WOTTON HUNDRED 



WOTTON 



Abbot's Hospital, Guildford, is a poor oil painting of 

 Wotton House from the north of about the same 

 date. The Elizabethan house, apparently, was of 

 brick, with tiled roofs pantiles in some cases mul- 

 lioned windows, and tall stacks of chimneys. It was 

 built in a rambling fashion with long ranges of stab- 

 bling and outbuildings, including a dovecote. It was 

 surrounded by a moat which was enlarged into a 

 swan pool in the rear of the house, and the view of 

 the garden front shows a low terrace wall following the 

 moat, with some little summer-houses, a rustic temple, 

 and a formal flower garden. There is also a large 

 oriel window with a high leaded roof projecting over 

 a stone entrance doorway, marked on the drawing, 

 ' Hall dore to the Garden.' Among the many trea- 

 sures in the present house is the Prayer Book used by 

 Charles I on the scaffold. There are also the MSS. 

 of John Evelyn and a Bible of three volumes filled 

 with notes. In the library his large and curious col- 

 lection of books remains, many of the bindings display- 

 ing his device of intertwined palm, olive, and oak 

 branches, with the motto, ' Omnia explorate, meliora 

 retinete.' Kneller's fine half-length portrait of John 

 Evelyn is in the drawing-room, together with his son 

 and Mrs. Godolphin, his 'deare friend,' whose 

 worthy life ' he has ' consecrated to posterity.' 



There are several ancient houses of minor import- 

 ance in the parish ; one with gables and stone-mul- 

 lioned windows, set in an old-world garden at a 

 corner of the high road, is specially noteworthy. 



There was a mill at Wotton in the time of Domes- 

 day, which reappeared among the possessions of 

 William le Latimer in 1337. It does not seem to 

 occur elsewhere. It was possibly on the site of the 

 old disused mill-dam at Friday Street, or on the 

 stream higher up, where an old dam, now cut, and 

 former pond are visible. The mill (this or both 

 these) at Wotton was afterwards used for manufac- 

 turing purposes of different kinds. 



The manor of GOSTERWOOD (Gostrode, xiv 

 cent.) in Wotton should probably be identified with 

 the hide of land in Wotton which was held by 

 Corbelin of Richard de Tonbridge at the time of the 

 Domesday Survey." In 1280 Nicholas Malemayns 

 acquitted Henry de Somerbury of services which were 

 exacted from him in connexion with his free tene- 

 ment in Wotton." Henry died seised of this tene- 

 ment in 1317, and it is recorded that he did suit 

 for it at Nicholas Malemayn's court at Ockley.* 3 

 In 1337 another Henry de Somerbury, who died in 

 that year, had this holding in his possession ; it then 

 appears as ' Gostrode in the vill of Wotton.' " 



From that time the material for the history of 

 Gosterwood is scanty. In 1527 Robert Draper and 

 Elizabeth his wife conveyed it to Henry Wyatt and 

 others, and it is then for the first time called a 

 manor." Richard Hill died seised of it" in 1550, 

 leaving it to his son Edmund, who was still hold- 

 ing it in 1 574," when he settled it on his wife 

 Catherine Brown. This son Richard conveyed it in 



1593 to George Evelyn, in whose descendants it has 

 remained. 



LEITH HILL PLACE is in the outlying part of 

 Ockley, which was inclosed in Wotton and added to 

 this parish in 1879. ^ ' s traditionally the head of a 

 manor, but this is erroneous. It stands in the manor 

 of Wotton, and not in the manor of Ockley, as other 

 outlying parts of the parish were. 



The house was a gentleman's house of very con- 

 siderable antiquity, to judge from the sketch of its old 

 state furnished by Mr. Perrin to Manning and Bray's 

 history. The sketch was dated 1700, and shows a 

 16th-century front upon probably an older house. 

 There was a secret chamber in the wall, usually 

 called a priest's hole, only accessible by a trap-door, 

 but this has now been opened into the adjoining 

 room. 



The builder is unknown. The site of the house 

 was originally called Welland, but Leith is mentioned 

 among the properties which fenced Ockley churchyard 

 in 1628. In 1664 Mrs. Mary Millett, widow, of 

 Harrow, Middlesex, settled Leith Hill Place on 

 herself for life, with remainder to Henry Best of 

 Gray's Inn. Katherine daughter and heir of Henry 

 Best married Henry Goddard of Richmond, co. 

 York. In 1706 they sold to John Worsfold of 

 Ockley, who sold it to Colonel Folliott,* 8 after- 

 wards General Folliott, who was a justice of the 

 peace resident in Ockley parish as early as 1728." 

 He altered the house of Leith Hill Place to its pre- 

 sent form. His admission as a tenant of Wotton 

 Manor is not on record, as the court rolls are not 

 complete so early. Two acres of the waste were 

 granted to him in 1742. He died in 1748, his 

 only child Susanna having died in 1743." In 1760 

 John Folliott, his heir, alienated Welland to Richard 

 Hull, who built Leith Hill Tower in 1765, receiving 

 a grant of the Tower and 4 acres of waste. 61 In 

 1777 Richard Hull alienated to Harry Thompson. 5 * 

 In 1788 Thompson's heirs alienated to Philip W. 

 Perrin, owner and resident at Parkhurst. During his 

 ownership the house was let as a school. Mr. Perrin 

 died in 1 824, and his heir was Sir Henry Fitzherbert, 

 who sold in 1829 to John Smallpeice, who conveyed 

 it in 1847 to Josiah Wedgwood, a descendant of the 

 great Wedgwood and cousin and brother-in-law to 

 Charles Darwin. His daughters Miss Wedgwood and 

 Mrs. Vaughan Williams reside there now. 



The reputed manor of ROOKHAM (Rokenham, 

 xiv cent.) in the parishes of Ockley and Wotton may be 

 connected with the grant of two crofts made by Thomas 

 de Rokenham to his son John in 1314." These lands 

 evidently passed to the Newtimber family in the same 

 century, for in 1399 Robert Newtimber conveyed to 

 trustees a messuage and two curtilages, with other 

 lands and tenements at Rookham, which were said to 

 have formerly belonged to John de Rokenham. 54 In 

 1418 the trustees of Thomas de Pinkhurst, whose 

 family had held property in Rookham for some years, 55 

 released his lands to Robert Newtimber. 66 



y.C.H. Surr. i, 338*. 

 Feet of F. Surr. 8 Edw. I, no. 10. 

 * Chan. Inq. p.m. II Edw. II, no. 50. 

 44 Ibid. 1 1 Edw. Ill (nt nos.), no. 39. 

 Feet of F. Surr. Mil. 18 Hen. VIII. 

 48 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), rcii, 79. 

 *1 Recov. R. Hil. 17 Eliz. 

 48 Manning and Bray, Hitt. of Surr. in, 

 App. clvi. 



Ockley Pariih Bki. 



40 Family tomb of General Folliott in 

 Ockley churchyard and registers. 



61 The inicription on the tower ayi 

 1766, but the grant of the tower is 1765. 



w Richard Hull died 1772, aged eighty- 

 three (inicription formerly visible in the 

 tower), so this Richard was hii heir. 

 Manning and Bray (loc. cit.) lay that 



'57 



General Folliott's widow and Mary Har- 

 loehis niece told to Richard Hull in 1754, 

 and that Hull's heirs sold to Thompion 

 in 1773. This it not compatible with 

 the court roll, unless the site of the 

 house had been separated from the manor. 

 It is supposed now to be in the manor. 



Add. Chart, gozi. M Ibid. 18687. 



Ibid. 18654. " Ibid. 18702. 



