Beers.

MILL LANE and REIGATE ROAD

{18} MILL LANE, with its danger of flooding, its twists and its two narrow bridges, must still be something of a headache to the authorities. This is nothing new. The Court Rolls of the manor of Horley in the seventeenth century are full of complaints and orders for the mending of Mill Bridge and “le halfe bridge”. This was the duty of the inhabitants of “Lestrete” tithing (now Lee Street) and one which they were most reluctant to perform. They were not alone in this distaste. The Tudors had made great efforts towards the improvement of communications, and in 1533 a Presentment of Bridges was held at Quarter Sessions at Croydon. Many Horley bridges were declared to be in a state of decay and lacking planks. The report on the mill bridge is particularly detailed. It states “A bridge over Emlyn Stream by Horley mill leading from Horley and Charlwood, which bridge lacketh plats, and the ways at the end of the same bridge by the space of 300 foot is not sufficiently repaired to a Comon Noysance”. The west end was the responsibility of the inhabitants of Charlwood. This they were to “new plank” and for it the “tenants have, of a common custom, used to have Timber for the same bridge in the Lord’s Common”. They were also to repair the “clappers”, Half of the east part of the bridge was to be amended by the inhabitants of Lystreet and the other half to be “hawnsed and amended by Will Rowe Jones of Horley Mill”. Also the “Little Bridge and way thereto ought to be reared by the miller eighteen inches and new made” and the miller “ought to clapper half the way”.

It is suggested that these clappers were large stepping stones laid at each end in the mud, but as they were in constant need of repair, it would seem more likely that they were wooden planks. The history of the mill itself will be found on page 5.

After crossing the river, the road enters Charlwood parish and at Hookwood joins the very old highway to the south through Crawley, and to the north via Reigate and London, but such is the curious shape of Horley that the stretch from Hookwood to Sidlow is again largely in the parish.

Near Sidlow, however, the road passes over land that used to belong to the manor of Banstead, and that it was a highway in 1371 is proved by the story of John Neel and his friend John Wacche, who had bought two hundred cartloads of soil from John Wrotyng, the King’s bailiff, for 50s. and at Neel’s own cost dug and removed them “as he was entitled to do”. Trouble started when he was charged with digging up the highway and creating a nuisance, Neel’s plea that it was no highway, only a path over “a certain waste parcel of the manor of Banstede, in which waste was a mine of iron”, was not accepted, and Neel and Wacche were each fined 2s., and were summarily ordered to repair the highway “completely at their own coste”. John de Shardelowe prosecuted, and five men who were hired to dig—Walter {19} Pickard, Walter Wyss, Gilbert Scorlayn, Richard Dilton and John Gavelere—were also indicted but, proving that they were merely obeying orders, were fined only Is. each.

It would seem most likely that the little hamlet still known as “Irons Bottom”, near Sidlow, was the scene of the dispute, as Cinderford, which has also been suggested, is not in the manor of Banstead. It is interesting that this is both one of the very earliest records of iron working in Surrey, and also the first mention of the highway which later, in the coaching age, was to

become so famous. The names of the surveyors responsible for the highways, who were elected at the annual church vestry after the year 1632, are to be found in the Church Wardens’ accounts. Nicholas Charrington of Bures was elected “Surveyor of the King’s highway” in 1647. Charles I was then still alive, though a prisoner, but more violent changes were to take place, and for eleven years there was no king in England to give his title to the highways. It is noticeable that in 1651 no “King’s” highway is mentioned, only surveyors for the “hie waies” and after that only the one word surveyors was written, though the spelling at times caused some trouble “survaieres” and “surveighers” are two good attempts. Though by 1666, when Nicholas was once more elected, Charles Il had been back on the throne for some six years, Horley was not sufficiently up to date to return to the old title, and it is not until 1673 that we again read “chosen surveirs for the Kings highwais William Bains and Thomas Show”, Whether royal or republican, the highway passed Nicholas’ own gate on its way to Crawley and the south. A later John Charrington followed him as surveyor, at the end of the century, but it would almost seem as if the vestry had given up the unequal struggle with road making. Only five times between 1678 and 1702 are surveyors even elected.

The trouble was forcibly pointed out in an Act of Parliament in 1697, in the time of William and Mary, when it was said that “the lanes leading from Woodhatch Borough to Sidlow Mill and Salmans Cross and the lanes called Horsehill and Bonehurst and Petteridge are very ruinous and almost impassable for above three miles to Reigate”.

The road was then authorized as the first turnpike in Surrey but, though Trustees were appointed, the Act was never implemented and only a stone bridle way, said to be the first stone road making in Surrey since the Romans, was laid. This bridleway, being intended for packhorses only, was to be protected by posts to prevent it being cut and rutted by wheeled traffic.

