A HISTORY OF SURREY 



before passing into the hands of the present tenant, 

 Captain Harrison, R.N. 



Aldhurst Farm, rather nearer to the village, is 

 another ancient house, although of less consideration. 

 It has evidently been extended and partially rebuilt 

 more than once, but the nucleus is still that of an 

 early 16th-century timber house, with very low ceil- 

 ings and stone-slab roof. Inside, an old staircase and 

 some good doors are to be seen. In the wooded 

 bottom to the south-west several fine footprints of the 

 iguanodon were found in grubbing up trees some years 

 ago, and are now preserved here. 



Taylor's is a picturesque house still retaining as 

 a nucleus the timber open-roofed hall of mid- 14th- 

 century date, and also an oak screen of roughly 

 gouged-out timbers and moulded beams of the same 

 exceptionally early date. There are good panelled 

 rooms of later date, and the 1 5th, i6th, and 17th- 

 century additions all present interesting features. 

 Externally most of the timber construction is masked 

 by modern tile hanging. 



Greenes is another ancient house, once much 

 larger, and still showing a timber hall about 1 8 ft. 

 wide internally, divided up at a later date into floors, 

 but still boasting some fine massive oak trusses and 

 story-posts, with moulded arched braces and king-posts 

 over. A smaller hall, about 1 5 ft. wide, detached 

 from the other, and now used as a stable, appears to 

 be but a fragment of a range of timber buildings. It 

 also has a series of huge roof-trusses of king-post 

 construction and arched braces of four-centred shape. 

 These two halls appear to be of late 14th-century and 

 early 15th-century date respectively. 



Osbrooks, formerly Holbrooks and Upbrooks, after 

 passing through the farm-house stage, has of late 

 years been carefully restored, and now presents a 

 most interesting example of the country gentle- 

 man's house of the end of the l6th or an early 

 part of the iyth century. It is mostly of timber 

 framing, filled in with herring-bone brickwork. Its 

 tiled roofs and good groups of chimneys, the many 

 gables with their barge-boards, the mullioned win- 

 dows, and the porch with open balustrades to the 

 sides, combine to produce, with the wooded glen and 

 winding stream in the rear, a most picturesque whole. 



Bonet's or Bonnet's Farm is another ancient house 

 of quite exceptional beauty and interest, although 

 shorn of its ancient proportions. The present front 

 has been modernized, but in the rear are two fine 

 gables, projecting with brackets over the ground and 

 first floors. These show timber framing, with an 

 oriel window, stone-slab roofs, leaded glazing, and 

 two exceptionally good brick chimneys. 



Other old farm-houses and cottages in the parish, 

 such as Pleystowe and Ridge, are well worthy of 

 examination for the features of antiquity to be 

 found in them ; and in Capel village a picturesque 

 piece of half-timber work, with a good chimney 

 and roof, may be noted among others. There 

 are now two old inns the Crown Inn, origi- 

 nally a farm-house, adjoining the churchyard on the 

 south, and the ' King's Head.' The former has 

 half-timber gables, with pendants at the apex of the 

 barge-boards, on one of which is carved ' W S. 1687.' 



Broomells is now a new house. The name, as 

 Brome, occurs in a charter of the 1 3th century. 4 " 



It is not to be confounded with Broome Hall, the 

 seat of Sir A. Hargreaves Brown, bart. The latter 

 large house, in a commanding situation under Leith 

 Hill, was mainly built by Mr. Andrew Spottiswoode, 

 the king's printer, circa 1830. It was afterwards the 

 seat of Mr. Labouchere, and then of Mr. Pennington, 

 M.P. for Stockport. Sir A. Hargreaves Brown made 

 extensive additions to it. It used to be called Lower 

 House, but it is mentioned by Aubrey as Broomhall. 



Kitlands, the property of Mr. A. R. Heath, is on 

 the site of a farm which is mentioned in the Court 

 Rolls in 1437. The house was reconstructed by 

 degrees by Mr. Serjeant Heath, who bought it in 

 1824, and by Mr. D. D. Heath, his son, uncle 

 to the present owner. But part of the interior is the 

 old timber building of circa 1500. The place was 

 held by the Bax family from 1622 to 1824, a very 

 unusually long tenure of the same farm by a yeoman 

 family, notwithstanding many vague statements of 

 other immemorial holdings. 



Arnolds, formerly called Arnold's Beare, was rebuilt 

 by Mr. Bayley in 1885. Mrs. Bayley, his widow, 

 has recently sold it. The Arnolds were also land- 

 holders in Betchworth. Beare, now called Beare- 

 hurst, the seat of Mr. Longman, and Beare Green, near 

 Holmwood Station, show that the name Beare, which 

 occurs in the Court Rolls of the I4th century, was 

 widely spread. A Walter de la Bere had land in 

 Ewekene (Capel) in 1263.* 



Lyne House, the seat of Mr. Evelyn Broadwood, 

 is a property bought by Mr. James Tschudi Broad- 

 wood circa 1792. 



On the border, within a few yards of Sussex, is 

 Shiremark Mill, built in 1774 out of the materials 

 of the old Manor Mill at Mill House on Clark's 

 Farm. 6 



Coldharbour is an ecclesiastical district formed in 



1850. The church and the principal cluster of cot- 

 tages stand in Capel parish. The body of the village 

 is still called The Harbour, but Crocker's Farm and 

 the cottages opposite used to be called Little Anstie, 

 as opposed to Anstie Farm (vide supra). 



The church is higher above the sea than any other 

 in Surrey over 800 ft. and the sea is visible from 

 the churchyard, through Shoreham Gap. The old 

 road from London to Arundel ran through Cold- 

 harbour. The original line below the church was in 

 the ravine at the lower side of the common, quite 

 impassable for wheels. In the old title deeds it is 

 referred to as the King's High Way. The village is 

 as picturesque as any in England. On a stone in a 

 cottage wall, in Rowmount, are the initials 'J. C. 

 (John Constable) 1562." The stone has been placed 

 in a later wall. Constable's Farm was the house on 

 the road a few yards higher up the hill, which may 

 very well date from before that time. 



The endowed school was founded by Mr. Robert 

 Barclay of Bury Hill before 1819, with 50 a year 

 from Government stock. It was further supported 

 by subscriptions, and enlarged in 1846, 1851, 1860, 

 and 1888. It was a free school from the beginning, 

 but the endowment used to provide not only pay for 

 the teacher, but a gown and bonnet for the girls, and 

 smock-frock and boots for the boys annually. The 

 infant school was built by Mr. John Labouchere in 



1851. It was endowed by his family after his death 



Bray ley, Hilt. Surr. v, 73. 



6 Assize R. 47 Hen. Ill, Surr. 

 'J- 



R. Deeds in possession of late Rev. T. R. 



O'Fflahertie of Capel. 



136 



