REIGATE HUNDRED 



LEIGH 



The extensive wastes of Shellwood Manor were 

 inclosed under an award of 12 January 1854.' There 

 is no evidence of common fields. 



There are some good houses in the parish. Mynt- 

 hurst is the property of Mr. Henry Bell, J.P. ; Den- 

 shott (properly Dunshott), of Mr. Cecil Brodrick ; 

 Burys Court of Mrs. Charrington ; Nalderswood of 

 Mr. A. G. Fraser. 



The present school (National) was founded in 1845. 

 On 20 October 1 849 the Duke of Norfolk conveyed 

 a site on the waste of Shellwood Manor to the 

 National Society for the schoolhouse. It has been 

 enlarged in 1872 and 1885. 



The earliest records of SHELLWOOD 

 MANORS show it to have been a member of the 

 manor of Ewell ; it is not mentioned in 

 the Domesday Survey, but was probably included in 

 Ewell, which was ancient demesne of the Crown. In 

 1156 Henry II granted the manor of Ewell with its 

 members of Kingswood and 

 Shellwood to the Prior and 

 convent of Merton, Surrey. 7 

 In 1324 John le Dene, one 

 of the prior's tenants at Shell- 

 wood, 8 received licence to build 

 a chapel in the ' manor of 

 Leigh." Shellwood was held by 

 the prior until the surrender of 

 the monastery in 1538.' In 

 I 539 the king made a grant to 

 Sir Thomas Nevile, for 400, 

 of the manor of Shellwood with 

 land called Dencland, Man- 

 wood, and Fynchland, and tenements called Ryvesland 

 and Hokesferm in Leigh, to hold for an annual rent of 

 3 ?' l\^-> ^h reversion to Sir Robert Southwell 

 and Margaret his wife, daughter and heir of Sir 

 Thomas Nevile, and Margaret's issue : the grantee was 

 charged with a life annuity of 40^. granted by the 

 late priory to James Skinner." In 1 547 Sir Robert 

 Southwell and Margaret received licence to alienate 

 to Henry Lechford, 1 * in whose family the manor 

 remained until 1634," when Sir Richard Lechford, 

 great-grandson of Henry, conveyed to Sir Garret 

 Kempe and John Garnett. 14 They in the same year 

 conveyed to Penning Alston and Spencer Vincent, 

 trustees of Dr. Edward Alston, the estate being then 

 charged with an annuity of jo to Mary, Lady 

 Blount." It was sequestered for her delinquency in 

 1644; in 1651 the trustees complained that they 

 had paid 40 per annum to the State ever since, and 

 that though Lady Blount's term had expired, yet the 

 sequestration of two-thirds was continued on a false 

 pretext of the recusancy of Edward Cotton, the tenant." 

 The latter seems, however, to have been a recusant, 

 and petitioned to contract for his estate in January 

 1654." Later in the same year he, with the trustees 

 of Edward Alston, conveyed Shellwood to George 



MERTON PRIORY. Or 

 fretty azure with eagles 

 argent at the crossings of 



the frit. 



Browne of Spelmonden, Kent, 18 whose sons, Ambrose 

 and John, both held after him." 



Both died childless ; the survivor, John, who died 

 in 1736, devised the property to Thomas Jordan, son 

 of his sister Philippa. 10 Jordan also died without issue 

 in 1750, his sisters Elizabeth Beaumont and Philippa 

 Sharp were his co-heirs." Shellwood became the 

 property of the Beaumonts, to whom John Sharp and 

 Philippa quitclaimed their right in 1753." The 

 manor descended to the son and grandson of 

 Elizabeth Beaumont," and was sold in 1806 to the 

 Duke of Norfolk." The present duke is now lord of 

 the manor. 



During the 1 3th and early 14th centuries the 

 customs and services due from the men of Shellwood 

 to the Prior of Merton seem to have been a constant 

 subject of dispute. In 1223 Gilbert de Covelinden 

 and others were summoned to answer to the prior for 

 their refusal to do the services which he exacted of 

 them for the tenements which they held of him, as 

 he said, in villeinage. The men, however, denied all 

 villeinage (defendant omne villenagiuni), and said they 

 held freely. The prior maintained that the manor 

 of Ewell, of which the lands of Fif hide and Shellwood 

 were members, was held in villeinage, and demanded 

 judgement as to whether the members of a manor 

 could be freer than the chief holding. The men 

 asked that an inquisition might be taken to discover 

 what services and customs their ancestors had per- 

 formed when first the lands came to the prior.* 5 An 

 account of the inquiry, enrolled on a Curia Regis 

 Roll for 1226, gives an interesting description of these 

 services.* 6 The prior claimed that besides paying the 

 ordinary rent of 5*. per virgate for their lands, every 

 tenant should come in harvest time, with his entire 

 household, exclusive of his wife and his shepherd, 

 to the ' bedripe ' (the wheat harvest) of the lord, 

 and should then be allowed two meals, the first with 

 ale, the second without, that each man should assist 

 in making a house called the ' Sumerhus,' or pay 6J. 

 towards the same, at the choice of the prior, that 

 they should cut down brushwood in the wood of 

 Shellwood and bring it to Tadworth, and should 

 inclose a rood of land around the court of Ewell, and 

 that they should send a man of their household to 

 till the fields of Ewell both in winter and in Lent, 

 the prior finding them food. They also owed him 

 pannage at the rate of one hog in every ten, or, if 

 they had less than ten, \d. for every hog. No son 

 or daughter of a tenant might marry without the 

 prior's licence ; each man also owed Peter's pence 

 \d. so long as his wife was alive, \d. after her death. 

 Moreover the prior claimed that every man should 

 come to the court of Ewell to make the court when 

 summoned by the prior's bailiff. They were not 

 allowed to sell ox or horse without the prior's leave, 

 and the best ox in each man's possession, or horse if 

 he had any, could be taken as a heriot by the prior 



Blue Bk. Inc. Awards. 



I V.C.H. Surr. ii, 95 ; Cart. Antiq. 

 U, 6 ; Plat, de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 



739- 



8 Vidt infra. 



Winton Dice. R. Stratford, 8*. 



10 Maitland, BracKn's Note Bk. no. 

 1661 ; Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 325 ; 

 Palor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 48. See 

 note 7. 



II L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiv (2), g. 651 

 (50). 



3 



11 Pat. I Edw. VI, pt. viii, m. 15 ; Feet 

 of F. Surr. Trin. t Edw. VI. 



u Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cxlv, 13 j 

 Feet of F. Surr. Hit 45 Eliz. ; Chan. Inq. 

 p.m. (Ser. 2), CCCMV, 195 ; Feet of F. 

 Surr. Hil. 20 Jas. I. 



14 Feet of F. Surr. Mich. 10 Chat. I. 



u Cal. of Com. for Compounding, 2735. 



"Ibid. "Ibid. 3179. 



18 Feet of F. Surr. Trin. 1654 ; Berry, 

 Surr. Gen. 81. 



Ibid. ; Feet of F. Surr. Mich. I 



209 



Jai. II ; Recov. R. Mich. I Jas. II, rot. 

 171. 



20 Berry, Surr. Gen. 81 ; P.C.C. 124 

 Derby. 



81 Berry, loc. cit. 



M Feet, of F. Surr. Mich. 27 Geo. U. 



M P.C.C. 400 Harrij j Recov. R. East. 

 12 Geo. Ill, rot. 260. 



** Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surr. ii. 



K Maitland, Bracttm's Note Bk. no. 1 66 1. 



* Ibid, note 5 Cur. Reg. R. 94, Hil. 

 10 Hen. Ill, m. 8. 



2? 



