



COPTHORNE HUNDRED 



Nicholas de Plesey tried to establish a claim to the 

 advowson, declaring that his great-grandfather Robert 

 had given the benefice to a certain Bartholomew de 

 Plesey, and that the advowson had passed with the 

 manor to Robert's son John, and from John to 

 Edmund, Nicholas's father. It was proved, however, 

 that the last incumbent was there by the gift of the 

 abbot, and the temporalities being for the moment in 

 the king's hands, that the king ought to present." 

 Nicholas, however, seems to have tried to assert his right 

 in spite of this judgement, for the next entry in the 

 index to the episcopal registers of Winchester shows that 

 Nicholas actually did present to Headley, 58 while cer- 

 tain officers were in this same year to arrest anyone 

 who attempted to uphold the claims of de Plesey 

 against the court's decision. 59 Immediately after the 

 Dissolution the advowson was granted to Thomas 

 Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster, 60 who seems to have 

 ceded his right, as Henry VIII granted it in the same 



year, with the rest of the estates of the abbey of West- 

 minster, to Andrew, Lord Windsor ; 6l and from this 

 date, excepting a lease of the right to the Bishop 

 of London in 1550 and 1553," the living has 

 always been in the gift of the lords of the manor, 61 

 until the death of Colonel Bagot in 1881, after 

 which the advowson passed into the possession 

 of Mr. H. Thompson. 64 The present patron is 

 Mr. H. St. John O. Thompson. 



Headley Church was rated at 5 in the 1 3th cen- 

 tury, 64 and in 1428 it was taxed for the same amount, 

 paying a subsidy to the king of 6s. %d. w Under 

 Henry VIII the total value was said to be 8 js. 6J." 

 Smith's Charity is distributed as in 

 CHARITIES other Surrey parishes. 



There is also a small rent-charge of 

 4 izs. 2J. on the manorial estates, it is supposed in 

 compensation for a right of cutting brushwood on 

 certain waste, given in bread and coals. 



LETHERHEAD 



Leodride (x cent.) ; Leret (xi cent.) ; Lereda, Lerred 

 (xii cent.) ; Ledred and Leddered (xiiicent.) ;Ledered 

 afias Letherhed (xv cent.) ; Lethered and Letherhed 

 (xvii and xviii cents.); Leatherhead (xix cent.). 



Letherhead is a small town or large village 4 miles 

 south-west of Epsom and 5 miles north of Dorking. 

 The parish measures 4 miles from north-west to 

 south-east, from z to ii miles across, and contains 

 3,48 1 acres. It lies across the Mole valley, and is 

 traversed by the river in its southern part. The 

 south-eastern part is on the chalk downs ; the village 

 is at the foot of the Chalk and partly on the Thanet 

 and Woolwich Beds, and the parish extends northwards 

 on to the London Clay. The immediate valley of the 

 river is alluvium. The clay rises at the northern 

 extremity of the parish into an open common, with 

 some wood on it, called Letherhead Common. The 

 open grass-land on the downs has been partly inclosed, 

 but there is still some on Letherhead Downs. The 

 yew grows thickly on the chalk downs about Cherkley 

 Court. 



The village consisted originally of one long street, 

 with a cross-street running down to the bridge over 

 the Mole, but building has recently been extended in 

 several directions, especially to the north and east. 

 It is governed by an Urban District Council, under 

 the Act of 1894, and is supplied with gas by a com- 

 pany started in 1850 and incorporated by Act of 

 Parliament in 1901, and with water by a company 

 formed in 1883, the wells of which are in Fetcham. 

 There are a brewery and brick and tile works ; the 

 parish is otherwise agricultural. The main road from 

 London to Horsham, through Epsom and Dorking, 

 traverses the main street. The London and South 

 Western Railway line from Wimbledon and Worcester 

 Park had a terminus in Letherhead, opened in 1859. 



It had been intended to take this line on to Dorking, 

 but it was never done by the original company. In 

 1867 the through-route by Epsom, Dorking, and 

 Horsham to Portsmouth was completed by the London, 

 Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company using 

 part of the South Western line, but with a separate 

 station at Letherhead. This route had been origi- 

 nally surveyed for the first line to Brighton, which 

 was to have gone through Shoreham Gap in the 

 South Downs, but this plan was defeated chiefly 

 through the exertions of Letherhead people and a 

 Parliamentary counsel whose father lived at Thorn- 

 croft. 1 The South Western Railway line was con- 

 tinued to Guildford in 1887. 



Neolithic flints have been found on Letherhead 

 Downs, and British coins have also been found. 1 

 The Anglo-Saxon remains found at Fetcham (q.v.) 

 lay close to Letherhead parish. Near Pach- 

 evesham, not far from the Mole, in a wood by 

 the side of a small stream is a rectangular inclosure 

 of a single bank and ditch measuring about 80 yds. 

 by 75 yds. At the nearest point of the Mole to 

 this work there is a ford, by the side of Randall's 

 Park. Stone ' pot-boilers ' are said to have been 

 picked up in the square inclosure,* and the ordnance 

 map records that Roman coins were found in the 

 field south-west of it in 1859. Fragments of Roman 

 tile are not at all uncommon in that and the adjoining 

 field, and Pachevesham, now only a farm-house, gave 

 its name to the Domesday manor, indicating that the 

 chief settlement of the neighbourhood had been here 

 by the road leading to the ford. 



Part of the south-east of the parish is traversed by 

 the Roman or British track across the downs, described 

 under Mickleham, and near it on Letherhead Downs 

 are two barrows, of which one to the west of the 



'" De Banco R. 360, m. 79 d.(23~24 Edw. 

 Ill) ; Index Winton Epis. Reg. ; Egerton 

 MSS. 2031-34, iii, 17. M Ibid. 



69 Cal. Pat. 1348-50, 597. 



80 Pat. 3 2 Hen. VIII, pt. vii ; L.andP. 

 Hen. Vlll, xvi )5 o3(33). 



L. and P. Hen. rill, xvii, 285 (18) : 

 Harl. MS. 1880. 



ra Pat. 4 Edw. VI, pt iv, m. 16 ; I 

 Mary, pt. iv, m. 16. 



83 Feet of F. Surr. East. 9 Eliz. 5 Chan. 

 Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cclxiv, 17; ; cc, 60 ; 

 Recov. R. Trin. Eliz. rot. 141 ; Inst. Bks. 

 P.R.O. 1663, etc., etc. 



M Clergy List, 1885. 



Pope Nick. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 280. 



293 



** Feud. Aids, v, 114. 



7 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 39. 



1 Family information. 



'Evans, Coins, 83, 169. 



8 Neolithic Man in North-east Surrey, 

 82, where the description of the site and 

 of the parish in which it is are both erro- 

 neous. 



