A HISTORY OF SURREY 



for his sister the wife of Gilbert. 96 Later John de 

 Gatesden (see Hamsted Manor) held it. 97 He died 

 in 1269 or before, when a survey of the manor was 

 taken, late in his hands. 98 His daughter Margaret 

 married Sir William Pagenel, but it would seem that 

 the Latimer family had some previous claim upon 

 Westcote, for in 1 306 Alice widow of William le 

 Latimer sued William Pagenel and Margaret his wife 

 for dower in Westcote Manor, which had been 

 granted by Latimer to Pagenel and his wife. Pagenel 

 acknowledged her claim and granted her lands in 

 Leicestershire to the required amount. 99 In 1317 

 William Pagenel died seised of the manor, leaving 

 John his brother and heir, then fifty years of age. 100 



In 1355 Eva widow of Edward St. John, and for- 

 merly wife of William Pagenel, who was probably the 

 son of John Pagenel, died seised of one-third of West- 

 cote Manor which she held in dower. Her heir was 

 Laurence de Hastings, lord of Paddington Pembroke 

 (q.v.), with which Westcote descended from that 

 time. 101 



There was a mill at Westcote at the time of the 

 Domesday Survey ; it is also mentioned in the in- 

 quisition taken at the death of Laurence de Hastings 

 in 1 348, when it was stated to be a water-mill. 10 ' 



At the time of Alice le Latimer's suit (q.v.) the 

 manor was valued at forty pounds odd. 



George I granted to John Evelyn the privilege of 

 holding two annual fairs in his manor of Westcote, 

 on 15 April and 28 October. 108 



Westcote retains many picturesque old houses of 

 the 1 6th, 1 7th, and l8th centuries, including some 

 with gables of Bargate stone rubble and ornamental 

 brick ; and a farm-house with fine brick chimneys 

 dating from about 1670. 



SONDES PLACE, in Milton borough, the vicar- 

 age house since 1839, belonged to a family of 

 Sondes, who migrated to Surrey in the I5th cen- 

 tury, and who were ancestors of the present Lord 

 Sondes. In 1590 John Carill, of Warnham, conveyed 

 Sondes Place for 1,000 to John Cowper of Capel, 

 Serjeant - at - Law. 104 Cowper possibly sold it to 

 Christopher Gardiner, who died about 1 597, and is 

 described as of Dorking, 106 and whose son Christopher, 

 baptized I 595, 106 resided at Sondes Place. The latter 

 married Elizabeth daughter of Sir Edward Onslow 

 of Knowle in Cranleigh. 10 ' William Gardiner of 

 Croydon, by deed of 1678, granted the manor or 

 lordship of Sondes Place to Francis Brocket. 108 



The parish church is approached by 

 CHURCHES a little stone-flagged alley from the 

 High Street, and stands in the midst 

 of a large and prettily kept churchyard, no longer used 

 for burials, in which are numerous gravestones and 

 railed tombs, some of 1 7th and 18th-century dates. 



It is dedicated to ST. M4RTIN, and is, as it stands, 

 absolutely modern, having been rebuilt in 1835-7 

 (the chancel excepted), and the nave, till then an un- 

 sightly structure of brick and compo, with slender iron 

 columns and many galleries, again rebuilt in 1873 

 from the designs of Mr. H. Woodyer, who in 1 866 



had rebuilt the ancient chancel. In 18357 the 

 central tower had been rebuilt, or remodelled, and 

 crowned with a lofty spire, which it had not before 

 possessed, and these features, which were not repro- 

 duced in the original position in the later re-edification, 

 were replaced by a lofty western tower and spire, 

 erected to the memory of Dr. Samuel Wilberforce, 

 Bishop of Oxford, and then of Winchester, who was 

 killed by a fall from his horse near Dorking in 1873. 

 The present church, which is constructed of black 

 flints and Bath stone, is a handsome and spacious 

 edifice in a somewhat mixed style of I3th and i<).th- 

 century Gothic architecture, consisting of a lofty 

 clearstoried nave, with western tower and spire, 

 porches, transepts, chancel and vestries. Nearly all 

 the windows are filled with stained glass of varying 

 merit, and there are many elaborate fittings, including 

 altar and reredos, pulpit, lectern and choir stalls, font 

 and chancel screen of oak, in commemoration of 

 Wm. Henry Joyce, M.A., vicar, 1850-70, beneath 

 which is a brass to his memory. 



The floor and lower parts of the walls of the old 

 church remain in vaults under the present church. It 

 was a large and picturesque structure, occupying much 

 the same area as the present, cruciform, with a central 

 tower, north and south aisles to the nave, under lean-to 

 roofs, and a south porch, built of local rubble and 

 flints plastered externally, with dressings of firestone, 

 and having the old Horsham slate on all the roofs, 

 except the chancel and north transept. The nave 

 was about 65 ft. by 30 ft., its aisles being between 

 12 and 14 ft. long, the north transept about 27 ft. by 

 23 ft. wide, the south transept 26 ft. by 23 ft., the 

 central tower about 27 ft. square, and the chancel 

 40 ft. by 22 ft. Probably little or nothing remained 

 of the building recorded in Domesday, except as old 

 material worked up on the walls ; but the chancel 

 seems to have retained to the last at the angles of the 

 east end four flat pilaster buttresses of mid- 12th- 

 century character. To a date towards the close of 

 the same century the lower part of the central tower 

 and the remarkable north transept appear to have 

 belonged. The latter is well shown in a carefully 

 accurate steel engraving forming the frontispiece to 

 Hussey's Churches of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. 103 The 

 design of this transept end consisted of a lofty gable 

 with a small lancet in the upper part, below which 

 was a pilaster buttress with steeply sloped weathering, 

 this buttress being pierced at about half its height 

 with a longer lancet, 110 and similar lancets flanking it 

 right and left, while at the angles were other pilaster 

 buttresses. In the eastern wall of the same transept 

 there were three lancets of like proportions and a 

 pilaster buttress. There appears to have been some 

 early work in the south transept also, but masked by 

 alterations made in the repairs of 1674 and 1762, 

 when a large circular-headed window was inserted in 

 the gable end, a huge, unsightly buttress erected against 

 the south-east angle of the tower, and the upper part 

 of the central tower was altered. Evidence is scanty 

 as to other work of the earlier periods, especially as to 



96 Testa dt Nrvill (Rec. Com.), 2ZJ. 

 7 Ibid. 229. 



98 Chan. Inq. p.m. 53 Hen. Ill, no. 

 19. 



99 De Banco R. 161, m. 145. 



100 Chan. Inq. p.m. 10 Edw. II, no. 61. 



101 In William Pagenel's inquisition, the 

 Hastings family are mentioned as being 



overlords, so that the manor probably 

 reverted to them on the failure of heirs 

 in the Pagenel family. 



1M Chan. Inq. p.m. 22 Edw. Ill (ist 

 nos.), no. 47. 



108 Pat. 12 Geo. I, pt. ii. 



"" Close, 32 Eliz. pt. vi. los Will. 



Dorking Reg. W Ibid. 



148 



Com. Pleas D. Enr. 30 Chas. II), 

 m. 5. The present Sondes Place is an- 

 other house. 



109 Corroborated by old pen drawings in 

 the writer's possession. 



110 Cf. the tower buttresses at Clymping, 

 Sussex, similarly pierced with early lancets, 

 in work of c. 1170. 



