REIGATE HUNDRED 



BUCKLAND 



ticing children, and for marrying maidservants born in 

 Betch worth and living seven years in the same employ- 

 ment, the surplus, ff any, to go to the poor. A house 

 and certain parcels of the Common Fields of Lether- 

 head were bought for the purpose. The house was 

 allowed to fall into ruins, and the land was sold at the 

 inclosure of the Letherhead Fields. 



In 1777 Mr. John Turner left money and a house 

 in Nassau Street, Westminster, to relieve the poor not 

 in receipt of parish relief, to provide clothing, and to 

 put children to school. These benefactions are re- 

 corded in the church, and in spite of waste and neg- 

 lect produce about 180 a year. 



The vicar, Hugh Griffiths, who rebuilt the vicarage, 

 reported to Bishop Willis in 1725 that Mr. Cade had 

 left 20 as a stock to be employed in setting the poor 

 to work, but that it was all spent in 1 669. Also 

 Mr. Arnold left 40 to buy 2 acres of land next the 

 vicarage, the profits to go to the vicarage ; but this 

 had never yet been done, nor the money received. But 

 this is perhaps the 40 which Mr. Griffiths records 

 in the registers that he obtained from the parish to 

 help in rebuilding the vicarage, done otherwise at his 

 own expense. He records the rebuilding in the 

 parish register, with the subscription Latu soli Deo 

 Not to ye Parish. 



BUCKLAND 



Bocland (Testa de Nevitt), Bukelonde (xiii cent.) ; 

 Bokelond (xiv cent.). 



Buckland is a small parish and village 2 miles west 

 of Reigate. It is bounded on the north by Walton- 

 on-the-Hill, on the east and south-east by Reigate, 

 on the west and south-west by Betchworth. It 

 contains 1,866 acres of land and 10 of water. 

 It covers the three soils, as usual, the northern 

 boundary being on the summit of the chalk hills, and 

 the parish extending across the sand on to the 

 Wealden Clay. The village and church here, as 

 elsewhere, are situated on the sand. It measures 

 about i miles from east to west, and barely 2 miles 

 from north to south. A small detached portion 

 inclosed by Reigate was added to that parish under 

 the Divided Parishes Act of 1882. Part of the south 

 of Buckland has been added to the ecclesiastical parish 

 of Sidlow Bridge, formed in 1862. The parish is 

 purely rural. 



Buckland is traversed by the road from Dorking to 

 Reigate and by the Redhill and Reading branch of the 

 South Eastern Railway. No prehistoric antiquities 

 are recorded. 



The rector in 1725 returned to Bishop Willis that 

 there was no chapel, no lecturer, no curate, no 

 Papist, no Nonconformists, no school. The history 

 of the parish seems as uneventful as might be ex- 

 pected, before and since. A succeeding rector, the 

 Rev. Oliph Leigh Spencer (1783-96), was author of 

 a life of Archbishop Chicheley, founder of All Souls 

 College, Oxford, the patrons of the living, and 

 supported his brother by arguments in a rather famous 

 lawsuit when the latter, Mr. Woolley Leigh Spencer, 

 claimed a fellowship at All Souls as being of founder's 

 kin. The claim was successful, 1762. Mr. Oliph 

 Leigh Spencer was himself a fellow. 1 



There is no record of inclosure. 



Buckland Court, the seat of Major F. M. Beaumont, 

 is near the church. Mr. F. H. Beaumont, J.P., 

 lord of the manor, resides at The Cottage. Shagbrook 



was the seat of the late Sir George Thomas Livesey ; 

 Broom Perrow of Mr. J. H. Bovill. 



A national school was built in 1822.' It was 

 rebuilt in 1862, and enlarged in 1886. It is 

 subsidized from Johnson's Charity, given in 1857, 

 which produces 11 5*. a year. The National 

 Society are trustees. 



At the time of the Domesday Survey 

 MANORS BUCKLAND, assessed for 2 hides, was 

 held by 'John' of Richard de Tonbridge, 

 lord of Clare. 3 The manor remained part of the 

 honour of Clare, 4 and was held of the Earls of Glouces- 

 ter, 5 descendants of Richard de Tonbridge. 



In the first half of the I3th century Buckland was 

 held as one knight's fee by Alicia de Dammartm." 

 She was the daughter of Odo de Dammartin and 

 Margery his wife ; before 1231 she was married to John 

 de Wauton, 7 who thus became possessed of Buckland. 

 In 1293 the manor and church of Buckland were 

 conveyed to Guy Ferre, junior, by John Wauton, 8 a 

 settlement being made in 1302 on Guy and his 

 heirs, with remainder in default of issue to Sir John 

 Claron and his issue, afterwards to the right heirs of 

 Guy. 9 Guy Ferre ^ was in the suite of Eleanor 

 Countess of Bar, daughter of Edward I, whom he 

 constantly accompanied abroad ; " after her death he 

 probably continued in the service of her daughter 

 Joan." He died childless in 13223, and his lands 

 at Buckland therefore passed to Claron. 11 Eleanor 

 widow of Guy Ferre retained a third of the manor 

 as dower," as she presented to the church which 

 belonged to the manor after 1346." Sir John 

 Claron died in or before the year 1342," but it is 

 not apparent wh his heirs were. The next record 

 of the manor shows that two-thirds of it were held by 

 John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, at his death in 1 347, 

 and that he held in the right of his wife Joan, 

 daughter of Eleanor Countess of Bar." 



John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, died without 

 male issue, his next heir being Richard, Earl of 



1 Notet of Opinions and Judgements of the 

 late Sir John Eardley Wilmot, Ch. Justice of 

 the Common Pleas, by John Wilmot (i 802). 



1 Returns at Farnham. 



* f.C.H.Surr. i, 316. 



4 Testa de Nevill {Rcc. Com.), 219, 



220*. 



6 Chan. Inq. p.m. 16 Edw. II, no. 66 ; 

 21 EJw. Ill (ist nos.), no. 58 ; 9 Hen. V, 

 no. 51. 



Testa de Nevill (Rec. Com.), 119, 



220*. 



7 Feet of F. Div. Co. Mich, i; & 16 

 Hen. Ill, no. 89. 



8 Feet of F. Surr. Trin. zi EJW. I. 

 Ibid. Mich. 30 Edw. I. 



10 Vide Witley, Arlington, and Cattis- 

 hull. 



11 Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, pp. 66, 67, 

 69. 



73 



11 Ibid. 1313-18, p. 4.70. 



u Chan. Inq. p.m. :6 Edw. II, no. 66 ; 

 Cal. Close, 1323-7, p. 16. 



Vide infra. 



15 Egerton MS. 2033, foL 5*. 



18 Cal. Close, 1341-3, p. 541. 



17 Chan. Inq. p.m. 21 Edw. Ill (lit 

 nos.), no. 58 ; Cat. Close, 1346-9, pp. 315, 

 316. She must have acquired the rever- 

 sion. 



