BLACKHEATH HUNDRED 



BRAMLEY 



The country is well wooded. There are extensive 

 roadside wastes, but no large commons. The land is 

 agricultural. There is a water-mill, Bramley Mill, or 

 Snowdenham Mill, worked by a tributary of the Wey, 

 which flows from Hascombe into Bramley village, 

 where it joins another stream which falls into the 

 Wey below the railway bridge of the Brighton line. 

 The mouth of this stream was utilized for the old 

 Wey and Arun Canal, which here left the former 

 river, and passed along the eastern verge of Bramley 

 parish. This canal was virtually disused when the 

 railway was opened in 1865, and was barely passable 

 for a small boat above Bramley village in 1872, and 

 is now quite blocked and dry in places. There is a 

 station at Bramley on the Brighton line from Guild- 

 ford to Horsham, opened in 1865. 



A road from Guildford to Horsham passes through 

 Bramley. A branch leads from the village to Has- 

 combe and Dunsfold and Alfold. 



Historically it is remarkable that Bramley, which 



Hooper, Woodrough of the Hon. E. P. Thesiger, 

 Bramley Grange of Colonel Fox Webster, Nore of 

 Colonel Godwin Austen, and Unstead Park of Mr. 

 L. C. W. Phillips. Lord John Russell had a lease of 

 the last named during Sir Robert Peel's ministry, when 

 the Whigs were out of office. 



The Parish Schools were built by Mrs. Sutherland 

 in 1850, and enlarged in 1874, 1894, and 1901. 



St. Catherine's School for Girls (Church of England 

 middle class school) was built by subscription in 

 1885, and incorporated by charter with Cranleigh 

 Boys' School in 1898. There is a handsome red- 

 brick chapel in 1 3th-century style containing good 

 painted glass, showing English and other female saints 

 on opposite sides of the chapel. 



In 1884 Brookwell and Graff ham were transferred 

 from Dunsfold civil parish to Bramley, being before 

 isolated parts of Dunsfold, and High Billinghurst was 

 transferred from Bramley to Dunsfold. 1 



The parish abounds in ancient houses. Bramley 



BRAMLEY : OLD HOUSES 



gave its name to the very extensive possessions of the 

 Bishop of Bayeux in the neighbourhood, so that the 

 manor of Bramley intruded into several neighbouring 

 parishes of later date, was not itself a parish. What- 

 ever the enumeration of population in Domesday may 

 mean, Bramley is the third in order in the county, 

 coming after only Southwark and Guildford. As is 

 the case all over the dry soils of Surrey, a great many 

 neolithic flint implements and flakes have been found. 

 Some are in the Surrey Archaeological Society's museum 

 at Guildford, some in the Charterhouse Museum. 



The cemetery was made in 1851 by the late Mrs. 

 Sutherland, and enlarged by the late Mr. Percy 

 Ricardo in 1890. The Constitutional Hall, which 

 includes a Conservative Working Men's Club, was 

 opened in 1888. Thorncombe is the residence of 

 Captain Fisher Rowe, Bramley Park of Colonel 

 Ricardo, Snowdenham Hall of Mr. John Kinnersley 



East was the name both of a house and a manor ; the 

 house is a three-gabled brick and stone building, 

 nicely proportioned. Opposite to it is a far more 

 interesting half -timber house, the details of which re- 

 call Great Tangley manor-house, in the adjoining 

 parish of Wonersh. Tangley Manor was rebuilt by 

 Mr. Carrill in Elizabeth's reign. He was also lord of 

 Bramley East. The date of the latter may be about 

 1560. The most valuable feature is a two-storied 

 gabled staircase wing resembling those at Rake House 

 and Shottermill, in which the timber framework is 

 designed in squares, four quadrants of a circle being 

 placed back to back within each square, the total 

 effect being a pattern of intersecting squares and 

 circles. The grouping of roofs and crow-stepped 

 chimneys in this building is very picturesque. 



At Nursecombe, an outlying hamlet, is an inter- 

 esting old timber-framed house of the 1 6th century 



1 By Loc. Govt. Bd. Order, 16532, dated 24 Mar. 

 Si 



II 



