A HISTORY OF SURREY 



Road and the Spa Road — and the Rcdhill 

 establishment ; and there are warehouses in 

 Westow Street, Maze Pond and St. Thomas's 

 Street. Mr. Samuel Barrow still personally 

 superintends the business, and the ' Brother * 

 is Mr. R. V. Barrow, who sat in Parliament 

 from 1 892 to 1 895 as Member for Bermond- 

 sejr.* 



Considerably after Bermondsey, but of no 

 little importance, is the tanning industry in 

 the south-western quarter of the county 

 about Guildford and Godalming. A few 

 early references to the industry in this dis- 

 trict have already been noticed in this account. 

 The constant occurrence of the names of 

 tanners in deeds and wills through the six- 

 teenth and succeeding centuries proves the 

 continued existence of the industry in God- 

 alming and its neighbourhood down to the 

 present time.' 



A house in Godalming called ' Tanhouse,' 

 and apparently now represented by several 

 houses on the north side of the High Street, 

 was together with a moor held of the manor 

 of Westbrook at a rent of 2 J. td., and was 

 for many years the property of the Chitty 

 family. A very good leaded coat-of-arms of 

 the Westbrook family existed not many years 

 ago in one of the back windows of an old 

 house in the High Street.' Henry Chitty 

 ' de la Tanhouse ' is referred to in a survey 

 of the manor of Godalming in the reign of 

 Edward VI. His son Henry died at an ad- 

 vanced age on 16 February 1632—3, seised of 

 ' Tanhouse,' which he occupied as a private 

 residence.* It passed to his great -great-niece, 

 Dorothy Chitty, his brother John's great- 

 granddaughter, whose descendants held it for 

 more than a century ; but there seems to be 

 no reference to the actual use of the house 

 for the purposes of tanning. Another ' Tan- 

 house ' was held of the manor of Godalming 

 when Henry Smyth died seised of it on 16 

 September 1574, and together with some 

 moorland adjoining it was valued at lOs. 

 yearly.' This was perhaps in Ockford 

 Lane, but is not to be identified with a 

 tannery near Ockford Bridge, which was 

 mortgaged by Michael Reading of Godalm- 

 ing, tanner, on i July 1745. The latter 



' E. T. Clarke, Bermondsey, pp. 246-50. 



' For most of the following particulars extracted 

 from wills and deeds in private possession relative 

 to the industry in the neighbourhood of Godalm- 

 ing the editor is indebted to Percy Woods, Esq., 

 C.B. 



3 Ralph Nevill, F.S.A., Old Cottage and Domestic 

 Architecture in South-West Surrey, ed. 2, p. 75. 



* Inq. p.m. ser. 2 drxvi. No. 44. 



» Ibid, clxxix. No. 72. 



was conveyed by Ann Reading, Michael's 

 widow, and others to Jesse Hurst, a tanner 

 of Wisborough Green, in February 1784. 

 Hurst in December 1806 disposed of this 

 tannery to Richard Haydon and Walter 

 Chatfield of St. Nicholas near Guildford, 

 victualler. In 1810 an agreement was en- 

 tered into between Haydon and Walter 

 Chatfield, described as of Catherine Hill, 

 tanner, with reference to the proposed erec- 

 tion of a bark mill ; and in 1820 Haydon 

 conveyed his share in the tannery to Chat- 

 field, who resided there, and carried on the 

 business until his death in 1855, after which 

 the property came into the possession of the 

 Peacock family. 



The greater part of the site of the extensive 

 premises now occupied by the firm of Messrs. 

 Thomas Rea, Sons & Fisher, Ltd., tanners 

 and curriers, in Mill Lane, Godalming, formed 

 the garden ground of some cottages and half 

 an acre used as a hop-garden, which were 

 purchased at several times by Mr. Richard 

 Lee between the years 1805 and 1810. 

 Whether the premises were used as a tannery 

 before the year 1808 is uncertain, but in that 

 year Lee, then described as of Godalming, 

 tanner, entered into a contract for the erec- 

 tion of a bark house to grind bark in his tan- 

 yard. He carried on the business until about 

 the middle of the nineteenth century, when 

 the premises were taken over by a Mr. Gibson, 

 who was also the owner of a tannery near 

 Meadrow, Godalming. This latter tannery 

 had belonged in 1825 to the Denyer family, 

 and is described as being on the Peasemarsh. 

 Mr. Gibson made very large additions to it 

 about the years 1855 and 1865, but soon 

 afterwards failed, and the works ceased to 

 exist as a tannery. The Mill Lane tannery 

 was however held by a Mr. Page in 1863, 

 and later on was taken over by Mr. Rea, by 

 whom the business has been expanded into 

 the present limited company. 



In addition to the important leather works 

 of Messrs. Rea & Fisher, a very considerable 

 industry is now carried on at Godalming in 

 the manufacture of oiled leather and military 

 accoutrements by Messrs. R. & J. Pullman, 

 Ltd., at their Westbrook and Salgasson mills. 

 An establishment for carrying out the process 

 of oil tanning, which is said to be of German 

 origin, has been in existence at Godalming 

 for about a century and a half. In 1824 •' 

 was carried on by William Twycross, and 

 was then described as extensive.* The busi- 

 ness was much extended by Mr, Madelcy, 



• Pigot's London and Provincial Commercial 

 Directory (1823-4). 



340 



