WOTTON HUNDRED 



DORKING 



St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church was rebuilt in 

 1895 chiefly at the expense of the Duke of Norfolk. 

 The original temporary building had been erected by 

 the Duchess of Norfolk in 1872. There is a Congre- 

 gational chapel in West Street, representing an ancient 

 congregation formed in 1662 under the Rev. James 

 Fisher, the ejected minister of Fetcham, at whose 

 house a small body of Nonconformists met in 1669, 

 but the minister who was licensed in 1672 under the 

 Indulgence was Mr. Feake, a Fifth Monarchy man, 

 who had been imprisoned under the Protectorate. 

 There was a congregation of Presbyterians under the 

 Rev. John Wood, late rector of North Chapel in 

 Sussex, meeting at his house. 11 This Presbyterian 

 body does not seem to have survived," but after the 

 death of Mr. Wood at an advanced age in 1693, 

 became merged in the Congregational body. A 

 chapel was built in 1719. In 1834 this was pulled 

 down and rebuilt, and much improved and altered in 

 1874." 



Congregational schools were built in 1858. 



There is a Baptist chapel, built in 1869 ; and a 

 Wesleyan chapel, built in 1850. Wesley made the 

 first of ten visits here in 1764, and in 1772 opened 

 a chapel in Church Street, now converted into cot- 

 tages. 



The Society of Friends were strong in the Dork- 

 ing neighbourhood about the time of their founda- 

 tion. Possibly the first meetings of the Friends in 

 Surrey were held at the house of Thomas Bax, in 

 Capel, near Dorking. There had been a Friends' 

 meeting at Bax's house for upwards of twenty years 

 in i677. Ita Fox, however, records in his journal a 

 meeting at Reigate in 1655, which may precede 

 this. The Old Friends' Meeting House in West 

 Street, Dorking, bore the date 1709. The present 

 meeting house near Rose Hill was built in 1846. 



There is a meeting of Plymouth Brethren in a 

 chapel in Hampstead Road, opened in 1863. 



The cemetery was opened 

 in 1856. 



The Public Hall in West 

 Street was built by a company 

 for meetings and entertain- 

 ments in 1872. 



Denbies is the residence of 

 the Hon. Henry Cubitt, the 

 lord-lieutenant. It stands upon 

 the brow of the chalk down, 

 close to Ranmore Common 

 and church. The church, 

 however, is in Great Bookham 

 parish (q.v.). Denbies com- 

 mands fine views over the weald 



and the back of the Leith Hill range, and of Box Hill, 

 which faces it from across the Mole Valley. Ash- 

 combe, from which the peerage of Ashcombe is 

 named, was a piece of land lying close to it, and 

 Ashcombe Hill was the old name of the brow. Denby 

 was probably a farmer who lived there. The farm- 

 house was bought in 1754 by Mr. Jonathan Tyers, 

 the founder of Vauxhall Gardens, who laid out the 

 grounds in what was intended to be a style appealing 

 to serious reflections, with a temple, two skulls, in- 



CUBITT. Checkered or 

 and gules a pile argent 

 with a lion't head razed 

 sable thereon. 



BARCLAY. Azure a 

 cheveron argent <with 

 three crosses formy argent 

 in the chief. 



scriptions and verses of the tombstone kind, much 

 admired then and very absurd, a sort of Lenten 

 Vauxhall. Mr. Tyers died in 1 767, and the estate 

 was sold to the Hon. Peter King. His son Lord 

 King sold it in 1781 to Mr. James White, who sold 

 it in 1787 to Mr. Denison, whose son William Joseph 

 Denison was M.P. for West Surrey. After Mr. Deni- 

 son's death in 1849 it was bought by Mr. Thomas 

 Cubitt, who built the present house. He was father 

 to Lord Ashcombe, the father of the present owner. 



Bury Hill (in Westcote 

 borough) is the seat of Mr. 

 Robert Barclay, representative 

 of the ancient Scottish house 

 of Barclay of Urie. The name 

 is as old as the 1 4th century," 

 but no trace or record of a 

 fortification can now be 

 found. 145 The ground was 

 part of the waste of the manor 

 of Milton. Mr. James Walter 

 was buying land in Milton 

 Manor in 1 75 3," and he built 

 the house then and planted the 

 grounds. Mr. Walter died 

 in 1780, when Viscount Grimston, his daugh- 

 ter's husband, succeeded him here. In 1812 he sold 

 it to Mr. Robert Barclay, great-grandfather of the 

 present owner. The Nower, a favourite walk for 

 Dorking people, is a hill adjoining this property. 



The Rookery, the property of Mr. Brooke, is the 

 seat of Mr. Lionel Bulteel. An estate here was 

 bought in 1759 by Mr. David Malthus, who built 

 the house and laid out the grounds with the ponds 

 and waterfalls, which make it a picturesque place. 

 The Rev. Thomas Malthus, the economist, his 

 son, was born here in 1766. In 1768 it was 

 bought by Mr. Richard Fuller, banker, of Lon- 

 don, of the family of the Fullers of Tandridge, 

 Surrey (q.v.), and was sold by the executors of his 

 great-grandson, Mr. George Fuller, in 1893. The 

 old name of the valley where the Rookery stands was 

 Chartgate, or Chartfield. 



Milton Heath (in Milton borough), the seat of 

 Mr. J. Carr Saunders, was built by the late Mr. James 

 Powell, of the Whitefriars Glass Works. 



Deepdene (in Holmwood borough), lately the seat of 

 Lilian, Duchess of Marlborough, was originally built 

 by the Hon. Charles Howard, after coming into pos- 

 session of a part of the manor in 1652. In 1655 

 Evelyn visited him, and admired the gardens which he 

 had already begun to lay out in the deep valley which 

 gives the place its name. It is probable that there 

 was already a small house on the spot. Some thirty 

 years later Aubrey saw and admired the landscape 

 gardening, then evidently far more advanced. Mr. 

 Howard died in 1713 (he was buried at Dorking, 

 according to the inscription at Deepdene, in 1714); 

 his son Henry Charles Howard died in 1720. His 

 second son Charles succeeded as Duke of Norfolk in 

 1777 and rebuilt the house. His son Charles, eleventh 

 duke, sold it in 1791 to Sir William Burrell, bart., 

 whose son Sir Charles sold it in 1 806 to Mr. Thomas 

 Hope. Mr. Hope largely altered the house, and 



" V.C.H. Surr. ii, 40. 

 13 They are not recorded in Bishop 

 Willis' Visitation, 1724-5. 



u Information from the late Rev. J. S. 

 Bright, Congregational minister, Dorking. 



*" Papers formerly in possession of 

 Mr. March of Dorking. 



14 Dorking Court Rolls, passim. 



141 A Roman station has been gratuitously 

 supposed to be here ; Gent. Mag. Apr, I S 44.. 



15 Court Rolls, Milton Manor. 



