A HISTORY OF SURREY 



the manor, site, and demesne lands of Morehall, and 

 the wood called Sylkesmore coppice. 115 In the 1 8th 

 century and until 1802 at least, the estate, then known 

 as ' the manor of Southwood and Silksmore,' appears 

 to have been held by the Frederick family. 116 



The Church of ST. MART consists 

 CHURCH of chancel with north vestry, nave with 

 north and south aisles, west tower, and a 

 south porch used as a vestry. 



The earliest church for which evidence exists 

 consisted of an aisleless nave, with a chancel of about 

 the same size as at present. About 1 1 60 a north 

 aisle was added, and early in the I ^th century a south 

 aisle was built and the chancel remodelled or rebuilt. 

 In the 1 5th century the present west tower was built. 

 The tracery of the chancel windows is all modern ; the 

 east window is of three lights with flowing net tracery, 

 and the others are of 14th-century style, the jambs and 

 rear arches so covered with colour wash and plaster 

 that their age is difficult to determine. A north door- 

 way leads to the vestry, which has a square sash window 

 on the east, and in the south wall of the chancel is a 

 14th-century piscina with two drains and a restored 

 cinquefoiled head, a single tall arched sedile, and close 

 to it on the west a mutilated ogee-headed recess, prob- 

 ably a second sedile. All this work is old, but the south 

 doorway close by has had its outer stonework renewed. 



The chancel arch has two chamfered orders with 

 half-octagonal responds and moulded capitals and bases, 

 dating from c. 1330. The nave has arcades of four 

 bays with pointed arches of two chamfered orders 

 like those of the chancel arch and probably coeval, 

 and the south arcade has octagonal pillars and 

 moulded capitals of the same date, but in the 

 north arcade the pillars are of izth-century date, 

 with circular scalloped capitals and moulded bases. 



On the east respond of the south arcade is the 

 well-known quatrain on the Holy Sacrament, in late 

 16th-century lettering renewed : 



Christ was the worde and spake it 

 He took the bread and break it 

 And what the worde doth make it 

 That I believe and take it 



The north aisle has a modern east window of two 

 lights in 15th-century style. In the north wall are 

 two late 15th-century square-headed windows, of 

 three cinquefoiled lights with square labels and stops. 

 A third between them is a modern copy in wood 

 with red-brick jambs. 



In the west wall is a small blocked single-light 

 window, the head trefoiled and apparently of 14th- 

 century date. The aisle wall has been heightened 

 with brick when the gallery was set up. Three 

 windows, each of three uncusped lights, have been 

 inserted. The south aisle has a 15th-century east 

 window with three cinquefoiled lights and tracery, and 

 at the south-east is a like window, but with mullions 

 and tracery removed, with another next to it on the 

 west which retains its tracery. The south doorway 

 is of 15th-century date with a pointed arch under a 

 square head and quatrefoils with shields in the 

 spandrels, each shield bearing a plain cross. There 

 is a trefoiled piscina in this aisle. 



The tower is in three stages with rough diagonal 

 buttresses of brick. There is a modern west door, and 

 above it a modern three-light window. The tower 

 arch has three moulded orders with an engaged shaft 

 to the inner order. On the north and south faces of 

 the second stage are single lights, and the belfry 

 windows are also single lights renewed. There is 

 an 1 8th-century west gallery in the nave, carried by 

 small pillars and a good moulded and carved beam, 

 with a panelled front projecting on brackets ; gal- 

 leries are also set up in both aisles, the organ being 

 in the west gallery, blocking the tower arch. The 

 chancel and nave are ceiled to the underside of the 

 rafters, and have plain tracery and tie-beams which 

 are probably of no great age. There is an octagonal 

 panelled font, dated 1845, and all the rest of the 

 fittings are modern. 



On the chancel walls are several monuments, the 

 most interesting being over the south doorway. It 

 bears in an alabaster frame a set of verses ' in further 

 memory of the said Thomas Fitts Gerald ' and 

 Fraunces Randolph, dated 1619, and appears to be a 

 pendant to a larger and now destroyed monument. 

 In the north aisle is the large monument by Roubiliac 

 to Richard Boyle Lord Shannon, Field-Marshal and 

 commander in chief in Ireland, 1740, and close to it 

 on the east a brass to John Selwyn, 1587, keeper of 

 the park at Oatlands, with figures of himself, his wife, 

 and eleven children. Above is a square plate with 

 an engraving of a man riding a stag and plunging a 

 sword into its neck ; this is repeated on the back of 

 the same plate and probably refers to an exploit of 

 the keeper's. 



The bells are eight in number : the treble and 

 second by John Warner & Sons, 1883 ; the third 

 inscribed ' The gift of John Palmer, Esq., High Sheriff 

 of this County 1726' ; the fourth by Joseph Carter, 

 1608 ; the fifth by Richard Eldridge 1606, inscribed 

 ' Our Hope is in the Lord, 1 606 ' ; the sixth is by 

 Warner, 1883 ; and the seventh by William Carter, 

 1 6 1 o ; while the tenor of 1 6 5 1 , by Bryan Eldridge, 

 bears the names of the churchwardens, John Taylor 

 and Thomas James. The sixth was formerly a 15th- 

 century bell by a London founder, inscribed ' In 

 Multis Annis Resonet Campana Johannis.' 



The plate consists of a cup of 1757, a cover paten 

 without hall-marks, but c. 1728, a paten of 1713, two 

 flagons of 1757, and a plated almsdish, dated 1829. 



The registers date from 1636, but are imperfect. 



A scold's bridle is preserved in the church. 



In 1086 there was a church on 

 ADrOWSON the land of Richard de Tonbridge, 

 afterwards called the manor of Wal- 

 ton Leigh, and the advowson belonged to the lords of 

 this manor. 117 In 1382 Thomas Leigh conveyed the 

 advowson to Geoffrey Michel. 118 He shortly after- 

 wards enfeoffed John Gray and a number of others, 1 " 

 possibly trustees for Henry Bowett, afterwards Arch- 

 bishop of York, who, in 1413 endowed his newly 

 founded chantry in York Cathedral with 2 acres of 

 land in Walton and the advowson of the church "" for 

 the support of two chantry priests, who had licence to 

 appropriate the church. In 1 542 Robert Gybbon 

 and William Watson, the then chaplains of the 



115 Pat. 21 Eliz. pt. xi. 



1" Feet of F. SUIT. Mich. 5 Geo. Ill ; 

 Recov. R. Hil. 12 Ceo. Ill, rot 47 ; 

 Com. Pleaa Recov. R. Hil. 12 Geo. Ill, 



m. 138 ; Feet of F. Surr. HiL 12 Geo. 

 Ill ; Trin. 42 Geo. III. 



J1 7 See references given under manor. 



474 



119 Feet of F. Surr. 6 Ric. II, no. 9. 

 119 De Banco R. 491, m. 2. 

 180 Pat. i Hen. V, pt. ii, m. 19. 



