GODALMING HUNDRED 



GODALMING 



GODALMING : BASHING BRIDGE 



The hamlet of Hashing contains many old cottages 

 of architectural interest, and an ancient bridge over 

 the Wey. One of the cottages is on the river close 

 to the bridge. It is largely of timber framing. The 

 other cottages at Lower Eashing form a highly 

 picturesque group, with high-pitched roofs, hipped 

 gables, and dormers of half-timbered construction, 

 with a specially fine and lofty group of chimneys, 

 connected with the main roof by a sort of lean-to. 

 An ivy-clad stone wall to the fore-court heightens 

 the artistic effect, and within the court is an ancient 

 well-house, retaining its old wheel and bucket. 13 

 Another cottage in this neighbourhood has a fine crow- 

 stepped chimney. Near Eashing House is a brick and 

 timber building, with circle work in the gable. Eash- 

 ing House itself was built by Ezra Gill in 1729-36 

 on the site of the house called Jordans. 



Eashing Bridge, of three low stone-built round 

 arches, with breakwaters between them, is probably 

 of early 1 3th-century date. It has lately been 

 acquired by 'The National Trust for the Preservation 

 of Places of Natural Beauty and Historical Associa- 

 tions.' It was formerly repaired by the lord of the 

 manor. In 1568 it is presented in the Hundred 

 Court as valde ruinosa, the obligation of repair being 

 * on the queen. But in 1588 it was ruinosa still. 1 * 



The name Eashing is of great antiquity. It is 

 mentioned in Alfred's will, where it was left to his 

 nephew ^Edhelm. In the Burghal Hidage, a docu- 

 ment attributed by Professor Maitland to the loth 

 century," it appears as a site of a fortified place, where 



the expression myd jEicingum shows that it was a tribal 

 name. The burn is not likely to have been here. There 

 are two tithings of Godalming, Lower Eashing where 

 are the hamlets of Lower and Upper Eashing, as here 

 described, and Upper Eashing Tithing, quite separate 

 from it. The latter is High Tithing ' of the 

 Hundred Rolls, about Busbridge, which name has 

 superseded it as the name of a hamlet. Bus- 

 bridge seems to have been named from a family who 

 came from Kent, in 1384 spelt ' Burssabrugge ' and 

 ' Burrshebrugge' (Hundred Rolls). There was other 

 land called Bushbridges the possession of the same 

 family in the Godalming common fields. James de 

 Bushbridge sold Bushbridge or Busbridge to John 

 Eliot of Godalming under Henry VIII. 18 His grand- 

 son Laurence Eliot sailed with 

 Drake round the world. His 

 son William, born 1587," was 

 knighted 1620. He built the 

 old house of Busbridge, to 

 judge from the features of the 

 building, and formed the park, 

 having a grant of free warren 

 in his lands of 500 acres in 

 1637," and died 1650. His 

 son William, born 1624, died 

 1697, leaving a son William, 

 born 1671, who died 1708. 

 His brother Laurence sold the property in 1 7 1 o. It 

 passed through the hands of various owners. Among 

 these was Philip Carteret Webb, F.R.S., born 1700, 



ELIOT of Godalming, 

 Azure a fesse or. 



18 These cottages are illustrated in 

 Mr. Nevill's Old Cottage aid Domestic 

 Architecture of South-west Surr. (ed. 2), 

 65 ; a,nd in Old Cottages and Farmhouses 

 in Suirr. by W. Galsworthy Davie, and 



W. Curtis Green, pi. 22, 23, 24, and 

 29. 



14 Loseley R. 



15 Maitland, Dam. Bk. and Beyond, 502 

 et seq. 



2 7 



18 Survey of Godalming, I, 2, 3, 

 Edw. VI. 



*' Godalming Registers. 



18 Pat. R. 1 3 Chas. I, pt. xxvii. 