It was widened in 1755, and being later made passable for coaches became part of the famous route “The Appian Way of the High Nobility” to Brighton. A tollgate, placed at the top of Horse Hills was combined with an inn, the old Black Horse. This was later removed to a new building at the bottom of the road, and the house, with its {22} original serving hatch, remains as a farm. Cobbett may throw some light on the name of the inn, for he calls these the “Black Horse Hills”, though that name, if it ever existed, is now lost.

CRUTCHFIELD

A farm lying to the north of Horse Hills without doubt bears one of the oldest names in Horley. The Celtic root of “cruc”, which is also to be found in Cherchefelle (the original name of Reigate Hundred), has the meaning of an open space by a barrow or grave.

Crutchfield was in the manor of “Cherlewode” in 1332 when Johanne de Cruchesfeld, the first owner of whom we have knowledge, paid a 2s. tax, and it continued as part of Erbridge, a sub-manor of Charlwood, until the nineteenth century, see page 32. In 1334 a Henry de Cruchefeld is mentioned when a licence is given for his chaplain, John de Malton, to grant a house, mill, and 172 acres to Alan de Warrewyk and Emma his wife. After their death the land is to revert to the prior and convent of Reigate so that two canons may celebrate divine service daily for their souls. It is noticeable that it is the Chaplain who had the duty of ensuring that the land passed eventually to the church.

In 1525 Richard Brystow of Cherchefeld was jointly responsible for the care of the money used for the candles in one of the chapels in Horley church, as may be read in a wonderful mixture of Latin and English in the Church Wardens’ accounts. “Summa totalis Sancti Nicolae luminis Reste in the handes of Richard Brystow of Cherchefeld and Wyllian Mongere xxxs. iiijd. (thirty shillings and fourpence) the yer of our lord god anno MCCCCCXXV”.

Shortly after this in 1552 comes a reminder of the great value of wool in Tudor days, when Robert Burstowe of Crouchfielde was fined 2s. at the Charlwood court “for that he surcharged the common with his sheep against the custom of the manor”. The farm was a very large one, stretching right down to the river, and gave “Mr. Bristow” (note the ‘Mr. ‘—a title given to very few) “for Crichland” the right to a place in the “hinemost seate” in Horley church, which was “wainscoted, and planked and repared and paide for” in 1634, Truly the well-to-do farmers sat more warmly than their poorer neighbours when they attended church, In 1759 the connection still existed for in that year a heriot of a gelding was still due to the lord of the manor of Charlwood on the death of Benjamin Flint.

                                                                                                 DUXHURST
Duxhurst, nearby, had already belonged to Chertsey Abbey for a long time when, early in the fourteenth century, the Abbot, John de Rutherwyck, who was confirming his hold on all Abbey lands, granted it to Peter de Duxhurst to be “held of the Abbey”. It was considered a manor in the seventeenth century, when it was bought in 1602 {23} from William Mulcaster and George Ede or Charlwood by Christ’s Hospital. Very much later, it was acquiredby Lady Henry Somerset, and enlarged by her into a village settlement for inebriate women.

                                                                                                                          Bures Manor

BURES MANOR

To the west of the road lies Bures Manor, and it is pleasant, in these changing, shifting times, to know that one house in the parish has belonged to the same family from the lifetime of Queen Elizabeth 1 to that of Queen Elizabeth Il, and that the family is still in possession after 377 years. The house of dull red brick, added to and altered by many generations, remains quite unspoilt.

Nicholas Charrington was fifty years old when he first rented Bures from Richard Bray in 1580. It is not certain where he lived before he moved, but it was in Horley parish for he was a Churchwarden there in 1566. Another earlier Nicholas was among a great number of parishioners who gave 2d. each towards church expenses, quite (a lot) at the beginning of 1500. John, a kinsman, was Churchwarden of Charlwood in 1552. It fell to him to check the inventory of church goods when, in the violently Protestant days of the boy king Edward VI, everything beautiful was being removed from the churches as savouring of Romish superstition.

{24} Nicholas’ second son, also Nicholas, bought “the Manor and that capital messuage and farm called Bures, all of which premises are, or lately were, in the venue of Nicholas Charrington” from Sir William Garway in 1622. There had been several changes of ownership since that of the Brays, but the acreage probably remained the same as when it was bought by them for £200. There were then seventy acres of land, ten of meadow, sixty of pasture and twenty of wood, together with 46s. 5d. rent. Nicholas married twice, both times into well-known Horley families, of Woodman and Shove.

Nicholas Charrington, both father and son, were constantly elected Churchwardens, and a little note at the end of one of these terms stated “In the year of our lord god 1601, Nicholas Charrington mad eccon (account) of his Reconynge, nothynge in his hands—nothyng owynge”. He was re-elected with Richard Fenner, who “made his account uppon the xxviith (27th) day of December and made even with the church”, Perhaps one may be allowed to add that this was seldom the case, much more often money was owing either to or from the Churchwardens. In 1634 he was noted as having a seat in church. ”Imprimis the seate next unto Mrs. Roffyes belongs unto these men from . of right for ther houses or tenements Henry Shoue (Shove) for Benhams, Thomas Flint for Collats, Ralph Parker for Londons (Landons), Robert Brystow for Benhams, Nicholas Charrington for Beers”.

