FARNHAM HUNDRED 



for Plundered Ministers made an order that £30 

 a vear should be paid out of the impropriated rec- 

 torv, and on 23 December of the same year that 

 /20 a year out of the impropriation of Scale chapel 

 should be paid to Mr. Duncomb, whom they had 

 put in as vicar of Farnham. On 7 August they 

 ordered that Mr. Duncomb was to have the whole 

 benefit and profit of this year's harvest of the said 

 vicarage of Farnham, which Sir Richard Onslow 

 and Mr. Stoughton were to see was paid to him.i"^ 

 It would seem, however, that there was some diffi- 

 culty about the tithes. Mr. Duncomb had been 

 transferred to Farnham from his former living of 

 Martyr Worthy in Hampshire, when that place 

 was in possession of the royalists. He was now 

 sent back there, and for his arrears of tithes and 

 profits of the vicarage of Farnham he was referred 

 to the next justices of the peace in the said county, 

 who were desired to see him paid and satisfied. It 

 is apparent that the great tithes of the harvest, 

 which belonged to the rectory, were requisitioned 

 for his support, as well as the profits of the vicar- 

 age. They were probably in the hands of Mr., 

 afterwards Sir Thomas Vernon, a royalist, i^' 

 This Sir Thomas Vernon's son, Mr. George Vernon, 

 held them later. In 1724 Mr. George Vernon, of 

 Farnham, had a lease of the rectory, and Mr. 

 William Bishop, of Frensham, of the chapelries.i'o 

 At Mr. Vernon's death in 1735 the Farnham tithes 

 passed to his daughter Anne, the wife of George 

 Woodroffe, of Poyle in Tongham. Mr. Wood- 

 roffe died in 1779, and bequeathed his interest to 

 his sister's son, the Rev. William Billinghurst, and 

 to Anne, wife of the Rev. Thomas Walker, who 

 sold it to Mr. Henry Halsey, of Henley Park, in 

 Ash. 



In 1840 Bishop Sumner introduced a biU in the 

 House of Lords to anticipate the falling in of the 

 leases, and to restore the tithes to the several 

 parishes, Farnham, Frensham, Scale, Elstcd, and 

 Bcntley in Hampshire ; but it was strongly 

 opposed and withdrawn. As the leases gradually 

 fell in, however, they were not renewed, but the 

 tithes remained in the hands of the archdeacon. 

 There was a rather embittered controversy, carried 

 on by pamphlets published by laymen interested 

 in the outlying parishes, and by Archdeacon 

 Utterton, Rector of Farnham, concerning the 

 application of the tithes to the endowment of the 

 various parishes. An arrangement was made in 

 1864 and confirmed by an Order in Gauncil dated 

 29 November, 1865, whereby, as the remaining 

 leases fell in,i'i the tithes of Farnham were to be 

 divided between the mother church. Hale, Wrec- 

 clesham, and Tilford ; those of Frensham between 

 Frensham, Churt and ShottermiU ; those of 

 Seale between Scale and Tongham ; those of 

 Elsted and Bcntley taking their own shares un- 



FARNHAM 



divided. The last to fall in was the joint lease of 

 Frensham and Elsted, which expired on 14 July, 

 1868. But these tithes were actually twice 

 collected by the agents of the executors of the 

 estate of the last of the three lives after this datc'^a 

 Farnham is now both a rectory and a vicarage in 

 the hands of one man. The present incumbent 

 was instituted as rector and vicar. There are both 

 a rectory and a vicarage house. 



The church of St. Andrew stands near the Wey 

 in the south-west part of the town. It is built of 

 local sandstone, rubble walling with ashlar dressings. 

 The roof is red tiled. The character of the walling 

 is completely modernized by refacing and pointing 

 in cement. The church is cruciform ; the chancel 

 has north and south chapels, and a north vestry ; 

 the nave has north and south aisles ; there are 

 north and south transepts and a western tower. 



The first church of which any remains exist, 

 though there was one in 1086, was a cruciform 

 building of about 1 1 30, with a chancel 37 ft. long 

 by 22 ft. broad, outside measurement, probably 

 vaulted in two bays, a central tower, transepts 

 23 ft. by 22 ft., and a nave. At the end of the 

 twelfth century this church was enlarged by adding 

 chapels, north and south, of the length of the 

 chancel and the depth of the transepts. The nave 

 may have had north and south aisles added at the 

 same time, but there is little to show it. Before 

 1348 money was set apart for rebuilding the chan- 

 cel, and the work was in progress in 1368, although 

 not completed till 1399, when the new chancel 

 was dedicated.1'3 This dedication may possibly 

 refer to the present eastward extension of the 

 chancel, but the work there has rather the appear- 

 ance of fifteenth century building. The long 

 delay, after money had been provided, may possibly 

 be explained as a consequence of the Black Death, 

 which arrested church building in many places.''" 

 The church lost its central tower in the fifteenth 

 century, the area being thrown into the nave at 

 the general rebuilding in local style of the western 

 part of the church. A large arch at the west end 

 of the wall on the north side of the nave was 

 also rebuilt apparently at the same time. This 

 communicated with the chantry chapel, founded 

 possibly in 1351,"^ afterwards used as a school. 

 The school stood in the churchyard and abutted 

 upon the church, and was in Aubrey's opinion, 

 who saw it, a chapel. The ground outside this 

 arch has no old gravestones upon it of a date earlier 

 than 1758, when the school was pulled down. 

 After that William Cobbett's father and William 

 Cobbett himself were buried in this ground. 



The chancel is 15 ft. 9 in. wide inside, and con- 

 sists of the two bays of the first chancel and the 

 added part to the east. The east window is of the 

 fifteenth centuryjiT" of five lights, and there are 



"S Minutes of the Proceedings of 

 the Committee (B.M. Add. MSS. 

 15,671). 



'"* Thomas Vernon sublet the tithes 

 to Abraham Lee in 1669 (Exch. Uep. 

 21 Chas. II. Trin. No. 7). 



"o Answers to Visitation at Farnham 

 Castle. 



"1 Farnham itself fell in 1864. 



"^ Local information, and from Mr. 

 W. H. Lee, bishop's secretary. The 

 Rev. J. R. Charlsworth, Rector of El- 

 sted, 1 854-1904, took a part in the 

 controversy on the application of the 

 tithe, and has preserved the pamphlets 

 and records dealing with the matter. 



397 



173 wint. Epis. Reg. Wykcham, ii. 3 1 3. 

 1'* Gasquet, The Great Pestilence, 



p. 202. 



"5 Pat. 25 Edw. III. pt. 3, m. 11. 

 But see below. 



"' Possibly this may have been the 

 work of 1399 when the alterations to 

 the chancel were completed. 



