A HISTORY OF SURREY 



land, 20 acres of meadow, a weir, a water-mill, I Of. 

 rent, and five gardens in Kingston of the king as of 

 his borough there.'" Sir Thomas left his lands here 

 to his daughter Cecily until marriage, and in 1533 she, 

 as Cecily Sympson, widow, conveyed rights of free 

 fishing to Christopher More and others. 43 ' Henry 

 Milborne was in possession of the weir in 1503, when 

 he paid 6J. from it to the lamps of the church ; m he 

 died without issue in 1519, leaving a widow Mar- 

 garet, afterwards the wife of Roger Yorke, serjeant-at- 

 law. 4 " In 1538 she conveyed to Edward Marvyn 

 and Robert Tederley two parts of this ' manor ' and 

 those of Esher-Watevill, and Hetchesham, 441 which 

 she held apparently under settlement. Later the 

 manor came into the hands of the corporation, who 

 ordered a court baron to beheld for it in 1583,"' 

 and must have exercised other manorial rights, for in 

 1 684 ' several tenants of the manor of Milborne com- 

 plain that Richard Lee and John Gunner (being 

 tenants of the manor) have since 2 5 March last cut 

 ten loads of turf on the common of the manor, also 

 two others have carried away three loads without 

 licence of the lords of the manor.' 44S 



N ORB 1 TON HALL was reputed a manor from 

 the 1 6th century. It seems to have been granted by 

 Maurice de Creon to Robert Burnell in 127I-2. 444 

 In 1503 Master Anthony Forde paid a rent of 

 \d. to the lamps of Kingston Church for a tenement 

 in Norbiton which had belonged to William Long ; 44S 

 the churchwarden received 2s. 4^'/., in 15 04 'for wast 

 of torches at ye derge and ij massys yt was made for 

 ye beryeng of anthony forde.' 446 Erasmus Forde, prob- 

 ably his son, was well known in the town and signed 

 the protest respecting mortuaries made in 1509.*" 