In 1766 the Charrington family became connected with the brewing industry. About twenty years later another John Charrington, son of Thomas and Anne (daughter of Richard Humphrey of Court Manor Farm), left Horley to start in London as a coal merchant. A very large share in both these great industries still remains in Charrington hands.

Wealth from brewing enabled Richard Charrington to build a much larger house almost adjoining, called Burys Court, in 1887. This has since been sold in its turn, and Bures Manor is again the family home.

The history of Bures Manor stretches far back, however, before the Charrington occupation, and the old deeds are extremely interesting as

giving a glimpse of conditions on a Surrey farm in the days of Edward lll. Even before this, in the reign of Henry lll, a John “de Bures” held a Knight’s fee in Bergh, near Banstead, and from early days Bures, as well as Sidlow, were part of Banstead manor. What is curious is that seven Johns, who were certainly important people in Bergh, should all have retained the suffix of “de Bures”, obviously the place from which they originally came, and which they continued to own with the neighbouring farm of Stumbelhole—but where apparently, they did not live.

The duties of a “customary tenant” at Stumbelhole, one who did not pay a money rent, were stated in 1333. He was to pay a cock and hen at

Christmas worth 2½d., to harrow the lord’s Lent corn, and to find three loads of wood and carry them—presumably by packhorse— {25}  to Bergh. In the autumn he was also to carry four bushels of salt from Brembre, near Steyning, to Bergh for the “use of the lords kitchen”, and both these services were valued at 3d. One is glad to find that, in each case, it was noted “the lord finding provisions”.

The Holgrave family held Bures during early Tudor times, but three years before the death of Henry VIII it was bought by Richard Bray, a member of the oldest family still living in Surrey, from whom it was leased in 1580 by Nicholas Charrington.

The early history of Sidlow mill may be found on page 5 and it is here that the old highway leaves Horley parish. The straight road from Sidlow to Hookwood was only cut through about 1820 further to shorten the distance from London to Brighton for the coaches.

KINNERSLEY MANOR

From this new road the restored front of Kinnersley Manor may just be seen, standing on a little hill overlooking the Mole, above Sidlow Bridge. It is a wonderful site which Cyneweard, the Saxon, first found and cleared, and there built himself a dwelling. His name, like that of Peda of Petridge Wood, was remembered through the turmoil of the Norman Conquest, and Kinewardeslee (or Cyneweard’s clearing) was owned by a Norman, Fulk de Archek, late in the thirteenth century. He paid 13d. rent for the house and forty acres. Thereafter the spelling takes many delightful twists and variations, as Kinewardesle and Kynworsley, and becomes Kynwardsley (alias Kinnersley) in 1601. Johanne de Kenwardesl was taxed the considerable sum of 4s.7¾d. in 1332—as may be seen in Appendix A.

During the fifteenth century the house was owned by the Cooper family. Evidently, they were well-to-do people. On 29th August, 1489, Thomas Cooper made his last will, ordering that his body be buried in the parish church of the Blessed Mary at Horley, of which he was a benefactor. He also bequeathed two torches to the church, which might well have been used at his funeral, each valued at 13s. 4d. We are glad to read that he also “provided handsomely” for his children —John, William, Agnes, Margery and Joan.

It is interesting that this early dedication of the church was to the “Blessed Mary”.  It was later changed to that of St. Bartholomew, possibly at the Reformation, though there is no mention of this in the Church Wardens’ accounts.

By 1556 there were eighty acres, including Ladyland, attached to the house, which was let by Henry Lechford and his wife Clemency, the owners, to a very well-known Horley man, Richard Hever, for £12 per annum. Here was a considerable increase from Fulk de Archek’s 13d, with only forty acres of land added.

Matthew Carew, Master in Chancery, already owned Kinnersley when he bought up the manor of Horley in the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but the house never passed, as did the rest of {26}  Horley, to Christ’s Hospital. It became instead the property of a famous man. Sir William Monson, “Admiral of the Downs and Narrow Seas”. It was at Kinnersley that Sir William, in his old age, wrote of his adventures. His career was picturesque in the extreme, and in the short notes that follow only the very faintest light can be thrown on the vicissitudes of a naval officer’s life in the great days of Elizabeth I during the struggle with Spain, as described in his book.

