A HISTORY OF SURREY 



COBHAM 



Covenham (xi cent.) ; Covenham and Coveham 

 (xiii, xiv, and xv cents.) ; Coham (xvi cent.). ' 



Cobham is a village about 4 miles south-east of 

 Weybridge and the same distance south-west of 

 Esher. The parish is bounded on the north by Walton, 

 Esher, Thames Ditton, and a corner of Kingston ; on 

 the south-east by Stoke D'Abernon ; on the south by 

 Little Bookham, Effingham and East Horsley ; on the 

 south-west by Ockham ; on the west by a corner of 

 Wisley and by Walton thus touching ten other 

 parishes. It is about 5 miles from south-west to 

 north-east, and rather under 3 miles from south- 

 east to north-west, and contains 5,278 acres of land 

 and 54 of water. T'he River Mole runs in a very 

 circuitous course through the parish, and the soils are 

 very various. The centre may be described as 

 generally alluvium and gravel of the river valley ; to 

 the north and on the west there is Bagshot sand, 

 and the greater part of the east and south is on the 

 London clay. There is open common and waste land 

 with trees on it at Fairmile and Ockshot to the 

 north-east and on Cobham Common, to the west, the 

 Bagshot sand soil. Cobham Tilt is an open green 

 near the Mole. Church Cobham was the original 

 village, but Street Ccbham is an equally large collec- 

 tion of houses north-west of the church, which has 

 grown up near the Portsmouth road. Houses have 

 grown up also about Cobham Tilt, east of Church 



Cobham, reaching to Church Cobham on one side, 

 and now spreading towards the station on the other. 

 The neighbourhood of Ockshot and Fairmile station 

 is also becoming a village. There are brickfields in 

 the parish. 



The Portsmouth road runs through Street Cobham. 

 The London and South Western Railway, Cobham 

 and Guildford line, opened in 1885, runs through 

 the east side of the parish, in which is Ockshot 

 and Fairmile station. Cobham and Stoke D'Abernon 

 station is in the latter parish. 



In the autumn of 1906, during excavations for 

 a new road at Leigh Hill, north of Cobham Tilt, 

 circular rubbish-pits were found containing fragments 

 of hand-made and wheel-made pottery, the latter 

 Roman. There were also loom weights and pot- 

 boilers, such as belong to a British settlement. The 

 remains have been briefly noticed by Mr. Reginald 

 Smith of the British Museum.' 



There were two ancient bridges in Cobham. One 

 was on the Portsmouth road across the Mole. It is 

 stated * that a record formerly existing showed that 

 the wooden bridge was made by Maud, queen of 

 Henry I, for use in flood time only, as was the case 

 at Godalming, the traffic at other times passing over by 

 a ford. In 1782 * a new brick bridge was built to be 

 accessible at all times as a county bridge, the lords of 

 the manors of Walton and Cobham, who had been 



1 In Surr. Arch. CM. a. 



CHURCH STYLE HOUSE, COBHAM 



* Manning and Bray, op. cit. ii, 732 

 442 



"Stat. 22 Geo. Ill, cip. 17. 