 He complained in 1532 that 'a taker of timber and 

 board for Hampton Court " like an Hemprour enters 

 into my ground bordered about with elms, the chief 

 pleasure of all my house," and without his master's 

 sanction " has dug up by the roots thirty-five of my 

 purest and fairest elms." ' 44S Erasmus was followed 

 by Edmund Forde, who with Joan his wife in 1547 

 sold the ' manor ' of Norbiton Hall to Richard Taver- 

 ner, 449 the well-known editor of Taverner's Bible. 450 

 Richard Taverner died in 1575; by his will he 

 bequeathed two-thirds of his lands equally to his sons 

 Peter and Edmund, 441 but Norbiton Hall descended 

 to his eldest son Richard, who, with Eleanor his wife, 

 conveyed it to George Evelyn in 1584,"' the sale 

 being completed in I588. 441 George Evelyn died 

 seised of it in 1603. In 1605 John and George 

 Evelyn and their wives resold it to Sir Anthony 

 Benn ; 4M he died in 1618 in possession of a messuage 

 with appurtenances called ' Popes ' and land belong- 

 ing, containing 20 acres at Norbiton, all held of the 

 bailiffs of Kingston. 454 Probably the messuage called 



' Popes ' was not Norbiton Hall, for Sir Anthony's 

 son and heir Charles Benn was but eight years old at 

 his father's death, and Lady Benn had a house in 

 Kingston, which in 1626 had been taken for the 

 French Ambassador. 446 Norbiton Hall was certainly 

 in the hands of Roger Wood on his death in 1623, 

 when it was described as a ' manor, grange, and capi- 

 tal messuage.' 447 This Roger Wood, son of one 

 Roger Wood late of Islington, was succeeded by 

 Robert his son, an infant two years old. 448 Robert 

 Wood was returned a knight of the shire for Surrey 

 in 1654, but ' divers well-affected persons ' alleged to 

 the Council that he was illegally chosen, ' a derider 

 of the people of God, a profane swearer, and of bad 

 life, an enemy to his Highness and the army and had 

 sided with the Cavaliers. ' "' A counter-petition 

 declared that he had been one of the militia com- 

 missioners in 1651, had sent a man and horse to 

 Worcester, and so far from opposing godly ministers 

 ' improved his power to countenance them.' 46 His 

 land was inherited by his daughter Ann, wife of Sir 

 John Rous ; they were in possession in 1662, but it 

 was in the hands of the Reeves family in the following 

 year. 461 They retained it until 1 744, when it was 

 sold to one Greenly ; it was sold again in 1788 to a 

 Mr. Twopenny, who disposed of it soon afterwards to 

 William Farren the actor. 461 The house, which must 

 have been rebuilt about this time, 46 * remained in 

 his hands until 1 794, when he sold it to a Mr. Lin- 

 tall ; he resold it in 1 799 to General Gabriel John- 

 son. 464 Early in the 19th-century it appears to have 

 come into the hands of Mrs. Dennis, who gave it to 

 her daughter the wife of C. N. Pallmer, M.P. for 

 Surrey in 1828, and a West Indian merchant. 4 * 6 

 Mr. Pallmer sold it in 1829 to the Dowager Coun- 

 tess of Liverpool, who resided here with Mr. R. H. 

 Jenkinson, nephew of the first Earl of Liverpool. 46 * 

 It is now occupied by the White Rose Laundry. 

 The handsome grounds set with cedars, and the arms 

 of the Evelyns on the lodge still remain. 



It is not always easy to disentangle the history of 

 this house from that of another, equally called Norbi- 

 ton Hall, though also, and more correctly, known 

 as Norbiton Place. Both houses, Norbiton Hall and 

 Norbiton Place, wen comparatively modern. A 

 house called Norbiton Place was sold by one Nichols 

 to Sir John Phillips, who died in 1 "j6\. w> His son 

 Richard was raised to the peerage as Baron Milfbrd 

 in 1776 and sold the house to a Mr. Sherer, a Lon- 

 don wine merchant. 468 He sold some of the property 

 to Mrs. Dennis, 469 the owner of Norbiton Hall, who 

 gave it to her son-in-law Hugh Ingoldsby Massey. 470 

 Mrs. Massey afterwards became the wife of Mr. 

 Pallmer of Norbiton Hall, who built Norbiton Place, 

 and they resided here. A great part of the house 



*' Surr. Arch. Coll. viii, 156*, (. 

 488 Feet of F. Surr. Mich. 25 Hen. 

 VIII. 



4M Srr. vtfrM. Co//, viii, 72. 



i Recov. R. Mich. 30 Hen. VIII, rot. 

 435 ; East. 31 Hen. VIII, rot. 334. 

 444 Ct. of Assembly Bk. 7 June 1683. 

 448 Ibid. 5 June 1684. 

 444 Chart. R. 56 Hen. Ill, m. 4. 

 444 Surr. Arch. Coll. viii, 72. 

 446 Ibid. 76. 7 Ibid. 36. 



448 L. and P. Hen. mi, v, 1728. 



449 Feet, of F. Surr. East. I Edw. VI. 

 <" Diet. Nat. Biog. 



451 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), clxxv, 92. 



Feet of F. Surr. Mich. 26 & 27 

 Eliz. 



4s Ibid. Mich. 30 & 31 Eliz. 



4 Ibid. Mil. 2 Jas. I. 



455 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccclxxx, 

 Iio. He was recorder of Kingston and, 

 at his death, of London ; his monument 

 is in Kingston Church. 



4M Cal. S.P. Dam. 1625-6, p. 568. 



4S ' Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cccclxxiii, 30. 



4M Ibid. 



458 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1654, p. 314. 



Ibid. 



4(1 Manning and Bray, Surr. i, 339. 



504 



a Ibid. 



168 Anderson, Hist, and Antiq. of Kingi- 

 ttn-upon-Thamtl. 



414 Brayley, Surr. iii, 57 ; Manning and 

 Bray, Surr. i, 349. 



' Surr. Arch. Call, vii, p. xliii. 



468 Brayley, Surr. iii, 57. 



*" Surr. Arch. Coll. vii, p. xliii. 



Ibii 



** But, according to Allen (Hia. of Surr. 

 and Suss, ii, 354), continued to live in 

 what had been Sir John Phillips' houte 

 after Mrs. Dennis had bought the houst 

 then called Norbiton Hall. 



4 ~ Manning and Bray Surr. i, 349. 