Running away to sea at the age of sixteen, he was at the capture of the first Spanish prize ship to be brought to England. In 1588 he fought as a Lieutenant in the Charles against the Spanish Armada. Three years later he was captured by the Spaniards, and spent the next two partly in a galley and partly in a fortress on shore, but had the extreme pleasure of himself capturing the very galley in which he had been held prisoner at a later date. Released in 1593, he joined the Golden Lion, and in this ship captured a fleet of Spanish ships laden with powder. By a twist of fortune, he was again attacked and, his ship being boarded, was in great danger or being made prisoner again and only saved himself by jumping into a small boat. He sailed with Drake, and later commanded the Repulse in the expedition against Cadiz, where he was knighted for his bravery. From 1604 to 1615 he held command as Admiral of the Downs and Narrow Seas, and only retired to Kinnersley in 1635 having, as he wrote, “made good our seas and shores, gave laws to our neighbour nations and restored the ancient sovereignty of the narrow seas to our gracious king as was ever due to his Majesty’s progenitors”. This memory he enjoyed for seven years and, by his death in 1642, he just escaped seeing his country in active rebellion against the monarchy he had served, His house, which he had enlarged, passed to his granddaughter Anne, who married Sir Francis Throgmorton.

A memory of an early stage in the British Army is found in the purchase of the house in 1675 by Benjamin Bonwicke, “a captain and afterwards major of the Train Bands, in this County”. He was a member of one of Horley’s largest, and perhaps wealthiest, families. The Parish Registers and Churchwardens’ accounts are full of the name, and a Richard Bonwick was Churchwarden no less than ten times. They had previously owned the manor of Lodge, which had, a few years before, been left by Henry Bonwick to his cousin, John Shove.

The Piper family, who owned Kinnersley for the first quarter of the nineteenth century, may have made the present drive which opens on the new road cut through from Sidlow to Hookwood. Before that the front of the house faced to the east, and the drive led on to Lonesome Lane. It is a tragedy that the old front of the house has been spoiled by unsightly buildings, but enough of the present front has been restored to give some idea of what it must have looked like in Sir William Monson’s time, when it was certainly the most important {27} house in the parish. The following is a description of it early in 1800 by Manning and Bray. “It is large, timber built, and consists of a quadrangle enclosing a court, In the upper storey is a room that runs round the whole. In the outside walls of this room, all round it, are small cabins sufficient to contain a bedstead, some of which bedsteads lately remained in them.”

Roads near the Church

COURT MANOR

Court Manor Farm, lying back in the fields between the church and the mill, stands near the site of the building where the manor courts were held and the administration of local justice was largely carried on. Two different courts followed each other, usually on the same day. The Court Leet, or View of Frankpledge, was the court of the king and dealt with public matters, while the Court Baron dealt with those concerning the manor. The lord of the manor never himself appeared. The court was presided over by his steward, who kept account of the proceedings on long strips of parchment or paper. These, when not in use, were rolled up and came to be known as the Court Rolls. Horley is particularly fortunate in having a copy of these from 1562.

It is easy to picture the scene at the old manor house, the steward seated at the high table, and the freeholders, residents and tenants, who were bound to appear, grouped round. The jurymen were first elected, and, having firsthand knowledge of all offences, acted both as jury and prosecutor,

The inhabitants of each of the four tithings or boroughs, Southborough, Northborough, Mygreane (Meath Green) and Lestrete (Lee Street) were led by their tithing man who brought the “customary fine” or “head silver”, which varied but was often 12d. They also presented any boy over twelve years old to be sworn in. Those defaulters, and there were many, who did not attend, were fined 2d., 4d. or 6d.

The Ale taster more often than not pronounced “all well” until the appearance of Bernard Humfrey and Agnes Shoe. Alas, they were constantly fined, both as common bakers and common alehouse keepers, for breaking the assize, and once, more specifically, for baking “Spiced cakes”. Poor Agnes! She was also in trouble with John Fletcher for selling liquor in “stone cups, wood tankards and other illegal unstamped measures”.  It must have been her tongue which made her so unpopular!  In 1604 she was presented by name for being “a common scold with her neighbours, she gives forth many words of malice and anger”.  Though the name is not given, one fears it may also have been her some years before, of whom it was said there was “A widow who is a common scold and shrew against her neighbours in the Lordship and a Common breaker of the Queen’s peace there by evil {28} and most wicked example of wrong-doing”. However, apart from a 2d. fine for breaking the assize (a form of licence, not to be taken seriously), no action seems to have been taken. She was certainly no pauper. She died in 1615 owning a house and ten acres called Coopers which, in 1593, was assessed at 20s., and on which she paid 4s, tax.

Further business of the Court was the forfeiture of stray animals after a “year and a day” to the lord—perhaps two sheep each valued 3s. 4d, or a black ewe, value 20d., or even one “red hackled bullock” value        £10. 3s. 4d, and the “Pound” in which they were put, was to be seen up to a few years ago at the corner of the manor drive and Vicarage Lane. The recurrent crime of owners and tenants who had not repaired the bridges nor cleaned their ditches was a constant source of trouble. These were given “a day” by which they should be “cleansed”, but even this was perhaps not taken too much to heart.

