A HISTORY OF SURREY 



at death of a tenant. Lastly, they were not to cut 

 down oaks in Shellwood without his permission. 



The men of Shellwood allowed that they owed for 

 the farm of the land 5/. per virgate, or loos, for 

 5 hides. They said that when the prior had need 

 of their aid for the requirements of the church they 

 gave it freely, not by reason of their villeinage, but 

 rather from courtesy. They allowed the claims for 

 pannage and Peter's pence, but said that they came to 

 the court of Ewell as free men, at the election of 

 the prior's bailiff, to act as jurors. 



The jurors for the inquest denied the prior's claim 

 for work from his tenants in harvest time, and they 

 stated that the brushwood cut down by the men should 

 be taken by them over the hill called Bridelcumbe. 

 The other services were allowed to the prior. The 

 men of Shellwood were said to owe tallage whenever 

 the men of Ewell did so, and it was not voluntary, but 

 compulsory ; they were also required to plough the 

 lands of Ewell if the prior wished it, bringing their 

 own horses and ploughs. 



In 1311 John de Dene, a tenant of the prior in 

 Shellwood, was remitted certain of these services in 

 consideration of an increase on his annual assize rent 

 of 8</., payable at four terms of the year." 



In 1316 the men of Shellwood accused the prior 

 of exacting from them other services than those which 

 they were required to perform. The prior, however, 

 said that he exacted no more than those allowed to 

 his predecessor in the suit of 1223, and judgement 

 was given in his favour. 18 



It may be that the memory of an ancient dispute 

 caused the careful insertion in the conveyance from 

 Southwell to Lechford in 1 547 of the words ' with 

 the bondmen and their families." The liberation of 

 the tenants from the essential villein service of attend- 

 ance at the bedrip probably means that in 1223 it was 

 recognized that they were not technically vlllani, had no 

 share in the common fields, but were yet servile tenants. 



Free warren in all their lands of Merton, Ewell, 

 Kingswood and Shellwood was granted to the prior 

 and convent in 1252.*" In a plea of 'quo warranto' 

 in 1279 the prior claimed assize of bread and ale and 

 gallows on the ground that Henry II had granted 

 them Shellwood with soc, sac, &c., and quittance of 

 shires and hundreds, and that these liberties had been 

 confirmed by Richard I. 10 



The capital messuage of Shellwood was separated 

 from the manor itself during the l8th century. Ac- 

 cording to Manning, Ambrose Browne obtained an 

 Act of Parliament in 1712 enabling him to sell a 

 manor in Kent and the capital messuage of Shellwood, 

 which was therefore vested in Jemmett Raymond, 



second husband of Elizabeth, widow of George 

 Browne." From Raymond it passed, in 1755, to 

 John Winter," who conveyed it in 1781 to Richard 

 Simpson.* 3 It passed in 1796 to his nephew Corne- 

 lius Cayley, and was sold three years later to the 

 Duke of Norfolk," and thus became reunited to the 

 manor. It is not now standing (see above), but the 

 farm next to it is of about 1 7th-century date, and 

 perhaps had superseded the original manor-house 

 before the separation from the manor. 



The messuage and farm of LEIGH PLACE was 

 the residence of the Ardernes in the I5th century. 34 



John Arderne, who was high sheriff of Surrey in 

 1432, was of Leigh Place. By his will, which was 

 proved in 1449, he directed that if he died at or 

 near Leigh he should be buried 

 in the church there. His son 

 John inherited the estate, and 

 was in turn succeeded by his 

 son Richard, 36 who died in 

 1499 seised of 3 messuages, 

 255 acres of land, &c., in 

 Leigh. Richard Arderne by 

 his will bequeathed all his 

 lands to his wife Joan, re- 

 quiring her 'to fynd an 

 honest pryst to pray for me & 

 all my friends & all cristyn 

 sowlys deuryng her lyf ' ; after her death his step- 

 brother John Holgrave was to find the priest, who 

 was to receive an annual sum of 6 I 3*. 4^." There 

 is apparently no record of any such chantry in Leigh 

 Church. Leigh Place soon after became the property 

 of the Dudleys. 38 By an Act of 1512, reversing the 

 attainder of Edward Dudley, John Dudley his son, 

 subsequently Duke of Northumberland, was restored 

 to his father's lands. 39 He sold the estate of Leigh Place 

 to Edward Shelley of Findon in Sussex in 1530.' 

 The deed recites that in 1527 Sir John Dudley 

 had conveyed the manor of Findon, which had be- 

 longed to his father, to Edward Shelley, that Shelley 

 had agreed to re-sell it to Dudley, in consideration of 

 which sale Dudley agreed to sell to Shelley ' a 

 messuage called Lye Place 41 with appurtenances in 

 the parish of Lye, Surrey.' In an account made in 

 1534, of defaults of bridges in Surrey, a reference 

 occurs to ' the bridge before Mr. Shellie's place, 

 Lye.' " Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Shelley 

 and niece of Edward Shelley, married Sir Roger Copley 

 of Gatton," and in 1540 Edward Shelley and Anne 

 Cobbe (possibly his daughter-in-law) made a settlement 

 of Leigh Place on them." The property is described 

 as a messuage, 200 acres of land, 40 acres of meadow, 



ARDIKNI. Argent a 

 fate cheeky or and azure. 



V Cott. MS. Cleop. C vii, foU 158. 



88 Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 325. 

 " Cal. of Chart. 1226-57, p. 391. 



*> Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 739, 



748. 



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

 1 80 i Berry, Surr. Gen. ; Stat. of the 

 Realm, x, 1005. 



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

 i So. 



Feet of F. Surr. East 21 Geo. III. 



84 See n. 32. 



84 Surr. Arch. Coll. xi, 141 et seq. ; 

 Cal. Pat. 1429-36, p. 380. It has 

 been stated that the family of de Braose, 

 or Brewes, held Leigh Place in the I3th 

 and I4th centuries (Brayley, Hist, of Surr. 



iv, 282). There does not seem to be much 

 documentary evidence in proof of this 

 assertion. However, John on of John 

 de Braose died in 1358 seised of a tene- 

 ment in Leigh called Ernesheued, consist- 

 ing of and a garden worth lid. and 

 40 acres worth 201. (Chan. Inq. p.m. 

 31 Edw. Ill [ist nos.j, no. 49), and as 

 the Braoses were succeeded by the 

 Ardernes in other places, this holding 

 may be the Leigh Place estate. More- 

 over, the arms of the Cookseys, who 

 were descended from the Braoses, used to 

 be in the parish church, and the Cookseys 

 and the Ardernes were both Warwickshire 

 families. 



88 Chan. Inq. p.m. 15 Hen. VII, 



210 



no. 101 ; P.C.C. 5 Moone ; Surr. Arch. 

 Coll. xi, 141. 



w P.C.C. 5 Moone. 



88 For a possible connexion between 

 Ardernes and Dudley*, see Surr. Arch. 

 Coll. xi, 149. 



89 Stat. of the Realm, iii, 42. 



40 Surr. Arch. Coll. xi, 150 (quoting 

 from deed in possession of owners of the 

 estate). 



41 Also Flanchford in Reigate, and 

 Hartswood in Buckland. 



L. and P. Hen. Vlll, vii, 42. 



49 Vitit. Surr. (Harl. Soc. xliii), 121 j 

 Berry, Surr. Gen. 85 ; Surr. Arch. Coll. xi. 



44 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccx, 

 85. 



