A HISTORY OF SURREY 



If one ironmaster was sufficiently alive to his 

 own interests to know that they lay in the 

 maintenance and careful restocking of his 

 woods against the demands upon them for 

 fuel for his furnaces, why should not other 

 ironmasters have been led to follow the same 

 policy ? But the case of Christopher Darrell 

 seems to stand alone, and was considered suffi- 

 ciently remarkable to be commented upon by 

 John Evelyn in his Sylva, written more than 

 eighty years afterwards. The tact that the 

 woods at Ewood had been replenished with 

 timber is on record some six years before the 

 date of the Act. This is in an interesting 

 survey taken in 1575 by certain commissioners 

 who were charged to inquire as to the title of 

 Christopher Darrell, who is described as a 

 merchant tailor, of London, to the manor and 

 park of Ewood.^ From this survey we learn 

 that the iron-mills, which evidently at some 

 time previously had been worked hy Darrell 

 himself, were then in the occupation of 

 Robert Reynoldes. This is no doubt the 

 ironmaster of that name, described as of East 

 Grinstead in Sussex, who appeared before the 

 council on 26 February 1573-4, and then 

 took the bond required of all owners and 

 occupiers of ironworks not to cast and sell 

 ordnance without the queen's special licence.' 

 In the 1574 list he is said to be the farmer of 

 a furnace in Milplace, Sussex, and is thus one 

 of those Sussex ironmasters who were generally 

 employed at this period to work the Surrey 

 furnaces and hammers in the same way as we 

 know they were employed on similar work in 

 Wales.' The fact to be inferred from this 

 that Surrey men had not yet mastered the 

 details of the art is still further evidence of 

 the newness at this date of the industry in 

 their county. The survey of Ewood shows 

 that the ironworks there consisted of a furnace, 

 a forge and a hammer. The great pond covered 

 an area of about 90 acres, and there were 

 in addition the necessary streams and water- 

 works. There was a coalhouse, 6 acres of 

 waste groimd necessary for the storage of the 

 coal, mine, sows, cinders and other commodi- 

 ties used in the works, and four cottages 

 occupied by the workmen. Including the 

 right to take timber, loam, sand, earth and 

 whatever was required for the repair of the 

 works from the lands and woods in Ewood, 

 the whole was estimated to be of the annual 

 value of ;^40. Reynoldes moreover was in 

 occupation of the capital mansion of Ewood, 



» Exch. K. R. Spec. Com. 2242. Printed in 

 Surrey Arch. Coll. rvii. 34-40. 

 2 S. P. Dom. Eliz. xcv. 24, 79. 

 ' Lower, Sms. Arch. Coll. xviii. 10 seq. 



which was worth j[,ll ^^^ Y^^^y ^"'^ *'*° °^ ^ 

 watermill for the grinding of wheat and malt, 

 valued annually at ;^iO. In the reign of 

 Charles II. some of the Gratwickcs seem to 

 have been connected with Ewood, and proba- 

 bly worked the iron-mills there, for they 

 belonged to an important family of Sussex 

 ironmasters.* Hammer Bridge on the Mole 

 above Leigh is suggested by Mr. Maiden as 

 marking the site of one of Christopher Darrell's 

 hammers. 



Shere and Abinger. — The iron-mill here 

 is the second in order of date to be mentioned 

 in Surrey. In the Trinity term of 1557 

 Owen Bray and his wife Ann levied a fine of 

 their manor of Paddington, and the appendages 

 included an iron-mill, a pond, a hundred acres 

 of wood and a considerable extent of heath 

 and moorlands in Abinger, Shere, Ockley, 

 Effingham and Wotton. From Manning 

 and Bray's history it would appear that this 

 fine was levied in fulfilment of the conditions 

 of a deed of 18 June of the same year, by 

 which Owen and Ann had covenanted with 

 Thomas Elrington, who had married Owen's 

 sister Beatrix, and Edward Elrington, son and 

 heir-apparent of Thomas, and with Reginald 

 Bray, the son and heir-apparent of Owen's 

 brother, Sir Edward Bray, and Margaret 

 Hornyold, that one moiety of the manor of 

 Paddington should be conveyed to the use of 

 Thomas Elrington for a term of years with 

 remainder to his son Edward and his heirs and 

 the other moiety to the use of Reginald Bray 

 and Margaret Hornyold and their heirs. This 

 suggests that a marriage was intended be- 

 tween the two latter parties, but it seems 

 never to have taken place, for in the following 

 year Reginald conveyed his moiety to Thomas 

 Elrington, and Margaret afterwards for a sum 

 of ;^I20 released her interest to Thomas and 

 Edward Elrington.* An undated paper 

 amongst the Loseley MSS. contains the com- 

 plaint of several gentlemen and yeomen of 

 Surrey against the enormity ' that hath growen 

 by the late erected yron mylle in the said 

 countye by Thomas Elrington squier, and 

 contynewed stylle contrary to the statute 

 theragaynst provided made in the fyrst yere 

 of the Queens Majesties raigne." As the 

 Act of the first year of Elizabeth does not 

 forbid the erection of mills, Mr. Maiden sug- 

 gests that the mill referred to was one erected 

 within the limits prohibited by the Act of the 

 twenty-third year of her reign, and presumably 



* Exch. K. R. Spec. Com. 6500 and 6622. 



* Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surrey, ii. 1 39 scq. 

 « Loseley MSS. {Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vii. 



App. 663). 



270 