Crimes were reported, sometimes serious, as when Thos. Bray “long before this was arrested, condemned and hanged for murder” and it was a question of the forfeiture of his land; sometimes less serious as when Benjamin Bonnycke and Andrew Sande were “presented for fighting”. “The said Benjamin struck the said Andrew with a certain Cudgell with a Pick value 2d. and drew blood from him against the King’s peace”. Fines imposed were 3s. 4d. for Benjamin Bonnycke and 1s. for Andrew Sande. In another affray, in which Thomas Mylles, servant of Francis Sumons, is wounded, the cudgel is specified as a “nabbed cudgell”. As late as 1615 archery butts were in existence, but evidently in need of repair as the inhabitants of the whole manor are given a day in which to do the work,

Finally, a new constable for the whole manor, and four new tithing men, and an aletaster were elected for the year. These were heavily fined if they refused to serve.

At the Court Baron the “Homage” was sworn and the landowners who defaulted were fined.  Among these the name of “Charles Lord Howard Earl of Nottingham and High Admiral of England” often appears. He owned a small strip of land to the east of the main road, opposite the Chequers. His position, in command of the English forces fighting the Spanish Armada, was no excuse for non-attendance at the small village court, and he was fined 4d. in 1597, as his father “Lord William Howard, Lord Chamberlain of the household of the Lady Queen”, had been before him. This rose to 6d. in 1603, and 2s. in 1604, After this date all fines dropped to the customary 4d.

Business then passed to the notice of landowners who had died, and what heriot, which was by custom the best live beast owned by a tenant, was due on his death to the lord perhaps an ox valued at £10. 6s. 8d., or a cow at only 26s. 8d.—and also what land had been sold, and to whom. Finally great attention was paid to the infringement of the Common rights, either by building on small pieces of common land or by overstocking with sheep, oxen, cows, and horses {29} “to the hurt, and great injury of the lords and tenants of the manor”. The View of Frankpledge came to an end before 1735, but the Court Baron was held up to 1844 to register transfers of land, and many names well known at the present time occur in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—Shove, Blundell, Flint and Brooker, to name a few. In 1808 Mr. Richard Agate was licenced to enjoy land enclosed by him from Horley Common “one Triangular piece of land on the North side of his dwelling house called the Thorns, 17 poles” which triangular piece of land still exists and was, until lately, the site of the War Memorial.

The Manor Court was always, I think, let as a farm. Certainly this was so in 1825 for Cobbett, on one of his Rural Rides, went to Hartswood on business on 19th October, and afterwards to a sale at a farm. He says that it belonged to Christ’s Hospital, and was close to the river Mole, “which was here a mere rivulat”, and with “the prettiest flour mill I ever saw in my life” just below the house. This is certainly Horley Mill, and Cobbett must have seen the river after a dry autumn. It is not always a “mere rivulet”. The house being vacated by Thomas Charrington was Court Manor Farm, not the present but an earlier building, which he leased from Christ’s Hospital, together with Coppenham, Labucks and Spiers. The Farm was let by them that same year to Edward Kelsey. Thomas Charrington married the daughter of Richard Humphrey, late tenant of the farm, so that, in spite of Cobbett’s statement that the Charringtons had held the lease for a great number of years, it would seem more likely that he took on that of his father-in-law.

Cobbett paints a brilliant but tragic picture of past days when formerly there were probably from ten to fifteen men, boys and maids living in the house and eating at the same long strong oak table, well supplied with joint stools; when “this Squire Charrington’s father used, I dare say, to sit at the head of the oak table along with men, say Grace to them and cut up the meat and pudding, he might take a cup of strong beer to himself, when they had none, but that was pretty nearly all the difference in their manner of living. So that all lived well “Now that they live away in hovels called cottages and are paid wholly in money is it not clear why he does it, that he thereby gives them a living cheaper to himself, that is to say a worse living than formerly”, and paid so poorly that they had perforce to come to him in the King’s name and demand food as paupers.

Cobbett looks angrily at the parlour with its carpet and bell-pulls at the wine decanters, dinner set, breakfast set and even dessert knives now used by the Charringtons. “That long table could not share in the work of the decanters and the dinner set, therefore it became almost untenanted”. He quits the house “almost in a real passion”, reflecting on the thousands of scores of bacon and countless bushels of bread which had been eaten from the long oak table in the past, and which {30} would be seen on it no more. That this was going on all over the country is certain. Cobbett’s views are well known to have been at times both violent and prejudiced, but he does put his finger here on the root causes of endless suffering and near starvation of the labourers in the early nineteenth century.

LONG BRIDGE

The original road joining the highway at Hookwood to Horley crossed the Mole at Long Bridge, and led directly on to Horley Common, as did Church Road; there was no junction between these two. The bridge is mentioned in a deed of 1304, when John, son of John atte Longebrugge, granted to John de Gatwyk “for his fealty and sixteen shillings of silver and yearly rent of 16d. . . . his capital messuage (or house) and two acres of land near the churchyard at Horley”. The deed was signed at Charlwood, and two of witnesses were John Jordan and Walter de la Hake. After 654 years every one of these names remain.

