A HISTORY OF SURREY 



views through gaps in the trees with which it is rather 

 too thickly planted. 



Chertsey still remains a pleasant country town. 

 There are three chief streets, London Road and 

 Windsor Street forming part of the road between 

 those places, and Guildford Street at right angles to 

 them. In the last is a Jacobean house, now the 

 Queen's Head Inn, and the remains of the house 

 where Cowley died in 1667, incorporated into a 

 modern house. A room supported on posts, which 

 projected over the road, was removed in 1786. The 

 house is the residence of Mrs. Tulk. In 1791 the 

 following description of it is given: ' A good old 

 timber house, of a tolerable model. There is a large 

 garden ; a brook arising at St. Anne's Hill runs by 

 the side. They talk of a pretty summer house which 

 he built, which was demolished not long since ; and 

 of a seat under a sycampre tree by the brook which 

 are mentioned in his poems. There are good fish- 

 ponds of his making.' * 



The parish was divided into tithings called Chertsey, 

 Allesden, and Adisford (i.e. Addlestone), Lolewirth or 

 Hardwitch in Hardwicke, Rokesbury in Lyne, Haim, 

 Crockford or Crotchford, Woodham, and Botleys. 

 The Hundred Court of Chertsey for Godley Hundred 

 was held in Hardwicke. The parish is now an 

 urban district under the Local Government Act of 

 1 894,' and is divided into three wards, Chertsey, 

 Addlestone, and Outer Ward. 



Chertsey is served by the Weybridge and Chertsey 

 branch of the London and South Western Railway, 

 opened in 184.8, with stations at Addlestone and 

 Chertsey, and since continued to join the Wokingham 

 branch at Virginia Water. The connexion with 

 Woking was completed in 1885. The road from 

 London to Windsor runs through the town, and a 

 bridge connects the town, which lies nearly a mile 

 from the actual banks of the river, with Shcpperton 

 in Middlesex. 



There was no bridge at Chertsey in 1 300,* when 

 a ferry was the only means of conveyance. There 

 was a bridge under Elizabeth, which was out of repair. 

 This wooden bridge, kept up by the counties of 

 Middlesex and Surrey, was badly out of repair in 

 1780, when the stone bridge was built. The bridges 

 over the branches of the Water of Redwynde, 

 as it was called, the stream which flows from 

 Virginia Water, and over the water-course which 

 left the Thames near Penton Hook and rejoined 

 it near Chertsey, seem to have been originally built 

 or repaired by the abbey. Abbot John Rutherwyk 

 rebuilt the bridge at Steventon End, near the end of 

 Guildford Street, in the time of Edward II,* but this 

 bridge fell into disrepair and was rebuilt under 

 Henry IV by the town with the king's licence, the 

 king insisting that it should be called his bridge.' 



A market was granted to the abbey in Chertsey by 

 Henry I, 6 and was confirmed in 1249 'and in 1281.* 

 It was held on Mondays. Whether this market 



lapsed at or before the Dissolution is unknown. But 

 in 1599 Elizabeth granted by charter a market on 

 Wednesdays, and a fair, over and above any existing 

 fair, with a parcel of ground for the building of a 

 market-house. The charter was to twenty-one per- 

 sons, their heirs and assigns, but the profits of the tolls 

 were to go to the poor of Chertsey. 9 A market-house 

 of the usual type, supported on pillars, was accordingly 

 built near the south-east angle of the churchyard. In 

 1809 it was demolished, and in 1810 a new market- 

 house was built in Bridge Street. 



Henry I also granted the abbot a three days' fair 

 to be held at Chertsey every year at the festival of 

 St. Peter in Chains. 10 A second grant for a three 

 days' fair to be held annually on the vigil, feast, and 

 morrow of the Exaltation of the Cross was made to the 

 abbot in 1249." This fair, now held on 25 Septem- 

 ber instead of the 1 4th, is called the Onion Fair. 18 



Yet another grant of a three days' fair, to be held at 

 Ascension-tide, was made to the abbot and convent in 

 1281." In 1440 they also received a grant for a fair 

 to be held on St. Anne's Hill alias Mount Eldebury 

 in Chertsey on St. Anne's Day, 1 * 26 July. This is 

 still continued in Chertsey on 6 August since the 

 change of style. 



Queen Elizabeth's charter (vide supra) established 

 a fair on the first Monday and Tuesday in Lent, which 

 still continues to be held on the Monday. Another 

 fair on 14 May represents one held on 3 May, old 

 style. 1 ' 



In 1642 a petition was made by the gentry that a 

 Mr. Boden might preach at Chertsey on market-days 

 and on Sundays when the minister of the parish did 

 not do so. 16 The business used to be considerable in 

 agricultural produce and cattle. The modern indus- 

 tries of the parish are agriculture, much market garden- 

 ing, and brick-making. 



The Benedictine Abbey created Chertsey, which 

 was a marshy island, inclosed by the Thames and 

 the streams leaving and joining it, till the monks em- 

 banked the water. On higher ground in the outlying 

 parts of the parish neolithic flints have been found, 

 in the Charterhouse Museum is a fine polished celt, 

 and on St. Anne's Hill a bronze celt has been found." 

 About three-quarters of a mile from Chertsey, on 

 the right-hand side of the road to Staines, is a 

 small square inclosure with very low but distinctly 

 marked banks, and an area of under two acres. At 

 Ham, close to the eastern border of Chertsey, is a 

 large moated inclosure, nearly square. The house 

 now inside it is not very old. In Addlestone, near 

 New Haw Lock, on the Wey, is an old farm called 

 Moated Farm, with a moat. This is also square ; it 

 is not so large as Ham. There was an entrench- 

 ment on St. Anne's Hill. Manning I8 says ' there were 

 visible traces of a camp.' There are certainly marks 

 that the upper part of the hill has been artificially 

 scarped and the earth thrown outwards, forming in 

 places a counter-scarp. On the left-hand side of the 



1 Gent, Mag. 1791, p. 199. 



Loc. Govt. Bd. Order no. 31518. 



Wardrobt Acctt, 28 Kd-w. I (Soc. 

 Antiq.), p. 83. 



Lansd. MSS. 435, fol. 177*. 



Pat. II Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 19. 



Harl. Chart. 58, H, 37. 



Ibid. 58, I, 8. 

 'Ibid. 58, I, 8 1. 

 * Charter in private hands. See Man- 



ning and Bray, Hist. ofSurr. iii, 208 ; Pat. 

 41 Eliz. pt. x, m. 39. 



10 Cott, MS. VitelL A. xiii, fol. 55. 



11 Ibid. fol. 64 ; Cal. Ctart.i2z6-$7, p. 



344- 



18 The tolls are now taken by the owner 

 of the site of the abbey. 



15 Cal. Chart. 1257-1300, p. 260. 



14 Chart. R. 18 Hen. VI, no. 31. 



15 Aubrey (op. cit. iii, I7z) says there 



404 



was a fair on the Exaltation of the Cross, 

 3 May ; but this ia the Invention of the 

 Cross. The date of the Exaltation is 

 14 Sept., now represented by the fair on 

 25 September. Aubrey mentioned this 

 as ' a fortnight before Michaelmas.' 



14 Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. App. y, p. 

 260. 



J 7 Arch. Journ. xxviii, 242. 



18 Manning and Bray, op. cit. iii, 22$. 



