A HISTORY OF SURREY 



began the great collection of paintings and statuary 

 carried on by his son, the late Mr. Beresford Hope, 

 who also added to the house and built the Italian 

 south-western front. 



Charte Park, formerly called the Vineyard, was the 

 property of the Sondes or Sonds family, after they had 

 parted with Sondes Place. 16 The late Mr. Beresford 

 Hope bought Charte Park, and threw it into the 

 grounds of Deepdene, pulling down the house. 



Westcott, also spelt Westcote, and erroneously 

 Westgate, is one of the Dorking boroughs (vide supra), 

 and with Milton was made into an ecclesiastical parish 

 in 1852 (vide infra). A considerable village existed 

 before then, and many houses have since been built. 



In Squire's Wood, south of Westcote, is Mag's Well, 

 one of the sources of Pip Brook, which runs through 

 Dorking to the Mole. 'It was formerly of some 

 repute as a medicinal spring, and is strongly impreg- 

 nated with iron. A building, now gone to ruin, 

 existed over it, and within the writer's memory chil- 

 dren still bathed in it. 



Holmwood Borough was the ancient division of 

 Dorking, to the south of the town. The ancient 

 spelling in the Court Rolls is invariably Homewood, 

 the numerous hollies have led to the change in the 

 name. But as far back as 1329 the reeves' accounts 

 include carriage of firewood from ' Dorkynge Ywode 

 vel Homewode' to Kingston, where the distinction 

 between the ' High Wood,' the skirts of the big forest 

 of the Weald, and the ' Home Wood,' sufficiently 

 explains the name. In 1562 Kingston still depended 

 upon this neighbourhood for firewood." Manning 

 and Bray state, however, that Dorking was supplied 

 lately with coal from Kingston ; showing a curious 

 reversal of former relations. 



The Holmwood Common is a large high-lying 

 common thickly covered with furze bushes and hollies, 

 about 600 acres in extent. Defoe states that it was 

 as lately as the time of James II the haunt of wild deer. 

 Agricultural writers of a hundred years ago marked it 

 down as good cornland wasted. 



The school of the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, 

 Holmwood, was built in 1844, and enlarged in 1870 

 and 1 8 84. That now in the parish of St. John the 

 Evangelist was built in 1849 and enlarged in 1875 

 and 1883. 



A great number of gentlemen's houses surround 

 the Holmwood Common, and some standing upon it 

 represent the original intrusions of squatters upon the 

 waste of the manor confirmed by lapse of time. 

 Holmwood Park was the seat of the late Mrs. Gough 

 Nichols, widow of the celebrated antiquary. Francis 

 Larpent, Judge Advocate-General to Wellington's army 

 in Spain and the South of France, formerly lived here. 

 Oakdale is the seat of Lady Laura Hampton ; Oak- 

 dene of Mr. Augustus Perkins ; Redlands of Colonel 

 Helsham Jones ; Anstie Grange of Mr. Cuthbert 

 E. Heath ; Moorhurst, an ancient farm on the 

 border of the old parishes of Dorking and Capel, 

 of the Hon. W. Gibson, who has opened a small 

 Roman Catholic chapel there. It is the property of 

 Mr. Cuthbert E. Heath, of Anstie Grange. 



The present condition of the Holmwood i in 

 curious contrast with what was its state not more than 

 100 years ago, when the road to Horsham running 

 over the desolate common was a frequent scene of 

 highway robbery, and was openly used by smugglers. 

 William Dudley, of Coldharbour, who died in 1902, 

 aged nearly 101, told the writer that a man with whom 

 he worked had been a witness when the turnpike 

 keeper boldly refused to open his gate at night to a 

 body of smugglers with kegs of brandy on their horses. 

 In the Domesday Survey DORKING 

 MANORS was in the hands of the king. Milton and 

 Westcote were even then separate manors. 

 It had been held by Edith, widow of the Confessor, 

 and like the other holdings of the late queen in Surrey, 

 was granted to William de Warenne I, when he was 

 created Earl of Surrey. 18 His original Surrey endow- 

 ment consisted of the manors which had been Edith's, 

 Dorking, Reigate, Shiere, Fetcham. But one Edric 

 had held Dorking, or part of it, at some previous 

 time, and had given two hides out of it to his daughters. 

 In 1086 Richard of Ton bridge held one of these hides 

 no doubt Hamsted Manor, which belonged sub- 

 sequently to the Clares. The other hide was probably 

 Bradley Manor, the lands of which lie in Holmwood 

 tithing and Mickleham. 



Richard I appears to have confirmed the grant of 

 Edith's lands to the Earls of Surrey, 19 and in 1237 

 William de Warenne is recorded as holding Dork- 

 ing." 1 John de Warenne claimed it in 1278 as held 

 by his ancestors from before legal memory. 11 In 

 1347 John de Warenne died seised of the manor. 11 



WARENNE, Earl of 

 Surrey. Checkered or 

 and azure. 



FITZ ALAN, Earl of 

 Arundel. Gules a lion 



He was succeeded by his nephew Richard, Earl 

 of Arundel, who died in 1376," leaving another 

 Richard as his son and heir. About this time the 

 Arundel lands began to pass through a period of vicis- 

 situde. Richard, Earl of Arundel, was attainted in 

 1397 and beheaded, after a long series of open 

 altercations with the king," and Dorking was granted 

 to Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham," after- 

 wards Duke of Norfolk, his son-in-law. He was 

 banished in 1398 and died in exile in 1400. On the 

 accession of Henry IV, Thomas, son of the unfortunate 

 Richard, was restored. He died on 1 3 October 1415, 

 leaving three sisters as co-heirs:* 6 first Elizabeth, the 

 second wife of Thomas Mowbray, first Duke of Norfolk, 

 whose share in the property descended in moieties to 

 her son John, second Duke of Norfolk, and to Joan, 

 her daughter by a second husband, Sir Robert Gonshill. 



16 In 1515-16 John Sondes of Charte 

 alienated Sondes Place to John Carjrll ; 

 and in 1 594 Michael Sondes wa heir to 

 the copyhold of Sir Thomas Sondes of 

 Charte ; Dorking Ct. R. 



V V.C.H. Surr. ii, 264. 



18 Ibid, i, 298. 



19 Cart. Antiq. , 29. 



M Feet of F. Div. Co. *> Hen. Ill, no. 

 236. 



nPlac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 

 "75- 



82 Chan. Inq.p.m. 21 Edw. Ill (ist nos.) 

 no. 23. 



M G.E.C. Complete Peerage. 



44 Diet. Nat. Biog. iix, 98. 



85 Pat. 21 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 5. 



* Chan. Inq. p.m. 4 Hen. V, no. 54. 