The notes on bridges existing in 1553 show the problem of the marshes on each side of the river, certainly as much as 100 yards wide, necessitating the “long” wooden clappers which must have given the bridge its name.

“Long Bridge leading over Emlyn Streem is sufficiently made and repaired but the Ways at the end of the same Bridge is not sufficiently Repaired by a Common Noysance and that the inhabitants of Charlwood ought to make the Highway and the west part of the same Bridge and Clappers and that the inhabitants of Horley ought to make the east end of the same Highway and Clappers.”  The trouble was never ending. Seven times between 1565 and 1624 are the inhabitants of Southburgh tithing ordered to repair either the bridge or the clappers at the local Court of the Manor. However once, and once only, it is noted “Les Clappers near Long Bridge were repaired as ordered” and that was in 1618!

Cromwell’s Commissioners (1649—1658) write of Horley “that the said p’ishe Church is situate from Burstowe two miles and from Charlwood two miles and in winter are very bad and dirty waies”.

SIX BELLS

It is not known when this first started as an inn, but from its position, close both to the church and bridge, it is almost certainly the oldest in Horley. It is always possible that it was on this site that John atte Longebrugge had his “capital messuage” mentioned in the 1304 deed. It is never referred to by name in the Court Rolls or Church Wardens’ accounts, though it may very well have afforded refreshment to many inhabitants during or after the protracted sittings both of the Manor Courts and Vestries. The present building is described in the Victoria Histories as “the picturesque Six Bells’ Inn dating back to the fifteenth {31} century or earlier, with its steep roof of Horsham slabs, half timbered walls and fine brick chimney. Inside is to be seen a large beam, perhaps part of a screen bearing a battlemented moulding. The quaintness of the building is enhanced by tile hanging of diamond pattern covering the upper stories, and the same kind of tiling occurs upon the walls of a large old house on the opposite side of the road”.

MASSETTS ROAD

There are people living in Horley who still remember this as a green lane through meadows.  Hatchgate at one end, with its avenue to the main road, and a cottage at the other, and with gates to keep beasts from straying. When Christ’s Hospital bought Horley in 1602, it led towards the river between four large fields, which were owned by Thomas Letchford, or Lashforde as a freeholder of the manor. The family had already lived in Horley for over a century, and forty years before this a Thomas Lashfords had been ordered to cleanse his “ditches over against Massett Lane”, and also those from the meadows between his land and the river, that went by the delightful name of Flatt Gongs. Flatt Gongs itself belonged to the Topsells Johanna leaving it in 1569 to her son Nicholas.

Thomas, who had buried his son Edward inside Horley church (which privilege was accorded only to a few), and paid the customary 6s. 8d., was churchwarden with Henry Bonnick in 1598, and again with Nicholas Charrington the following year. He died in 1604, leaving Admonds and Massath to his daughter Sara. She had married Benjamin Browne, son of the famous vicar of Horley, himself rector of lfield and also owner of Yew Trees in Horley Row. By 1634 it had passed to William Bristow, who had one of the special seats in church allotted to him “for Massatt Lane”.

OLD HATCHGATE

The next entry is interesting as mentioning Hatchlands (now Old Hatchgate), as well as “Messique”, being left by William Bristow to his son Walter. This must be the house for which Walter atte Hacch paid 19d. tax in 1332, and which is also shown on the 1602 map at the end of Massetts Lane, where it opens directly on to the Common. The old barn is still standing, the last remnant of the farm—which at the end of the nineteenth century all belonged to the Old Hatchgate. This must have been in use in Thomas Lashford’s day. What surprising changes it has seen in Massetts Road, as in all Horley, in the last hundred years, and what greater surprises are in store as it looks out over Flatt Gongs and the river to the runways at Gatwick.

The Brighton Road from

The Chequers to Earlswood

{32} THE THEORY that a prehistoric track from north to south existed somewhere near the present main road is partly confirmed by the finding, in 1956, of a beautifully flaked Neolithic axe head in a field to the north of the Bonehurst stream. It is thought that this may have been dropped into the stream by some neolithic traveller, and dug up and thrown on the land when the brook was dredged. It is Horley’s oldest possession, and is now in safekeeping at Guildford Museum.

SALFORDS

The Saxons also certainly used this part of the track, and the ford through the tributary of the Mole, now known as Mason’s Brook.  Along its banks willows still grow. The Saxon for willow is “seahl” and, as the “ford by the willows”, Salford was born. A wooden bridge to take the increased traffic was built before 1316, but the name of the ford remained. Stephen de Salford lived there in 1279, and Philip de Saleford in 1332.

