ELMBRIDGE HUNDRED 



frequented it. Beyond the ' Swan ' is the bronze 

 foundry of Messrs. Hollinshed & Bruton, where the 

 statue of the late Queen Victoria, designed by the 

 Princess Louise and destined for Calcutta, was cast 

 a few years ago, and where the process known as 

 fir perdu was revived. On the opposite side of the 

 ferry is Boyle Farm, formerly the property of Edward 

 Sugden, Lord St. Leonards, a distinguished lawyer 

 and Lord Chancellor of England, and famous for 

 the igth century law-suit concerning his will. 14 The 

 estate is gradually being cut up, and the house, which 

 belongs to Mr. H. Mainwaring Robertson, is now 

 unoccupied. The Lodge, a picturesque old house with 

 high surrounding walls by the side of the road leading 

 from the village to the Green, is the property of 

 Sir Guy Campbell, bart., and in the churchyard are 

 the remains, brought from Paris, of his famous 

 ancestress Pamela Fitzgerald. Thames Ditton 

 House also faces the river, but its beautiful sweeping 

 lawns once famous for their smoothness are now only 

 a rough field. It was the property of the late 

 Rt.-Hon. Hume Dick, M.P., who built a picture 

 gallery for his art collection and otherwise altered the 

 house. It afterwards passed to Mr. G. B. Tate. 

 Ditton Lodge retains a small park with some very 

 fine trees which can be seen from the railway. It 

 is now the property of Lord Mexborough. The 

 manor-house belongs to Mr. H. Speer, and is built 

 on the sloping side of the hill which leads from the 

 river to the station : the road branches at the station, 

 one branch going to Imber Court and the other to 

 Weston Green and Esher. Weston House, formerly 

 the property of General Sir John Lambert, K.C.B., 

 and of his son General John Lambert, has lately been 

 pulled down, and the grounds are now the site of an 

 almost entirely new village. Ruxley Lodge is the 

 residence of Lord Foley, Gordon Lodge of Sir 

 Richard D. Awdry, K.C.B. The Green is only 

 divided by a few houses from Esher Common and 

 Weston Green. 



Claygate was formed as an ecclesiastical parish from 

 Thames Ditton in 1841. As the name implies, it is 

 upon the London Clay, here capped in places by sand 

 in the southern part of the parish, and was probably 

 traversed by an old road running from Kingston Hill 

 to the ford of the Mole near the square entrenchment 

 in Letherhead parish (q.v.). It is under the same urban 

 council as Thames Ditton. The church, Holy Trinity, 

 is of stone in 1 4th-century style, with a tower. It 

 was built in 1 840, enlarged in 1 860, and restored in 

 1902. A vicarage house was built in 1843. The 

 school was built in 1838 as a Church school, and 

 enlarged in 1849. ^ was rebuilt by the School 

 Board of Thames Ditton in 1885. There is a Baptist 

 chapel, built in 1 86 1. 



THAMES DITTON 



Claygate has grown very much of late years since the 

 opening of the Cobham line to Guildford ; Claygate 

 station on this line was opened in 1885. There are 

 brick and tile works near the station. 



Claygate is in Kingston Hundred, in which the 

 eastern part of Thames Ditton parish seems to have 

 been always reckoned. 



There appears to have been no manor 

 MANORS in this parish known exclusively as 

 the manor of Thames Ditton." The 

 name is applied to a manor in several deeds of 

 the Evelyn family in the iyth century, but it was 

 probably used as an alia for the manor of Clay- 

 gate, q.v. 



The manor of CLAYGATE was given to the 

 Abbot and convent of Westminster by Tosti," 

 probably the son of Earl Godwin. The monks held 

 it at the time of the Norman Conquest," and until 

 the dissolution of their house, when it fell into the 

 hands of the king. In 1538 Cuthbert Blakeden 

 obtained a lease of the manor from the Abbot of 

 Westminster which was subsequently assigned to 

 Juliana his widow, who married John Boothe. 18 In 

 1553 the reversion of the manor in fee was granted 

 by Edward VI to John Child at a rent of 9 8/. 8</. 19 

 and not long after Child sold the estate to David 

 Vincent, who died seised of it in 1565.* From him 

 the manor passed to his son and heir Thomas Vin- 

 cent," and afterwards to Thomas's son Sir Francis 

 Vincent. In 1603 George 

 Evelyn died seised of the re- 

 version of the manor after the 

 death of Sir Francis." Before 

 1613 the manor was in the 

 hands of the Evelyn family, and 

 in that year Thomas Evelyn, 

 who then held it, settled it on 

 his son Sir Thomas Evelyn and 

 Anne his wife in tail male, 

 with contingent remainders 

 successively to his younger sons 

 George and William." Thomas 

 Evelyn the elder died in 1617, 

 and was succeeded by his eldest son Sir Thomas." 

 From him the manor decended to his son Sir Edward 

 Evelyn, kt. and bart., who held it in l685.* 5 He 

 died in idgz, 26 and his son George Evelyn having 

 died childless in 1685," his estates passed to his 

 daughter Sophia Evelyn. She must have conveyed the 

 manor to her sister Lady Penelope Alston, for Sir 

 Joseph Alston, husband of Penelope, held a court.* 8 

 Joseph Alston their son settled it on his marriage in 

 1718, but died childless, and his brother Evelyn Alston 

 sold it to Lord King before 1721." Lord King was 

 in possession of the tithes in \']i'l? > His lineal 



EVILYN. Axure a 

 griffin passant and a 

 chief or. 



14 Diet. Nat. Biog. 'The mysterious dis- 

 appearance of his will, which he had made 

 some years before his death, occasioned a 

 lawsuit which established the admissibility 

 of secondary evidence of the contents of 

 such a document in the absence of a pre- 

 sumption that the testator had destroyed 

 it anima revocandi* He died in 1875* 



14 The manor of Ditton, which 

 Wadard held of the Bishop of Bayeux 

 in 1086, has been identified in V.C.H. 

 Surrey, i, 305.1, as Thames Ditton. Further 

 research shows that the Domesday manor 

 was apparently one of the manors of Long 

 Ditton in Kingston Hundred (q.v.) 



"Dugdale, Man. Angl. (ed. 1846) i, 

 294. 



" f.C.H. Surr. i, 306. 



**Surr. Arch. Coll. vii, 126. There 

 are monuments in Thames Ditton Church 

 to Juliana and both her husbands. 



19 Manning and Bray, op. cit. i, 460. 



90 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccxl!!, 

 131. 



" Recov. R. East 9 Eliz. rot. 1003. 



M Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccxc, 124. 

 George Evelyn's mother was a daughter 

 of David Vincent. Pedigree given to 

 Aubrey by Sir John Evelyn before 1671. 



"'Feet of F. Surr. Mich, n Jas. I. 



463 



u Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2) ccclxxii, 161. 



M Recov. R. East. I Jas. II, rot 8. 



* Ditton Registers. 



W Ibid. 



98 Ct. R. in possession of William Bray. 

 But in Manning and Bray, op. cit ii, 461, 

 there must be a misprint in the date 1691, 

 unless the manor was conveyed before Sir 

 Edward's death on the marriage of his 

 daughter Penelope in 1690. 



lj Deeds communicated to William 

 Bray after the description of Claygate was 

 written. See Manning and Bray, Hist, of 

 Surr. iii, 15. 



n Feet of F. Surr. HiL 1 3 Geo. I. 



