A HISTORY OF SURREY 



Wellington appears to have purchased it. 16 In 1835 

 Alan Mackenzie presented to the church." In 1841 

 the advowson was the property of Mrs. T. C. 

 Stone,' 8 and in 1906 of the trustees of Mr. E. 

 Thompson. 



Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of The History of 

 the Life of Cicero, was presented to the living in 

 March 17^6-7,'* but did not apparently reside. 



CHARITY. Smith's Charity is distributed in. 

 money and clothing. 



ST. MARTHA'S OR CHILWORTH 



St. Martha's (1291) ;' St. Martha and All Holy 

 Martyrs, and Martyr's Hill (1464) ; Martha Hill 

 (1468) ; Marters Hill (1538); St. Martha on the 

 Hill (i 589). 



St. Martha's is a small parish, now ecclesiastically 

 merged in Albury, 2 miles south-east of Guildford, 

 bounded on the north by Stoke and Merrow, on the 

 west by Shalford, on the south by Wonersh, on the 

 east by Albury. It con tains 1, 060 acres. Its greatest 

 length north to south is under 2 miles, its greatest 

 breadth on the northern border is under a mile and 

 a half. The soil is chalk in the north, on the downs, 

 but most of it is on the Greensand, which rises in 

 St. Martha's Hill to 570 ft. above the sea. The hill, 

 crowned by what is now called the chapel of St. 

 Martha, is abrupt and isolated, forming a more 

 conspicuous object than the height, which is surpassed 

 by the hills to the south of it, would indicate. It is 

 higher than the chalk down to the north of it, and 

 the views from it south-west towards Hindhead, and 

 eastward along the valley to Albury and Shere, are 

 among the most picturesque in the county. 



The valley to the south of the hill, through which 

 the Tillingbourne flows, has for long been the seat of 

 industries dependent upon the good water-power 

 supplied by the stream. There was a mill in Domes- 

 day, a corn-mill and a fulling-mill in 1589,' and from 

 before that date gunpowder mills, which still continue.* 

 There was a paper-mill which was burnt down in 

 1 896 and has never been rebuilt. Cobbett, in his 

 Rural Rides, has a remark, often quoted, upon the 

 extreme beauty of this valley as God made it, and its 

 pollution by the two worst inventions of the Devil, 

 gunpowder and bank-notes being manufactured in it. 



Postford Mill is on the boundary of this parish 

 and of Albury. The road from Guildford to Dorking 

 and the Reading branch of the South Eastern Railway 

 traverse the southern end of the parish ; Chilworth 

 and Albury station, opened 1 849, is just inside it. 



An ancient bridle way from the ferry over the 

 Wey at St. Catherine's Hill, through the Chantry 

 Woods, and over St. Martha's Hill, close by the 

 church, and so down to Albury, has been generally 

 identified with the Pilgrims' Way. The line, 

 straight over the top of a steep isolated hill which 

 might have been easily turned upon either side, does 

 eeem to indicate some ancient route to some object of 

 interest upon the hill. If to the church, the Holy 

 Martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, one of the 

 patrons of Newark Priory, to which the church was 

 appropriated, whose shrine at Canterbury travellers 

 here might be seeking, may have superseded St. 



Martha in popular language as the patron of the 

 hill. 



Neolithic flint implements and flakes are of more 

 than usually abundant occurrence on this road, on 

 the hill and in the fields to the north of it. On the 

 hill, near the top and towards the southern side, were 

 several curious earth-circles about 28 to 30 yds. in 

 diameter marked by a slight mound and ditch. The 

 best was destroyed a few years ago by the Hambledon 

 District Council, who made a reservoir on the hill to 

 which water is pumped to supply houses on Blackheath. 

 The persons responsible for the work made no effort to 

 observe or record any discoveries. The next best marked 

 lies nearly due south of the church. To the south-west is 

 another, fairly well marked, but much overgrown by 

 heather, ferns, and fir trees. The fourth, nearly ob- 

 literated, is south-east of the church. South-west of the 

 church marks in the ground visible in a dry season 

 may indicate nearly obliterated hut-circles. Small flint 

 implements are to be found in them scratched out by 

 rabbits. At the western foot of the hill, near the road 

 opposite Tyting, is a large barrow with trees upon it, 

 which has, apparently, never been disturbed. On the 

 north side of St. Martha's Hill lies the old farm-house 

 of Tyting, which from the period of the Domesday 

 Survey belonged to the Bishops of Exeter. It stands 

 in a quaint old-world herb-garden, and still retains a 

 small oratory with a group of three lancets in chalk, 

 probably of early 13th-century date. 



Chilworth is an erroneous name for the parish. It 

 is an ancient manor, and the few houses usually called 

 Chilworth are partly in St. Martha's and partly in 

 Shalford parishes. Of modern houses Lockner Holt 

 and Brantyngeshay in the part of the parish which 

 reaches Blackheath to the south are the residences of 

 Mrs. Sellar and Mr. H. W. Prescott, respectively. 

 The elementary school was opened in 1873. There 

 are one or two old houses in the hamlet of Chilworth. 

 Some of these are probably due to the settlement here 

 in Elizabeth's reign of workmen employed under Sir 

 Polycarp Wharton in the manufacture of gunpowder. 

 There are two reputed manors in St. 

 MANORS Martha Chilworth, to the south, and 

 Tyting, to the north, of St. Martha's Hill. 



CHllWORTH (Celeorde, xi cent. ; Chele worth, xiii 

 and xiv cents.) was held by Alwin under Edward the 

 Confessor, and after the Conquest came with Bramley, 

 in which it lay, into the hands of Odo, Bishop of 

 Bayeux.* It was afterwards held of the lords of 

 Bramley by the tenants of Utworth Manor 5 (q.v.), with 

 which it descended till 1614, at which date Sir John 

 Morgan, who was knighted at Cadiz in 1596," sold 



Inst. Bki. (P.R.O.). 



Ibid. 



Brayley, Hist. ofSurr. v, 127. 



a9 Diet. Nat. Biog, xxrvii, 34.6. 



1 ' Taxatio Ealtiiatiea,' Cott. MS. Ti- 



berius C. x. which is nearly contemporary 

 with 1291. 



1 Settlement on the marriage of John 

 Morgan of Chilworth. 



8 Y.C.H. Surr. ii, 301. 



IO4 



4 Ibid, i, 301. 



& It is first recorded as being in their 

 possession in 1240-1 ; Feet of F. Surr. 

 25 Hen. Ill, 7. 



6 S.P. Dom. Eliz. cclir, 84. 