PETRIDGE WOOD

Another place dating from Saxon times is Petridge Wood, a fringe of trees to the west of the main road as it climbs the slope from Salfords to Earlswood. Though the name was in use in Mercia in the seventh century, nothing is known of the “Pede” who gave his name so permanently to this hrycq or ridge that, after a thousand years, it is still called after him. But the fact that it remained unchanged through the turmoil of the Norman Conquest, and is still in use today, is surely another proof of the continuity of English country life. The first written document in which it occurs is a grant of 947 by King Eadred in the second year of his reign, to his thegn Oswi.

By 1243 Pede’s hrycq had come to be pronounced Pederig, and here a connection is to be found with the well-known name of Savoy. After the marriage of the young King Henry Ill to Eleanor of Provence, numbers of her relations appeared at Court. These were loaded with honours, and Peter of Savoy, her uncle and a friend of Simon de Montfort, was made Earl of Richmond and given the wardship of various young nobles, including John, Earl de Warenne in Reigate. Peter had found in Yorkshire that one simple way of enriching himself was by the sale of good English timber. In Surrey this was made easier by the wardship of young de Warenne, and it is clear that he made the most of his opportunities. In a writ to the Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1243 as to the waste committed, it was stated that in Worth Forest — among a long list of other places—his bailiffs had cut 60 oaks, also beeches, ash, birch, alder and lime, and have “sold to all who would {33} buy”. Further depredations took place in Surrey, “51 oaks of which they have made shingles”, and “22 great beeches which made, 8,000 talewood”, or as it would now be called, cordwood. Further ‘ ‘In Reygate wood they sold 35 oaks, in Pederig wood 14 oaks. In the lane by ‘Sedelimes Melne’ (Sidlow Mill) they sold 24 oaks. And the jury say a great waste in Reigate Park, but the extent thereof they cannot say because the bailiffs will not allow them to enter”

More trees were cut in Petridge Wood in the reign of Charles I by William Monson, son of the famous Admiral who had lived nearby at Kinnersley, and by this time the name had assumed its present form. Later, in 1766, 890 timber trees, willows and pollards, are noted when Petridge Wood Farm, rented at £58. 0s. 0d per annum, was sold at the Devil’s Tavern, Temple Bar. The farm still retains the old name.

Bourners, or Bonehurst, was the usual name of the lane, but it was also known as Erbridge Street from the submanor of that name, which was acquired by Sir Robert Southwell after the dissolution of Chertsey Abbey, and sold by him to Henry Letchford of Charlwood, remaining as part of the manor of Charlwood up to 1800. It stretched west from the road and included Barnelands, the Hopps and even Crutchfield, all across the river, and Bushes (now Bush House), with “18 acres abutting on the king’s highway from Hookwood to Reigate”.

Right up to the nineteenth century the road remained a lane, used only for local needs as far as Reigate — Redhill as a town did not exist — and, like all lanes in the heavy clay, was a quagmire in winter and baked into deep ruts in dry weather, despite the efforts of surveyors and work due from most unwilling inhabitants. “Ruinous and almost impassable” is a description in 1697. Here also the bridges were a constant problem. Under “defaults and commyn nuisans of bridges”, inquired into by the justices in 1533, Bourners and Salfords are both mentioned. The latter “is in great decay and the borough of ‘Woodlatch and the Borough of Earbridge ought to make new the way”. If other inhabitants did indeed follow the example of John Shoe, this is hardly to be wondered at. In 1567 he was fined 8d. *’for conveying various rails, fences and footrails from Mason’s Bridge and converting them to his own use, being to the prejudice of all the inhabitants of Northborough, and a bad example to all other people”!

The lane opened to the south by the Chequers corner, known in 1602 as the Bolters, on to Horley Common which, in 1794, also seems to have had little to commend it, being “suffered to remain in a very neglected state, the nature of the soil being so stiff and being continually poached during the autumn and winter months by cattle, it becomes so condensed as to hold water like a bowl”.

It was not until early in the nineteenth century that the new road was cut between Merstham and Povey Cross. Three surveys had been made between 1807 and 1814, and finally in 1816 the Horley Turnpike Road came into existence and the village found itself in a strategic {34}  position on one of the busiest thoroughfares in the kingdom, passed continually by coaches and visitors to the now fashionable Brighton, along roads both reasonably hard and level, made possible by McAdam’s revolutionary surfacing methods. In an immensely long Act of Parliament, from which the following short notes are taken, it was said that the Turnpike Road from Gatton Lodge to Povey Cross (which would be the old road by Horse Hills) is “circuitous and there are divers Hills on Parts thereof”. This might be much shortened “by making a new road from Gatton Lodge to Petteridge Wood and through Horley over Horley Common. to fall in the present Turnpike Road at Povey Cross. Thereby rendering the intercourse between the Metropolis and Sea Coast more speedy, particularly in the supply of Fish in the Mackerel and Herring Season”. Among the Trustees was John Bristow, and they were given very wide powers, to erect Turnpikes and Toll Houses “and to take the several tolls— on every day, before any Horse, Mare or Gelding, Mule, Ass, Beast or other Cattle, or any Coach, Waggon, Cart or other Carriage whatsoever shall be permitted to pass through”.

