174 



CHAPTER X. 



COULSDON, DaUTFORD, AND WlGLEY COMMONS. 

 COULSDON. 



While the Epping Forest case was wending its slow 

 course in the Law Courts, two other cases arose in 

 respect of Commons of great importance to London, 

 namely, the Coulsdon Commons and Dartford Heath. 

 The Parish of Coulsdon, conterminous with the Manor, 

 and lying between the Parishes of Croydon and 

 Caterham, within easy reach of London, consists of 

 4,815 acres, of which 400 acres are open downs on 

 the Surrey Hills, at no great distance from Epsom 

 and Banstead Commons. Two of the downs, Eiddles- 

 down and Farthingdown, respectively of 77 and 126 

 acres, are in the north of the Parish ; Kenley and 

 Coulsdon Commons, of 77 and 88 acres, are in the 

 southern part. There are also three village greens, 

 parts of the waste of the Manor. 



Domesday Book states that the Manor was then in 

 the hands of the Abbey of Chertsey. It so continued 

 till the dissolution of the Abbey, when Henry VIII. 

 gave it to Sir Nicholas Care we. It then passed through 

 various hands, till it was sold, in 1783, to Mr. Thomas 

 Byron, the ancestor of the Lord of the Manor, who, 

 after the Report of the Committee of 1865, set to 

 work to appropriate the Commons. 



