A HISTORY OF SURREY 



There is one large park in the parish, that of 

 Farnhara Castle. This is nearly three miles in 

 circuit and contains over 300 acres. It used to 

 be called the New or Little Park, and Farnham 

 Old or Great Park lay west by north of it, and 

 was nearly three times as large, containing 

 over 800 acres. It extended however beyond 

 the county into Hampshire about Crondall, and 

 reached northwards to the high ground at Beacon 

 Hill, and above the Long \'alley, Aldershot. The 

 Great Park was disparked by Act of Parliament 

 under Bishop Mews in 1696,20 and some of the 

 land was further enclosed in 1709.21 Both parks 

 were stocked with deer,'* and contained rabbit 

 warrens, where the poaching of the inhabitants of 

 the neighbouring parishes in Surrey aroused the 

 indignation of William of Wykeham.^' The evil 

 continued in More's time, when pheasants also 

 were taken. The deer were originally the native 

 red deer such as ran wild in the neighbouring Alice 

 Holt and Windsor Forests, and in Farnham Chase. 



tury. A demand for houses has arisen, and in the 

 northern part of the parish there are not only 

 many small new houses, but some of a better class 

 occupied by married officers connected with the 

 camp. The actual exercising ground of the camp 

 reaches into the parish at Hungry Hill, and at the 

 west end of the Long Valley, and north-west of 

 the valley near Caesar's Camp. In the south of 

 the parish, about Tilford, and on the slopes of 

 Crooksbury Hill, large houses have been recently 

 built, as a part of the general process which has 

 transformed the once desolate Surrey heaths into 

 a residential neighbourhood. 



Farnham was the birthplace of WiUiam Cobbett, 

 author of Rural Rides, etc. The house in which 

 he was born, now the Jolly Farmer public-house, is 

 still standing. 



The antiquities of the parish, apart from Waver- 

 ley Abbey and the Castle, which need separate 

 treatment, are fairly numerous but rather obscure. 

 There are, perhaps, ancient ditches or earthworks 





The Jolly Farmer Inn. 



In 1573 they contained fallow deer; for by the 

 terms of grant to Sir William More as constable 

 and keeper of the parks and chases, he was to 

 receive a stag and hind from each chase, and a buck 

 and doe from each park yearly.'* There are now 

 only fallow deer in the remaining park, though 

 until about two hundred years ago the red deer 

 were numerous in the neighbourhood, and could 

 be found in the chases, on Farnham and Frensham 

 Commons. Of other parks in the parish, Moor 

 Park was never a park properly so called, since the 

 right of free warren was not attached to it. The 

 house to which the park is attached used to be 

 called Compton Hall or Moor Hall. Nor in like 

 manner was Willey Park a park proper. 



The modem state of the parish has been much 

 changed by the creation and growth of Aldershot 

 Camp upon its boundaries in the nineteenth cen- 



on Crooksbury Hill, and various banks near Tilford, 

 which may be ancient enclosures. Those on Long 

 Dovra, Tilford, may form a small round entrench- 

 ment though they are very small, being only 60 

 yards in diameter. There were some, no longer 

 existing, in a field called Castle Field, the name of 

 which may suggest that they were, or were sup- 

 posed to be, a camp. A kiln, with supposed Roman 

 tiles, is said to have been found and destroyed at 

 Tilford in 1893. ^s A considerable number of 

 paleolithic flint implements are found in the 

 Farnham gravel, the old river-drift which occurs 

 about the parish. In this they have often been 

 transported to other places, railway lines and 

 gravel walks and drives, wherever this gravel, which 

 is of excellent quality, has been laid."" Neolithic 

 flints have also been found, especially near Til- 

 ford.27 



^^ Manning and Bray, Hiit. of Sur- 

 riy,m. 135. 



21 Art of Pari. 8 Anne, c. 20. 



22 Loseley MSS. Letters Patent 20 

 April, 15 £liz. under teal of the 

 bishoj), granting custody of the little 



park and deer ; and 25 Sept. 1573, 

 preserved at Farnham Castle, granting 

 the same in both paries and chases. 



2> y.CH. Hanti, ii. Eccl. Hist. 



2* Letters Patent of 1573, at Farn- 

 ham Castle. 



584 



" Surr. Arch. Coll. xii. 151, 152. 



2' Many of these are in the Surr. 

 Arch, and Charterhouse Museums. 



" The Rev. W. H. F. Edge of 

 Tilford has a large collection of tbcK 

 implements. 