The prices were fixed as follows ‘ ‘For every Horse or other Beast of Draught drawing any Coach, Sociable, Berlin, Landau, Chariot, Vis a Vis, Chaise, Calash, Chaise Marine, Curricle, Chair, Gig, Whiskey, Caravan, Litter or other such Carriage, the sum of fourpence’. “For every Horse . . drawing any Waggon, Cart or Dray having the bottom of the Fellies of the Wheels nine inches or upwards, threepence”

Narrower wheels were charged fourpence and fivepence according to width, as it was considered that broad wheels did less harm to the roads.

“For every Drove of Oxen, Cows or Neat Cattle, eightpence, and every Drove of Calves, Swine, Sheep or Lambs, fourpence per score”. The same animal might pass the same gate on the same day free, but half more was to be paid on a Sunday.”

“For every Horse, Mare, Gelding, Mule or the sum of One Penny Halfpenny”.

If tolls were refused, the Collector might seize any Horse “together with Bridle and Saddle”, or any carriage with its loading. These could be sold if tolls were not paid “within the space of five days”.

There is finally a very modern note about nuisances.

“If any person shall leave a Waggon, or Carriage on the road without any horse to draw the same (except in case of accident or for time for unloading) he shall pay a sum not exceeding five pounds”.

It is surely noteworthy that the main reason given for this new road was not that travellers might reach their destination more quickly, but that mackerel and herring might be more speedily delivered in London. {35} A very important point, this, in the days before refrigeration.

At the point of vantage, where the two roads to the South branched, stood the new Chequers Hotel, with the arms of the de Warennes as its sign. Well known to many in the great days of coaching, it was also the change for the Brighton Parcel Mail. The following is a vivid description of the scene written in 1892. “The Chequers is an inn that commands attention as much by its position as by its appearance standing as it does at the centre of Horley where several roads meet. A long rambling building . . . whose irregularity charms by its artless air. The Brighton Parcel Mail which goes nowadays by road changes here every night. The down van from London Bridge meets the up mail from Brighton at 12.55 and vans are exchanged. The lateness of the hour, the changing of the horses, the appearance of the great vans, each with its three powerful lamps in front, and its two red lights behind; all these things are impressive indeed, not less remarkable are the regularity and swiftness with which the service is maintained”

                                                                                                                         Forge Cottage

Close to the Chequers, Forge Cottage still stands, built perhaps in the early seventeenth century, or earlier, when glass had not yet taken {36}  the place of horn for windows, An annexe was at some time built on to the kitchen, and between these two, protected from weather, a window may be seen with some of the original horn panes.

A little further along the road stood the old King’s Head, near the site of the present Cambridge Hotel. When this was burnt down the new building was erected in its present position, close to the station which was formerly at that end of the town.

Employment on the new road and at the inns, the providing of horses and food for man and beast, must have considerably altered and widened the lives of the inhabitants, whose agricultural wage was estimated in 1794 at Is. 6d. a day, and it is undoubtedly to the coaches, and later the railway, that we owe the gradual end of a thousand years of quiet rural life in the parish.

                                                                                                                  ********************

Here these few notes must end. They are written for those who have made their home in the parish, either after many generations, or during the last few years, as proof that much interest lies embedded in its past. It is also undeniable, that this past, forms the continuous backcloth to the stage on which the present and future inhabitants must play their parts.

Much practical research has been, and continues to be, done in the parish towards the strange and wonderful life that lies ahead in this era of supersonic speed, when it would seem that time will be left behind and man’s horizon bounded not alone by the moon but by the immensity of space. As we are caught up in this irresistible urge for increasing speed and ever greater space, it may not be amiss at times to look back on the slow and circumscribed lives of the inhabitants of Horley as lived in a small agricultural village on the edge of the Weald.

{38} Reference has been made to the following:

HISTORIES OF SURREY. Victoria County and Manning and Bray.

SURREY ARCHEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS.

SURREY RECORD SOCIETY, vols. 18 and 48.

THE PLACE NAMES OF SURREY,

ANTIQUITIES OF SURREY. Hawley.

BRIGHTON ROAD. Harper.

CARTULARIUM SAXONICUM. trans, Birch.

NAVAL TRACTS. Sir William Monson, ed. Oppenheim.

DICTIONARIES OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY, RELIGION AND ETHICS, AND FOLKLORE.

MANUSCRIPTS: Court Rolls of the Manor of Horley from 1562; Horley Church Warden’s Account from c.1500; The Bristow Family by E Jenkins; Additional Charters at British Museum; Deeds and maps at Surrey Record Office, Kingston, and in local hands; also original map of Horley, c.1602 from Christ’s Hospital, loaned to Surrey Record Office.