WOTTON HUNDRED 



road running under or across this landslip from Cold- 

 harbour to Leith Hill since 1896 a public road, 

 before that date private (though a public footpath 

 existed and a public bridle-track crossed it) is called 

 Cockshott's Road, from a farm at the end of it ; and 

 may fairly claim to be among the most picturesque 

 roads in the south of England. The road slipped 

 again badly about 1866. Capel parish is traversed 

 by the main road from Dorking to Horsham, made 

 in 1755, and the northern part by the old road from 

 London to Arundel through Coldharbour, diverted 

 since 1896 in its course from Coldharbour Common 

 towards Ockley as a part of the transactions for open- 

 ing Cockshott's Road. The London, Brighton, and 

 South Coast Railway line to Portsmouth passes through 

 the parish, in which lies Holmwood Station, opened 

 in 1867. The parish is agricultural except for small 

 brick and tile works. There are open commons at Beare 

 Green, Misbrook's Green, Clark's Green, and Cold- 

 harbour Common or Mosses' Hill, so called from the 

 farm mentioned above. Many small pieces of waste were 

 brought into cultivation early in the igth century. 



There is one conspicuous work of antiquity in the 

 parish now. On the hill called Anstiebury, formerly 

 Hanstiebury, above Coldharbour, 800 ft. above the 

 sea taken from Dorking and added to Capel by the 

 Local Government Act of 1894 is a fin; prehistoric 

 fortification. A nearly circular top of a hill has been 

 surrounded by banks and ditches, triple upon the 

 most exposed sides, but probably never more than 

 single and now completely obliterated for a short 

 space on the south, where the slope is nearly perpen- 

 dicular, and where some old digging for sandstone 

 seems to have gone on. The space inside the inner 

 bank is about 1 1 acres, the shape an ellipse, roughly 

 speaking. The hill is thickly planted. Mr. Walters, 

 of Bury Hill, Dorking, owned it and began the 

 planting which makes the shape of the works harder 

 to see, in summer time especially. There is a damp 

 spot inside where a water supply might have been 

 found, and a good water supply in a shallow well 

 in a cottage garden close outside it. The entrance to 

 the north-east, where a grass road comes through the 

 banks, is not the original entrance, but was made 

 when part of the interior was cultivated, after 

 Mr. Walters' time, for access by carts. The entrance 

 was more probably on the north side, nearly opposite 

 the gate which leads into the wood from Anstie Lane. 

 A path here crosses the banks diagonally, flanked in 

 its course by the innermost bank, here higher than 

 elsewhere. Flint arrow-heads are said to have been 

 found in or near the works, and also coins near it, 

 but exact records are lacking. 



The work is the largest of its kind in Surrey, next 

 to the inclosure on St. George's Hill. 



Anstie Farm, north-east of the hill on the high 

 ground, 1 still held of the manor of Milton, is no 

 doubt Hanitega, held of that manor in 1086, but it is in 

 Dorking parish, not Capel. The land reached down 

 to the Roman road eastward, and to the old road from 

 Dorking westward. Either might be the ' highway ' 

 which probably named the place. 



The Stone Street enters Capel close by Bucking- 

 hill Farm and leaves it close to Anstie Grange Farm. 

 It has been traced for the entire length in the parish, 



CAPEL 



and excavated by the writer. Two or three feet of 

 the centre of the causeway were found intact in the 

 ground, made of flints set in cement, as hard as a 

 wall. It is unused now throughout, except for a very 

 few yards near Beare, where it coincides with a private 

 road. In the field opposite Beare its course is very 

 visible. It goes up the hill in the copse called Round 

 Woods in a slight cutting ; it leaves the new house 

 called Minnick Fold on the right and Minnick Wood 

 Farm on the left. It was excavated in Perry Field, 

 the field beyond, which was not cultivated until 

 after 1824. 



Capel was the old Waldeburgh or Waleburgh 

 borough of Dorking ; the borough or tithing in the 

 Weald. It was a chapelry of Dorking till late 1 3th 

 or early 141(1 century.' 



The (National) school was built in 1826 and 

 enlarged in 1872. 



There is a Wesleyan chapel, and a Friends' meet- 

 ing house. 



The Society of Friends was early established, and is 

 still well represented in Capel. The Bax family, who 

 lived at Pleystowe and Kitlands at opposite ends of 

 the parish, were among Fox's earliest converts, and 

 are often mentioned in his Journal. The Steeres and 

 Constables were other families of Friends. At Pley- 

 stowe a meeting was held which was as old as any in 

 the county ; a burying-ground was made on Richard 

 Bax's ground there in 1672. The meeting house 

 in Capel was built in 1725.* 



There are a number of important old houses in 

 and around the parish. One of these is still called 

 Temple Elfande, or Elfold. The name belonged to a 

 manor of the Templars transferred to the Hospitallers 

 which had no preceptory attached. 4 The name Tour- 

 nament Field, and other such names occurring in the 

 18th-century leases, are most likely an invention of 

 the Cowpers in the 1 7th century. For tournaments, 

 always forbidden by law, would not have been 

 habitually held at a small preceptory, had there been 

 one here, of which there is no evidence. The 

 present house is in substance of mid- 16th-century 

 date, and was built by Sir Richard Cowper. It 

 is built of narrow red bricks and half-timber work, 

 chiefly covered with tile-hanging, and with stone 

 slabs on the roofs, and was evidently much larger 

 at one time, as, besides an entire wing, now long 

 since pulled down, foundations of out-buildings and 

 of garden and courtyard walls are met with in 

 digging. A curious feature outside is a cross-shaped 

 loophole over the front entrance. Some excellent 

 and rare encaustic tiles, 5$ in. square, have been 

 dug up lately on the site, the patterns of which help 

 to give the date of the house as not long after 1541. 

 The character of the older chalk fireplaces inside con- 

 firms this date. There are also the usual farm-house 

 fireplace, with a great beam over the opening, of 

 great width and depth, several large carved oak 

 brackets supporting the beam-ends of the upper 

 stories, the pilasters of a stone doorway, and many 

 original doors of good design, besides panelling of 

 several dates. The loftiness of some of the rooms 

 on the first floor is noteworthy, as are the coved or 

 cradled plaster ceilings of the upper passages. It had 

 for long sunk to the position of a mere farm-house 



1 Manning and Bray, Surr. i, 570, curi- 

 ously misdescribed Anstie Farm as ' at the 



foot of the hill southward,' confusing it 

 with Kitlands. 



9 See the account of the advowson. 



135 



' Books lately in custody of Mr. Marsh 

 of Dorking. 



* See Lewes MS. 200, foL 64. 



