COPTHORNE HUNDRED 



BANSTEAD 



Downs without finding him or the assembly. The 

 rising had in fact exploded prematurely. 5 



There is evidence of races at Banstead as early as 

 1 625,* but the subject more properly belongs to 

 Epsom. When the great question of the exclusion 

 of the Duke of York from the succession was before 

 the House of Lords, in 1678, the Duke of Ormonde 

 wrote to Colonel Cooke that he tried to delay the 

 first reading by pointing out the thinness of the 

 House owing to a Dog Match at Hampton Court, 

 and a Horse Match on Banstead Downs. He him- 

 self did not attend the Horse Match, where 1 2 horses 

 ran for 3 plates, ' owners up,' 7 apparently, but he sent 

 a description of it. Two horses fell, one nearly 

 killing his jockey, and 'the Duke of Monmouth 

 escaped narrowly,' so apparently he also was riding. 



Hares and partridges were also preserved on the 

 downs. Henry Saunders was made keeper of a 

 portion of the downs at 30 a year under the Protec- 

 torate, as a reward for trying to seize a highwayman, 8 

 and in 1668 a gamekeeper was appointed by the 

 Duchy of Lancaster, at the same salary, to preserve 

 hares and partridges. 9 In 1 669 the king was hawking 

 there, it not being then the custom to shoot 

 partridges. 10 



The downs were also used as a muster-place for 

 the Surrey Militia in 1670, when an inspection of 

 the troops was made by the King and Prince Rupert. 

 The formation of a camp of the regular army under 

 the Duke of York or the Duke of Monmouth was 

 discussed in 1678, but it is uncertain whether the 

 plan was carried out." 



The parish is now agricultural, with a considerable 

 number of new small houses in it. The road from 

 Sutton to Reigate, the old Brighton road, passes 

 through the parish, traversing Burgh Heath. The 

 Sutton and Epsom Downs branch of the London, 

 Brighton, and South Coast Railway has a station at 

 Banstead, on the downs ; and the Tattenham Corner 

 branch of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway 

 cuts through the middle of the parish. Tattenham 

 Corner station, opened in 1901, is on the borders of 

 Banstead. 



From its position on the hills Banstead can never 

 have been well watered. There are no streams in 

 the higher and larger part of the parish. The 

 primitive water supply must have depended entirely 

 upon rain and dew-ponds, and the later supply was de- 

 pendent on wells. The village well is said to be 350 ft. 

 deep. The Domesday Mill was no doubt at Bed- 

 dington, where there was a mill called Vielmille held 

 of the manor of Banstead in 1 3 1 8. lf Similarly the 

 Woodmansterne Mill was at Carshalton. But the 

 absence of a good water supply did not hinder settle- 

 ment, possibly even very ancient, on the high ground 

 near Banstead. At Great Burgh many neolithic flint 

 implements have been found ; and on Banstead Heath, 

 knives, two saws, a borer, an axe-head, seven arrow- 

 heads, and other implements and flakes, implying a 

 considerable settlement. 13 Banstead Downs have been 



much disturbed by digging for gravel in the brick-earth, 

 by the making of the Epsom Downs railway, and by the 

 laying out of golf links. But to the west of the road to 

 Sutton, north of the railway bridge, were three barrows, 

 one of which has recently been nearly destroyed. 

 Others are said to have existed, and the remains of 

 one seem to exist close to the railway bridge. An 

 old map, reproduced by Manning and Bray, shows a 

 great many barrows and a long bank about Preston 

 Downs (which are now inclosed), the bank continu- 

 ing on to the now inclosed Ewell Downs. ' Tumble 

 Beacon,' a large mound crowned with Scotch firs near 

 Nork Park, is an unmistakable barrow, and one of the 

 largest in the county. It used to be the site of a fire 

 beacon, and at the manor court a man was appointed 

 to keep the beacon ready for use. Traces of hut-circles 

 are reported to have been observed on Banstead Downs, 

 but have never been explored and verified. One 

 trace of a more remote antiquity still is undoubted, 

 a fossil oyster shell which the writer himself picked 

 up where the ground had been disturbed. John 

 Evelyn reported that he heard from the Shep- 

 herds that near Sir Christopher Buckle's house, 

 that is near West Burgh, 'divers medals have been 

 found both copper and silver, with foundations of 

 houses, wells, &c. Here indeed anciently stood a 

 city of the Romans." 4 



In 1903 mediaeval remains were discovered south 

 of Banstead Church, consisting of tiles, broken glass, 

 and carved chalk. They are in the St. John's Gate, 

 Clerkenwell, Collection, owing to a supposed con- 

 nexion with a house of the Hospitallers, who had 

 lands near the church, 15 but possibly they belonged to 

 the manor-house. 



At Burgh in this parish there was a church to 

 which rectors were instituted in the 1 4th and 1 5th 

 centuries, 16 but there is no evidence of its having been 

 a separate parish from Banstead after 1414. An 

 entry in Wykeham's Register "in 13 79 speaks of the 

 poverty of the benefice and the ruinous character of the 

 buildings. Aubrey says that the church at Burgh 

 existed in his time, 13 " 10 and that there had been a chapel 

 of St. Leonard at Preston, mentioned in deeds, which 

 had quite disappeared. Salmon, in 1736, said that 

 the Burgh chapel existed, turned into a barn. The 

 return to Bishop Willis's visitation, 1725, described 

 it as in ruins, no service having been held there within 

 living memory. The ruins of St. Leonard's chapel 

 do, however, still exist, in spite of Aubrey's asser- 

 tion, in Chapel Copse near Preston, with which 

 manor it was conveyed in 1 440. Bergh or Burgh 

 Church was between Little Burgh House and Church 

 Lane, where the foundations remained supporting a 

 barn till about 1880. 



Tadworth is a hamlet on the Reigate road, included 

 now in the ecclesiastical district of Kingswood. 

 Tadworth Court was built by Mr. Leonard Wessells 

 in 1700 (see manor). 



The land to the north of the village on the edge 

 of the downs was common field as late as 1841." 



r.C.H.Surr. i, 418. 



6 The parish registers contain the burial 

 in thii year of a man, who in running the 

 race fell from his horse and broke his 

 neck. 



7 Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. vi, App. 740*. 



Cat. S.P. Dom. 1657-8, p. 88. 



Ibid. 1667-8, p. 353. 



w Hiit. MSS. Com. Kef. xii, App. vii, 

 46. 



Ibid, xi, App. vi, 39 ; xii, App. v, 44. 



" Cal. of Clou, 1313-18, p. 534. 



w Neolithic Man in North-East Surr. 

 132, 167. 



14 Evelyn's Diary, 27 Sept. 1658. 



16 See Survey of 1421, fenet Col. F.A. H. 

 Lambert. In 1535 the Prior of St. John's 



253 



had 21. rent in Banstead. Valor Eccl. 

 (Rec. Com.), ii, 404. 



16 Winton Epis. Reg. Pontoise, 234 ; 

 G. Beaufort Inst. fol. 105-6. 



ffykebam', Reg. (Hants Rec. Soc.), 

 ii, 1750. 



"*-*) Aubrey, Nat. Hiit. and Anrij. f 

 Surr. ii, 97. 



81 Tithe map of 1841. 



