A HISTORY OF SURREY 



squared stone were bought. The stone in 

 the case of these works was first sent over- 

 land to Kingston, carriage being charged at 

 I id. or IS. the cart. From Kingston it was 

 carried by water to Windsor at various rates 

 of freightage, which work out at from y^d. to 

 lo^d. the load. The expense of carriage did 

 not end here, for workmen had to be em- 

 ployed to bring up the stone from the river 

 to the castle. 



In 1359 John and Philip Prophete were 

 appointed masters of the quarries at Merstham 

 and Chaldon (Chalvedon) near Reigate and 

 authorized by Letters Patent to dig stone for 

 the use of Windsor Castle, and the sherifiFwas 

 enjoined to take summary measures against 

 all concerned who should refuse to assist 

 them in the work.' 



Reigate stone was again requisitioned by 

 the Crown about the year 1538, when Henry 

 VIII. was building his magnificent palace of 

 Nonsuch at Cuddington. It was supplied by 

 Richard Aynscome, a quarryman of Reigate, 

 at 31. 6d. the load, the price in this case 

 apparently including delivery.' In connec- 

 tion with these works it may be noticed here 

 that the buildings of the dissolved abbey at 

 Merton appear from the accounts to have 

 been utilized as a quarry. Foreign workmen 

 were employed to carve the stone, and 

 amongst the aliens dwelling in St. Thomas's 

 parish, Southwark, in 1 57 1 was William 

 Cure of Holland, a carver of stone, who is 

 then stated to have been in England for thirty 

 years, having been ' sent for over hither when 

 the king did build Nonesutche.' * 



Firestone, which is said to offer an effec- 

 tual resistance to fire and, although soft when 

 taken out of the quarry, to be hardened by 

 exposure to the air, has been dug at Merst- 

 ham, Gatton, Blechingley, and other places 

 in the neighbourhood. Henry the Seventh's 

 Chapel in Westminster Abbey is stated by 

 Manning and Bray to have been built of it.* 

 Aubrey, writing of the variety at Gatton, 

 says that it lay about fourteen feet deep and 

 was much used by chemists, bakers, and 

 glass-makers.' Malcolm attributes the suc- 

 cess of the plate-glass works at Vauxhall to 

 the use by Mr. Dawson, their original pro- 

 prietor, of firestone dug at Blechingley, and 

 writes of it (1805) : 'It is of such a pecu- 

 liarly fine quality for sustaining the utmost 



I Pat. 33 Edw. III. pt. 3, m. 7. 

 ! Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 477, No. 12. 

 3 Kirk, Returns o/JTiens in London, etc. (Hugue- 

 not See. Publ. X.), ii. 1 14. 

 * Hut. of Surrey, ii. 252. 

 » Nat. Hist, and Antiquities of Surrey, iv. 2 1 7. 



278 



heat, that it is sought after by all the prin- 

 cipal glass manufacturers of the kingdom, 

 large quantities being now shipped for Liver- 

 pool and the North.' • 



Manning and Bray mention a quarry in 

 Godstone on the estate of Sir William Clayton 

 from which a sort of freestone was obtained 

 which was used for wet docks and ovens, as 

 it possessed the quality, if kept either always 

 wet or always dry, of being very durable. It 

 had been used also for the paving of West- 

 minster Hall during the eighteenth century.' 

 At Lingfield there was a quarry of very good 

 building stone belonging to Sir Thomas 

 Turton, bart. Quantities of the stone, manu- 

 factured into window sills and coping-stones 

 of walls, were sent to London.* 



At the present day and for some time past 

 the chief industry in the chalk districts of 

 Surrey has been the conversion of the chalk 

 into lime and cement. There can be little 

 reason to doubt that the industry is a long- 

 established one, although we have little infor- 

 mation concerning it in early days of a definite 

 character. Aubrey relates that upon grubbing 

 up an old dead oak at Smallfield to make a 

 convenient place for a lime-kiln, the labourers 

 found one ready-made to their hands with lime 

 stones in it, which had been disused beyond 

 the memory of the oldest man." There is a 

 tradition which may have more of fact for its 

 basis than have the generality of traditions, 

 that the extensive chalk pit near the railway 

 station at Sutton was dug mainly when St. 

 Paul's Cathedral was being built by Wren, 

 the chalk being burnt for the lime employed 

 for the mortar used in that church.^" 



Malcolm, writing at some length of the lime 

 and chalkstone quarries of Surrey in 1805, 

 says that the best limestone pits in the county, 

 if not in the kingdom, were at Dorking.'^ The 

 stone that was here burnt into lime was sought 

 after by every mason and bricklayer in Lon- 

 don, as well as in the county for a considerable 

 distance, who had either brick or stone to lay, 

 where work of particularly neat execution and 

 resistance to water was required. The West 

 India Docks and the docks at Wapping had 

 both been built with this lime. The stone 

 was found in its greatest purity at Denbies, 

 then the property of Mr. Joseph Dennison. 



» James Malcolm, A Compendium of Modem 

 Husbandry principally written during a survey of 

 Surrey, i. 47, 48. 



' Hist, of Surrey, ii. 322. 

 8 Ibid. 339. 



» Nat. Hist, and Antiquities of Surrey, iii. 73. 

 '» I am indebted to Mr. George Clinch for this 

 information. 



Compendium of Modem Husbandry, i. 50 seq. 



