A HISTORY OF SURREY 



WINDLESHAM 



Wyndesham (xiii cent.) ; Wyndelesham (xiv cent.) ; 

 Wynsham (rvii cent.). 



Windlesham is a parish on the north-west border 

 of the county, 25 miles from London. It contains 

 3,672 acres, and measures 5 miles from north-east to 

 south-west, and 3 miles from north-west to south- 

 east. It is bounded on the north-west by Berkshire, 

 on the east and south by Chobham, on the west by 

 Frimley. It is in Woking Hundred, 1 but is isolated 

 in Godley Hundred, to which Chobham and Frimley 

 belong. This corner of the county appears, from 

 absence of notice in Domesday, to have been very 

 sparsely inhabited. Godley Hundred was the land of 

 the abbey of Chertsey, and when Chertsey early ac- 

 quired property the hundred was extended. Windles- 

 ham and Bagshot, never belonging to Chertsey, 

 were never incorporated into the hundred. But the 

 boundary between Surrey and Berkshire was known, 

 and was delineated as the boundary of Windsor 

 Forest by the perambulations of 1226 and 1327.' 



The neighbourhood has yielded bronze implements, 

 now in the Archaeological Society's Museum, Guild- 

 ford, and a certain number of neolithic flints. 



The village of Windlesham is a scattered one, and 

 though almost entirely modern, is picturesquely 

 situated in rolling and well-wooded country. The 

 church is some distance from the village, on high 

 ground. The plan of the village defies analysis, and 

 is of very recent growth. A few examples of late 

 18th-century work remain, but these are rapidly 

 giving place to modern cottages and villas. The 

 roads and lanes by which the parish is traversed, 

 though erratic in their course, are picturesque in the 

 extreme, with magnificent hedges and well shaded by 

 fine timber. 



The soil of Windlesham and Bagshot is the barren 

 Bagshot sand, with extensive peat beds. Diggirfg in 

 the peat reveals the former existence of a forest of 

 small oaks. The peat produces the only important 

 industry of to-day, the raising of rhododendrons, 

 azaleas, and so on, in nursery gardens those of 

 Messrs. Fromow and Messrs. Waterer employing a 

 great deal of labour. Bagshot Heath, part of which 

 was called Windlesham Heath, covered a great deal 

 of the parish ; there is still some uncultivated land, 

 and the heaths extend beyond the parish. The great 

 south-western road from London passes through the 

 parish. The London and South Western Wokingham 

 and Reading line cuts its extreme end, and the Ascot, 

 Aldershot, and Farnham branch runs through it for 

 some distance, with a station at Bagshot, opened in 

 1878. Sunningdale station, on the Wokingham 

 branch, is just inside the parish. It was opened in 

 1856. 



The old road had been the source of great pros- 

 perity in Bagshot till it was superseded by the rail- 

 way. Thirty coaches a day passed through, and there 

 were many inns, since closed. The most interesting 



history of the place is in connexion with Windsor 

 Forest, and its bailiwick in Surrey. The tenure of 

 Bagshot in the Red Book of the Exchequer is per 

 serjentiam veltrariac, i.e. providing a leash of hounds. 

 The later history is full of the exploits of highwaymen, 

 who found the wild country hereabouts specially 

 favourable for their purposes. 



The Inclosure Act of 1812 inclosed much of Bag- 

 shot Heath, and also inclosed the common fields of 

 Windlesham.* Inclosure had begun before, for in 

 1768 the lords of the manors and the freeholders gave 

 land inclosed from the waste for charitable purposes. 4 



There are a considerable number of gentlemen's 

 houses about Windlesham. The Camp is the resi- 

 dence of Sir Joseph Hooker, F.R.S., &c., &c. ; 

 Ribsden, of Mrs. Christie ; The Towers, of Lady 

 Elvey. Woodcote House is a boys' school. 



There are an Institute and Reading-room built in 

 1880, and enlarged in 1901 ; the Institute and 

 Reading-room at Bagshot were founded in 1862. 

 The schools (built as National Schools in 1825, now 

 Provided) were taken over by a board in 1871. 

 They were enlarged in 1889. 



Bagshot was a tithing of Windlesham. There is a 

 church there dedicated to St. Anne, and also a Wesleyan 

 Methodist chapel. 



Bagshot Park, long the property of the Crown, was 

 formerly the residence of the Duke of Gloucester, 

 son-in-law to George III, and now of H.R.H. the 

 Duke of Connaught. 



Pinewood is the residence of Lady Elphinstone ; 

 Penny Hill of Mr. L. Floersheim ; Hall Grove of 

 Mr. Stephen Soames. 



A school was built at Bagshot in 1870, and taken 

 over by the newly-formed Windlesham School Board 

 in 1871. It was enlarged in 1893. 



The manor of WWDLESHAM 

 MANORS (Winlesham, xiii cent. ; Winsham, xvii 

 cent.) belonged in the Middle Ages to 

 the small convent of Broomhall in Berkshire. Land in 

 Bagshot was granted to the Prioress of Broomhall by 

 Henry III in 1228.* But Windlesham appears among 

 the manors granted to Westminster by Edward the 

 Confessor in his foundation charter. It was apparently 

 transferred to Broomhall at an unknown date. 



The priory of Newark had a grant of land in 

 Windlesham in 1256,* and had the advowson of the 

 church. 7 



Joan Rawlyns, Prioress of Broomhall, made a 

 voluntary surrender of the property of her house in 

 1522.' In the next year Windlesham was granted 

 to St. John's College, Cambridge,' who still hold it. 



The manor of BdGSHOT in early times was royal 

 demesne, and may have formed part of the forest of 

 Windsor. 



There are traces of two distinct holdings in Bag- 

 shot. About 12 1 1 one Hoppeschort held 30;. worth 

 of land in Bagshot, 10 which, according to Testa tie 



1 Subi. R. of 1 4th century. 



1 V.C.H. Surr. i, 357-9. Bromhall, 

 on this boundary (now Broomhill), is the 

 proper name of the manor of Windlesham, 

 held by St. John's College, Cambridge. 



* Tithe Commutation Ret., Bd. of Agric. s Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), Jtrxvii, 



* Parl. Ret. of Char. 1786. 132. 



9 Pat. 14 Hen. VIII, pt. ii, m. 5. 



RtJ Bk. of Exch. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 



;. 



Tithe Commutation Ret., 

 < Parl. Ret. of Char. 1786. 

 6 Cal. Chart. R. 1226-57, p. 70. 

 8 Harl. Chart. 55, B. 41. 

 1 y.C.H. Surr. ii, 103 



456. 



376 



